Hi Oak families,

We hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and each other during this hard, unpredictable time. We’re deeply aware that this is an unprecedented situation for many if not all of us, and that all types of hard feelings are likely to come up. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for whatever support you might need! We can respond to emails, schedule phone calls, or set up video chats. You can also feel free to send along any quotes, photos, videos, from/of your child during this time for us to distribute amongst the class. There will be more specific requests for you and your child to send in media (if convenient and helpful!) as part of our class’ online activities in the coming weeks.

Starting tomorrow and continuing for the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be sending a short video of one of us leading a story, song, puppet show, or morning meeting every weekday. We’ll also be providing at least two activities you can do at home that relate to the curriculum that’s been going on inside the Oak room.

Here’s a list of resources we’d like to share so far:

  • Oak Playlist: We’ve put together an Oak Playlist on Youtube! Click this link to access; we will likely continue to add songs. Pretty much all of this is music we’ve played in the classroom during our dance parties, so your child should recognize most of the songs. 🙂

  • Daily Schedule: Here is a link to our daily schedule. We’ve been primarily following the ‘Winter’ schedule for the past few months, with some ‘Spring’ days when it’s been super warm. Of course feel free to adapt this as you see fit and feel is manageable for your family.

  • Today’s Video: Our teacher-led puppet shows will begin tomorrow. For today’s video, here is an audio recording of Blueberries for Sal with the accompanying pictures. We have listened to this audio before and read the book in class; often guessing how the characters are feeling based on their facial expressions.

  • Today’s Activities:

    • Color Hunt: Take your child on a hunt for a color of your choice around your house! You can tally the number of times you see the color with a pen and paper, counting aloud as you go, and then you can add up the tally marks together (we usually use dots to tally in Oak). If you like, take a picture or video of your child pointing to an object that is the color you’re searching for and send it to us!

    • Focus Time Drawing: If you have access to drawing materials such as crayons or markers and paper,  sit with your child while they draw for 5 minutes. You can ask them to tell you about what they’re drawing and notice the shapes or colors you see on their paper.

We hope these emails will be supportive to you all as we navigate the coming days as a community. We are aware that doing an at-home curriculum is not equally accessible to everyone when it comes to available time, kid materials, mental and emotional capacity, etc. Please reach out to us with feedback if we can do anything differently to support you or your family.

You are all doing great.

Until Tomorrow,

Oak Teachers