July 22nd, 2020

As we finish our first ever Virtual Summer Session I have so many thoughts going through my head.  With all the changes in how we are educating little people (and big people) I had no idea how we would do a summer preschool.  I was not sure if people would want to spend time in front of a screen during the sunny days of summer in Seattle.  We used this summer session as a way to fundraise for additional materials needed for virtual preschool sessions and to expand our outdoor area.  We had over 40 families participate in our summer program and the children had a wonderful time.  I learned from them how best to communicate with them and how to share information with them on a screen, I watched them as they laughed and interacted with each other (and with me), they shared special treasures with me and they actively engaged during what is now our new Circle Time / Rectangle Time together.  I loved every minute of it.  It is a summer session I will never forget.

Each day during the virtual spring learning months, and each week durning the summer, I sent an email with activities, ideas and thoughts.  I will continue to share ideas in August as we take a break from the virtual learning.  We will start up again in September with our virtual preschool class.  We are adding to our Rectangle Time a small group activity time and small group sharing time.  

As we adjust to this new normal we will all continue learning from each other.  I will learn from the children and they will learn from the activities presented during our virtual time together.  We will all learn together in our virtual preschool classroom just like we did in our actual classroom.  Together we are problem solving, investigating, laughing, taking risks, developing friendships, sharing our thoughts and growing together.  It is a different venue but we are still playing and that is how we will learn together.

I will add  posts from the spring class emails and from our summer session emails.   I hope you enjoy the ones I share.  We learned a lot  from our time together during Summer Session 2020.