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Day in the Life: Preschool
By Dylan Howlett

On Fridays, the Koalas break into song.

It’s Friday! It’s Friday!
It’s the end of the week/
It’s the last day/
YAY!

By now, they have found a seat on their class rug to form a circle of kindergarten delight. It is time for Morning Meeting. If a visitor doesn’t know what to expect, they can consult with Zayn, the official greeter of Elizabeth Parry ’13 and Allison Schenck’s classroom. The purpose of Morning Meeting, he says, is elemental: sharing and community. So the Koalas share, and the Koalas commune.

“What are some words that you can use to greet people?” Parry asks, and the room fills with bubbly salutations. You can wave to someone in the hallway, Margaret says. Her classmates volunteer that you can ask a peer for their name, or how they’re feeling today, or how they’re doing. The Koalas turn to each other and greet their neighbor eye-to-eye with an earnestness that would warm even the coldest of hearts.

Then comes the most sacred of the Koalas’ end-of-week rituals: the “Friday Song.” It serves as an invitation to celebrate the weekend plans of each student. A jar full of popsicle sticks, each emblazoned with the name of a Koala, sits in front of Parry, who plucks the first one to kick off the reverie. “Hey, Liam!” the class says together. “It’s on you! So what are you gonna do?”

The Koalas stand when they hear their name, and they tell their classmates exactly what they’re gonna do. I’m gonna get my snack on. I’m gonna get my sleep on. I’m gonna get my jammies on. The rest of the expectant Koalas pantomime each of the activities — placing their heads on the top of their hands, raising pinched fingers to their lips as they nibble imaginary delicacies — and punctuate each of their classmate’s presentations with the same ebullient coda. Alllll weekend longgggg.

It’s the only way to start a day at the Durham Academy Preschool, our destination for the second installment of “Day in the Life” — which debuted in September with the Middle School —  to offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the everyday brilliance of DA’s four divisions. The Preschool is a bastion of human connection, profound belonging and academic discovery. It is abuzz, every day, with Bumblebees and Koalas, Pandas and Owls, Frogs and Sunshines, as they fill their classrooms with audible wonderment. They’re getting their Reader’s Workshop and movement on, their Spanish and social studies on, their Fundations and math and science on. 

All. Week. Long.

 

 


 

10:30 a.m. — Spanish, Pre-Kindergarten

Michelle Graham-Freeman

Michelle Graham-Freeman takes one step inside the Frogs’ classroom before she raises an eyebrow. “¿Listos?” she asks. “¡Listos! ” the Frogs say in unison from their seats on the class rug. They’re ready for Graham-Freeman’s tireless energía.

Spanish class in Preschool is not rudimentary. It’s foundational. Graham-Freeman spends upward of 95% of her lessons talking exclusively in Spanish as she zips through an engaging, fast-paced mezcla (mix) of song, repetition and alegría (joy).

“¡Buenos días!” Graham-Freeman sings, and the Frogs offer a collective sing-song echo. “¿Cómo se dice ‘buenos días’ en inglés?” she asks, and multiple arms reach toward the ceiling. Good morning!

Graham-Freeman launches into a repaso (review) of colors in Spanish. She holds a card aloft as she reads each color aloud — with affected enunciation — to prompt a choral response from the Frogs. An-a-ran-ja-do (orange). A-ma-ri-llo (yellow). Ro-sa-do (pink). The seated recitation doesn’t last long. “¡Levántate!” Graham-Freeman says, and the Frogs rise one by one to point to an object in the classroom that matches el colór on the card. A few students who are feeling generoso try to call out the color for their classmates, but Graham-Freeman issues polite reminders. “¡No ayuda! [no help]” she says, and the students who are unsure come to realize that, when learning a new language, searching for the right word is precisely the point.

The review comes to the end, and it’s time — es la hora — to say goodbye. ¡Adiós, clase! ¡Adiós! Graham-Freeman sings. It’s only been quince minutos, or 15 minutes, and the Frogs remain ready for más. On this Friday morning, Graham-Freeman says she’ll see them mañana, and she pauses as the comical realization sweeps the room. “¡Lunes!” the Frogs shout together, and Graham-Freeman smiles.

“¡Muy bién!” she says.

 


1:45 p.m. — Science, Kindergarten

Dr. Theresa Shebalin’s Classroom

There’s no way around it: Any student in Dr. Theresa Shebalin’s classroom is a scientist. The reminders are front and center beneath the whiteboard. What Do Scientists Do? a sign asks. They learn from each other. They ask questions. They plan and conduct investigations. They study and interpret data. They solve problems.They are scientists.

The Bumblebees have returned to science this afternoon after a morning spent collecting data. They played a dice game that featured six different animals — foxes, beavers, owls, squirrels, rabbits and deer — on the sides of the die. The Bumblebees, along with the three other kindergarten classes, completed data tables and bar graphs (“We turned numbers into a picture,” Shebalin says) that reflected the total number of rolls for each animal. It’s now time to analyze their data, as well as those of their peers.

“I want you to think of a hypothesis,” Shebalin says. “Do you think the Bumblebees’ data will be the same as the other classes?”

The Bumblebees test their hypotheses by splitting into four groups and comparing a dataset from another kindergarten class to their own bar graph from the morning. Shebalin asks them to produce a graph that reflects their second data table, and each group becomes a concentrated flurry of colored pencils as they shade boxes on a new graph. The exercise also simulates the inherent collaboration of the scientific community: The student who finishes first at each of the four tables serves as the helper for their nearest classmates. 

There are, at times, some uncertain glances from a few Bumblebees. Didn’t we already do this? they ask outright or communicate with furrowed brows. But that repetition, that persistent analysis, is the very essence of science, Shebalin tells them during a debrief on the carpet.

“That’s why scientists do their experiments over and over again — to get the right results.”

It’s what scientists, and kindergartners, do. 

 


10:55 a.m. — Movement, Pre-Kindergarten

Laci McDonald’s Dance Studio

The antidote for any mid-morning restlessness, surely, is Laci McDonald’s movement class. She greets the Sunshines, whom Sheri-lyn Carrow and Delia Barrick have walked from the Preschool to the Upper School dance studio. McDonald has cued up Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” — a city in perpetual motion — as the soundtrack for a brief warmup of twists and arm circles and foot flexes. “Stretching is really important,” McDonald says, “especially as you get bigger.”

The warmup ends, and McDonald has an important question for the Sunshines. “Are we ready to make our pizzas?” she asks. The 18 Sunshines, all of whom have found a seat on a unique dot spaced throughout the room, fan out their legs into a split. Together they make an invisible pizza to further their stretching: tapping the floor in front of them to spread out the dough, spreading sauce in slow concentric circles with their hands, sprinkling cheese as the stretch in their legs deepens, moving their arms side to side to mimic a timer. 

As the sunshine filters through the wall-to-wall windows of the studio, McDonald leads the Sunshines toward their objective. “What is tempo?” she asks. A student raises her hand. “How fast or how slow the music moves,” she says. McDonald walks over to her computer. “I want you to tell me whether you think this song is fast or slow by showing me with your bodies,” McDonald says. 

A languid number from the movie Vivo drifts over the speakers, and the Sunshines respond in kind with deliberate, slow-motion movements. McDonald toggles to a much faster song, and the Sunshines sway and jump and shake — all with a streak of individualism, and all without a care in the world. “Here’s what I love about music and dance,” McDonald tells them. “Sometimes we might hear something different from another person. You dance to what you hear.”

The limbs of the Sunshines rest by their sides as the class nears its end. They bow as a sign of respect for the space, and they share a communal clap in appreciation of their collective performance. As the Sunshines file out and return to their classroom, McDonald calls after them.

“Until next time!” she says. “Keep dancing! Keep finding the movement and the tempo that works for you!” 

Preschoolers participate in movement class

 


9:15 a.m. — Fundations, Kindergarten

Lori Hanks and Marcela Siqueira’s Classroom

A hooting owl, at times, can appear musical to the human ear. So, too, can the Owls as they engage with the melodies of phonetics. 

“What is that beginning sound in ‘hat’?” Lori Hanks asks her students. Huh. “What about that vowel? And what about that last sound?” The Owls echo each sound. “Tap it out,” Hanks says. 

In front of each owl sits a clipboard-sized magnet that has one tile for each letter; the consonants are denoted as beige, while the vowels are red. They are the building blocks for CVC words, three-letter words comprising a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant (think bag or hen). The tactile, sensory nature is a feature of Fundations, a literacy curriculum that teaches phonetic awareness through a combination of hearing, seeing and physically arranging CVC words — such as “tapping out” three-letter words using magnets.

Today, the Owls take a step further in their pursuit of building language: They add a writing component. Hanks and teaching assistant Marcela Siqueira distribute a handout with four different illustrations of everyday items. One of the items appears to be the top of a pot. Some students elect to tap out top, while others latch onto the separate image of a pot and choose to build the word. They scrawl their preferred word across their handout as a written manifestation of their magnetic constructions.

An audible epiphany arises from one of the tables. “‘Top’ is ‘pot’ backward!” a student says. “We noticed that, too,” Hanks says, referring to a conversation she had at another table. “But what stays the same?” The student points to the red o tile on his board. Hanks smiles.

“That vowel sound!” Hanks says. It is becoming clear to the Owls that letters are malleable, and language is endless.

“Isn’t that cool?” she says. “Move those letters around and make new words!” 

 


11:30 a.m. — Reader’s Workshop, Kindergarten

Sloan Nuernberger and Ashlee Bailey’s Classroom

Sloan Nuernberger has a story to share with the Pandas, who have gathered before her on their class rug. On a recent weekend, a neighbor was raking leaves when it became apparent to Nuernberger that the woman was struggling to bend down and place the leaves in her bag. Nuernberger and her husband, Doug, walked over to the woman’s yard and started bagging the leaves as their neighbor continued raking. “It makes me think that when we work together,” Nuernberger tells the Pandas, “we’re better together.”

It is a fitting theme for today’s Reader’s Workshop, which has the Pandas dispersing in pairs and practicing their partner reading. The mantra of the practice faces the Pandas from an easel in front of the class rug: We sit together. We talk together. We read together.

Today, they will also decide together. Each partner is responsible for choosing a title from their individual book bins, which students peruse while sitting back-to-back with their partner. Once they’ve selected a book, the partners then confer about their preferred reading style — choral reading, in which they both read aloud together, or seesaw reading, in which they alternate pages. They sit knee-to-knee as they read books about baby animals and cars, fruit salad and weather, trees and the beach. It is as much an opportunity to deepen foundations of literacy as it is a self-driven period of sense-making and discovery. 

Nuernberger and teaching assistant Ashlee Bailey circulate to provide some guidance, though they don’t need to provide many reminders. The Pandas are ensconced in their partnerships around the room as they find their own space on the carpet or at their tables, lost in the pleasure of finding a book, and a reading style, that works for them. Nuernberger sounds a chime to summon the Pandas back to the carpet. “All right, so let’s talk about that!” she says. She praises the collective volume of the class — a hushed focus — as they chose their titles, and she lauded the diplomacy of partners who discussed which books to read first and how to read them.

It was, Nuernberger says, the very embodiment of a neighborly parable.

“When partners work together and read together, just like my neighbor, we can help each other,” she says. 

 


12 p.m. — Math, Kindergarten

Nuernberger and Bailee’s Classroom

It’s not only OK to count on your fingers in kindergarten math: It’s encouraged. The joy of Reader’s Workshop flows right into modeling addition problems as Nuernberger holds up a tens frame, a grid with five boxes in a top row and five boxes in a row below. Each dot within a box on the grid is equal to one, and Nuernberger tasks the Pandas with translating the number of dots in each row to an equation they can show on their fingers. 

Nuernberger holds up a card with four dots on top and three dots on the bottom, and the Pandas confidently hold up four fingers on one hand and three on the other. “What’s four plus three?” Nuernberger asks after making sure her class has set up the equation correctly, and she’s met with a chorus of “Seven!”

After a few rounds of guided practice, Nuernberger kicks off a game of “Flash.” She holds up a dotted tens frame and quickly conceals it after no more than a second, which requires the Pandas to immediately hold up their fingers. “You think you can handle them fast?” Nuernberger asks, and the Pandas are up to the challenge. They dispense with the first few rounds, announcing their triumphs with exclamations of academic confidence (“Yeah!” “Too easy!”).

So Nuernberger offers yet another challenge: the Butterfly Race Game, in which they have to pair the number of dots on miniature tens frames to numerals located in the upper reaches of illustrated trees. They can move across the board only if they find a match, and Nuernberger — who plays by herself against a rotating cast of Pandas — can’t find many of her own. “We’re almost done! We’re almost done!” several Pandas say as they move through the board. Once they’ve won, they fill the room with sportsmanlike cries of “Good game, good game,” mimicking handshakes with the same outstretched fingers that empowered them mathematically.

 

 


10:15 a.m. — Social Studies, Kindergarten

Jessica Whilden and Heather Cummings’ Classroom

The Bumblebees are vibrating with the sort of energy that only knowledge can provide. They know from yesterday’s social studies lesson with Jessica Whilden ’00 that families around the world celebrate different holidays. They’re aware that holidays have different traditions. And they can list with authority a multitude of holidays, including unique symbolism and meaning. “What is your favorite season?” Whilden asks. The most popular answer is winter — for the festive holidays, students admit, but mostly for the chance to see, and spend extended time with, their families. 

“Can you be ‘mystery listeners’ for me?” Whilden asks. A collective whisper greets her: “Yes!” She reaches into a white pail and holds up a small illustrated placard that symbolizes a holiday, while she shares clues, traditions and the date of celebration. Thumbs fly up across the room as students recognize each holiday. Lunar New Year. Rosh Hashana. Mother’s Day. Holi. Fourth of July. No wonder the social studies curriculum serves as the foundation for all other academic explorations in kindergarten at DA: It’s a portal into worlds both familiar and unseen.

And it’s the perfect excuse, Whilden says, for a project. The Bumblebees will pick a holiday and illustrate it, either with inspiration from one of the placards or from their own experiences. Their pictures will replace self-portraits fashioned with construction paper cutouts that cover one of the side walls in their classroom. “Do we want to do something that we’re proud of?” Whilden asks. The charge is unanimous. “Yes!”

One by one, the Bumblebees share their preferred holiday, collect a blank piece of paper and leave the carpet for their assigned seat. As they select icons and symbols for their holiday, they turn to their classmates and excitedly share memories of celebrations past — dressing up as a cheerleader for Halloween, seeing their cousins for Christmas. They are also deeply invested in the tools of their trade. One table debates the merits of Mr. Sketch chisel tip markers relative to those of Mr. Sketch “Stix” markers. 

Their illustrations, invariably, are not just representations. They are portraits of people, of loved ones, of the reason for gathering at all — just as the Bumblebees are gathered here, in pods of four, savoring the company of classmates as they reflect on good tidings and the promise of more. It is a kind of buoyancy captured in two lines of a poem about celebrations, written on chart paper at the edge of the Bumblebees’ carpet.   

We like these fun times so much.

We hope they never end.