Welcome to The Brown Room Report. You can expect a Report twice monthly on Fridays. It will highlight classroom happenings and give you a peek into our Brown Room community!
And now, for this week’s Report:
Settling into the rhythms of a new school year
Over the past two weeks, we’ve been settling into our daily classroom routines and exploring shared spaces like the gym, track, and rooftop playground.
The children have shown great enthusiasm for a variety of hands-on materials, including:
Sensory & Fine Motor: Kinetic sand with scoops, playdough with animals and gems, beads with pipe cleaners, loom weaving
Art & Making: Black paint at the easel, paint sticks on paper
Building & STEM: Zoob builders, wooden Kapla blocks
Symbol-Supported Literacy in the 3s/4s
Each child has chosen a special animal symbol to represent themselves in our classroom. This personalized visual cue helps the children easily identify their coat hooks. This system will soon extend to work cubbies and water cups as well.
Symbol-Supported Literacy is Barrow Street’s 3s/4s age-level approach that pairs each child’s printed name with a unique visual symbol throughout the classroom. These symbols provide children with an accessible way to recognize themselves, navigate routines, and participate independently while they are still developing name recognition.
For most children in this age group, symbols provide an additional access point to classroom participation. Similar to environmental print (such as recognizing the golden arches before reading “McDonald’s”), symbols help children connect meaning with print in authentic, playful ways. We look forward to sharing more with you about how this process develops and unfolds in the Brown Room!
A note on easing in
The start of a new school year brings plenty of transitions and adjustments, even for returning students. A new classroom naturally introduces new routines, friendships, and experiences. As children ease into these changes, it’s completely typical to see brief setbacks or regressions in areas like sleep, behavior, or toileting.
If you are noticing any of these shifts at home, please know you are not alone! We are always here as your partners—feel free to reach out anytime if you’d like to talk through what you’re seeing or brainstorm strategies together.
Reflective questions to ask your child this week:
– Who played the guitar during the Super Duper Sing Along this week?
– Which animal did you choose as your symbol? (If your child doesn’t remember yet, that’s okay! You can double check their symbol the next time that they hang up their sweater or backpack.)
– What do you do during the “Friday song”? (Hint: “It’s Friday, it’s Friday…it’s the end of the week, it’s the last day…”)
Coming up next week:
– We start our specials classes! We will have Movement with Kelsey, Art with Jim, and Music with Megan.
– For those enrolled in Afterschool Enrichment classes, those sessions start next week as well.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! We can’t wait to see you next week for some new adventures in learning and play.
*Reminder: School is closed on Monday in observance of Yom Kippur. We look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday!*
