Party Weekend!!

Last weekend was full of festivities and began with Ben's Hanukkah party at school on Thursday night.  Ryan was sent to Nashville for work at the last minute so Tante joined us fresh off a plane from her work trip.  Several parents commented on how overwhelming the party was with the drumming and kids running everywhere but Ben had a great time and there were amazing lessons to be learned in the very kid friendly activities.  A 5-6 year old or older child would have benefited greatly from the different stations with lessons about Hanukkah and with great religious and environmental motivations.  Ben LOVED the drums and loved even more the guitar sitting behind the drum station that belonged to one of the musicians.  We distracted him from the guitar only briefly with food and temple destruction before departing for dinner after almost an hour of slightly organized chaos. :)
One thing I loved about this night and about his school in general is the overwhelming feeling and showing of inclusion.  All "religious" lessons that are shared encompass love, inclusion and a caring for the environment.  They also show motivation in the greater good of humanity rather than one group of people or religion.

If you care to read it, this is the letter sent to us explaining the evening and some on-going projects in Ben's school:
 
Dear Parents,

As we prepare to enjoy our time together tonight at the ECC/Family Programs Chanukah party I want to share with you some thoughts and intentions we are developing at the ECC around the children and learning materials. Tonight at the party, you will see several experiences that we've created similar to those we facilitate with the children daily here at school. The experiences focus heavily on the processes of learning, not as much as the product. Blocks and cardboard boxes will be used to re-build the destroyed Temple. Projectors and light boxes will be used as tools to create and transform light, color, and reflection. And open-ended explorations of the symbols of Chanukah will be a part of the evening's experiences. You will see Jewish text and questions that support thinking about the deeper meanings of Chanukah. The party provides an example of how we can continue as educators and parents to nurture the child as a constructivist learner (a core element of the JCC Association's Sheva Early Learning Framework).

As we make choices about how we purchase materials for the school, we intentionally complement our three times per year order of traditional consumable preschool supplies (paints, markers, papers, colored pencils, glues, etc.) and manipulative materials from catalogs with collections of beautiful materials 
that fill our classrooms and our  new hallway atelier (studio in French) and those we purchase at RAFT (a Denver teacher recycled center). As we evolve our environments, we think about materials and the role they play in children's learning. Yesterday, I watched Steve, one of our infant-toddler teachers in front of the new hallway atelier and invite the children to see, touch, turn and explore the materials there. Later I watched another teacher, Diana, interact with one of our toddlers as he  explored the clears and whites of winter.

While watching, I could only imagine our older children arriving at the space and teachers asking them questions to inspire imagination and creative thinking like... Where does this material come from? What does it look like? What shape is it? What is it made of? What does it remind you of? What could it be called? How does it feel, smell, and sound? How might it be combined with another material? How might it be used in our classroom? How might it be used to represent your idea?  

As we embrace the power of open-ended materials for learning and support the children as constructivist learners, we will continue to observe and document their explorations and investigations. We will continue to purchase school supplies and we will collect and highlight the value of materials that don't have just one prescribed use, but rather materials that have hundreds of possible uses.

Your family can support our research by participating in an ongoing collection of materials that can be found in the world...interesting papers, metals, woods, recycled materials in various colors...the list goes on and on. Please visit our hallway atelier as it emerges and get inspired. Create similar spaces for your children at home and join us on the journey of facilitating your child's creative expression and learning.

As we light the last of this year's Chanukah candles, I wish your family much peace and love.  

Tante worked from our house on Friday as she was scheduled to watch Ben Friday night so we could attend Ryan's Holiday Party and 50th anniversary celebration.

This party was a masquerade ball and was held at the Hyatt downtown.  Last year's affair was pretty amazing and I didn't dream they would attempt to top it, but they did.  Cirque du Soleil style dancers that hung from fabric and did elaborate gymnatics to live violin were the opening entertainment as we were ushered to our seats for dinner.  Salmon, filet mignon, crab cakes and risotto made-up our delicious meal.  The entertainment hour featured impressionist/singer Jeff Tracta.  Although the beginning of his show featured lots of things and people from before my time, in the end he redeemed himself and was overall quite entertaining.   The evening finished with a live band and the owners of Ryan's company giving away $50,000.  Lots of people were not there as they were giving away the money in $1.000 increments so they soon upped it to $5,000 and wiped out the remaining 30K pretty quickly.  It was very entertaining although neither we nor our good friends won any money.

It was fun to meet more people Ryan works with and we stayed much later than last year when we hardly knew anyone.  Saturday was tough only because of lack of sleep but we all enjoyed a 3+ hour nap and were quickly back into the swing of things.  Sunday was a catch-up day for holiday gifts and baking.  With Ben out of school this week, it's been fun to relax a little more and finish all the little tasks that seem to accompany Christmas.  I'm getting excited to spend some quality time with our families and for Ben to "get-it" a little more this year than last.................