A Window into Our Classroom: September 2025
The first month of school has been a time for teachers and children to get to know each other and for students to become familiar with school routines. Sensitive moments have greatly decreased as the children’s interest in materials, their teachers, and their peers grows. It’s been so sweet to watch new friendships form and familiar connections deepen. We have been beaming with pride this week watching how much confidence the children have gained this month! Here’s a look into our classroom this month.
Memorable Highlights
This month, we explored an “All About Me” curriculum, giving each student the chance to reflect on their own identity, learn about the identities of their classmates, and help to build a classroom community where they feel known by their teachers and peers. We shared our family photos, created self portraits, read books about different kinds of families, and talked about our own family dynamics.
Self PortraitS
Our gallery wall this month depicts the children’s self portraits. Our intention is for the children to take a detailed look at themselves in the mirror and notice the features of the face, separating the parts from the whole. The teachers asked what facial features they saw and where on their face that feature is located. Using a sharpie and white paper, the children independently drew what they observed in the mirror.
When creating self portraits, the emphasis is not on how realistic or “good” the drawings appear, but on the process of observation. Children are encouraged to draw what they see in the mirror rather than relying on the idea of a face they carry in their minds. This practice invites them to notice details and separate individual features from the whole. This not only supports fine motor control it also lays important groundwork for early literacy development (separating the part from the whole - one letter in a word, one word in a sentence, one sentence in a paragraph, etc).
As a next step to our self portraiture project, we read the book, Shades of People by Sheila M Kelly, Ed.D and Shelley Rotner and the children were able to color in their self portrait choosing a shade from the Crayola Colors Of The World marker set that has 24 shades of skin color. The children enjoyed matching their skin tone by placing the markers on top of their hands, noticing how we all have different shades of skin. We explore shades of skin in preschool so that children can recognize, honor, and celebrate the diversity of skin tones in our community, building a positive sense of identity and respect for others from an early age.
The portraits offer a unique window into each child’s individuality, personality, and emerging sense of self. We’re excited to compare their end-of-year portrait in June with the one from the beginning of the year!
Questions Teachers Asked
“What do you notice about your face in the mirror?”
“Where are your eyes on your face? How many do you have?”
“What shape do you see when you look at your head?”
“What parts of your face do you want to draw next?”
What the Children Said During Our Self Portraiture Project
“I see me”-Sammy
“I drew an oval”-Sammy
“How about my arms?”-Sammy
“I have 2 eyes” -Eisley
“Yeah my hair!”-Arthur
“My mouth is inside”-Arthur
“Me!”-Lucia
“2 eyes and a circle”-Kiki
“Its hair”-Miko
“I want legs”-Miko
“It’s me!! These are my hair!”-Dylan
“Eyes. Two eyes”-Brooks
“I see a Dutch”-Dutch
“This is for baseball”- Dylan about the mirrors
“Two eyes!”-Sylvie
Family Exploration
We wouldn't be “me” without our families! Family exploration invites children to bring their home lives into the classroom which fosters a sense of belonging, dialogue, and an understanding of the ways we are the same and different from others.
We read Families by Sheila M. Kelly and Shelley Rotner, highlighting that while families may look different-some small, some big, some with one parent, one mom and one dad, two moms, two dads, or grandparents-what all families share is love for one another and the deep love our grown-ups have for their children.
Teacher Jocelyn helped to graph how many people we each have in our families. Each child got the opportunity to count the number of people in our families and graph the results with stickers. This activity supports one-to-one counting, helps children make a visual connection to quantity, and introduces them to early data representation. This activity also encouraged them to compare and talk about similarities and differences within the group!
Each child got to create their own family using their fingerprint stamping, which is now displayed on our classroom bulletin board. This hands on activity allowed the children to share about their families through both art and language while also discovering that every fingerprint is unique (just like each family!).
What the Children Said About Families
“My baba and dadas name is Baba and Dada”-Sloane
“I love my sister”- Kiki
“I love my sister”- Eisley
“My mom plays every game with me”- Sammy
“I love playing with my mama and daddy and sister”- Arthur
“I have one mommy and one daddy”- Tommy
“I always play with my sister and mommy and daddy”- Porter
“I have a granny”- Kiki
“Mom, Dad, Me, and Kipper and Leo”- Grace
“Mama!”- Lucia
“I look like mama” - Jude
Cooking Projects This Month
Banana berry smoothies with Teacher Mo
Homemade applesauce with Teacher Jenny with the apples from her garden
“Salsa” with Ita’s homegrown heirloom tomatoes
Music and Movement
During circle time, one of the children’s favorite songs is Jump Up to the Circle. Teacher Ana plays it on the ukulele, and each child gets a turn to jump into the middle of the circle, choose an animal or object to be, and act it out. This activity encourages creativity, builds confidence, and gives children a fun way to practice taking turns, patience, and speaking in front of the group.
Lyrics:
Jump up into the circle
And throw your arms up high
And tell us what you are
–child shares what they are–
Look at [Child’s Name], s/he’s a [chosen animal/object]! (repeat 3 times)
Please sit back down
Here’s what the children chose to be throughout the month:
“A pony horsie”- Eisley
“A moose”- Eloise
“A pink baby sea turtle”- Arthur
“A saber tooth tiger”- Porter
“A turtle lick”- Winter
“A butterfly”-Dutch
“A baby”-Lucia
“A Miko”-Miko
“A pig”-Kiki
“A bunny”-Sylvie
“A cloud” - Freya
“A foot” - Winter
“A jaguar” - Dylan
“A Sky/cool guy” - Sky
Social & Emotional Learning
The start of school can bring up many emotions for both children and their grown-ups, and at First Friends we prioritize supporting children in feeling safe after separating from their loved ones and developing the emotional fluency and skills to manage their feelings throughout the day in safe and healthy ways. We do this by using language that helps children identify and name their emotions while also practicing strategies that build self regulation skills. Together we read The Color Monster by Anna Llenas. We took the time to reflect about our feelings and how it is okay to feel a lot of emotions all at once. We can be sad, anxious and happy at the same time, as well as excited and mad. We talked about the many colors of emotions in the Color Monster and then had the opportunity to create our own expressive pieces of artwork using the colors of the feelings we had at that moment. We reflected on what the word “emotions” means-it’s the feelings we feel inside our brains and bodies. We love hearing about how the children feel and how they make sense of their own emotions.
Some of the children’s responses were
“When I’m feeling sad, Teacher Ana always gets me a big hug” - Eisley
“I miss Mommy but I’m happy” - Sky
“Like the Color Monster can’t play if he’s feeling sad” - Tommy
“One time when I got to school I cried and I saw my little pacifier and it made me feel better” - Arthur
“When we are sad we can go to bed” - Sloane
“Sometimes when people are sad, some people give them a kiss” - Sammy
“We can walk when we feel sad” - Arthur
“If you’re sad you could actually suck on that little thing and it makes a little sound when I blow on it” - Porter
“When we’re sad we can give kisses and go outside” - Eisley
“When I’m sad I like to hug my mom and dad” - Tommy
“When it’s night time, Noa always kisses me and I say “give me a big little squeeze” - Eisley
“I always like to hug my daddy and my mommy and my sister” Arthur
“I like it here”-Sky
“I can wipe your tears away” - Eloise to Porter
“I will keep you safe” - Eloise to Porter
Books We Loved
The Color Monster by Anna Llenas
Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
Shades of People by Sheila M Kelly, Ed.D and Shelley Rotner
Families by Sheila M. Kelly and Shelley Rotner
Songs we Sang
Jump Up Into the Circle
Sing a Rainbow
Sleeping Bunnies
Baby Beluga
Old MacDonald
Down By The Bay
Freight Train
Days of the Week Song
Months of the Year Song
Wheels on the Bus
The More We Get Together with sign language
Itsy Bitsy Spider in English and Spanish (Ita is a retired high school spanish teacher and lead the spanish version)
Roly Poly fast fast fast, slow slow slow
Birthdays We Celebrated
We celebrated many September birthdays!
Porter
Sammy
Sequoia
Sylvie
Tommy
Teacher Laura
Teacher Shirley
Teacher Cerena
Overheard at First Friends
A collection of our favorite quotes from the month
“Sharing is caring” - Sloane
“I’m not gonna be loud” - Arthur
“Sharing is kindness” - Sammy
“We stay quiet when the teacher is talking” - Sammy
“We could trip if we run inside” - Porter
“It’s like we’re playdough” - Sylvie
“Sometimes when I see something I get distracted while people are telling me something” - Tommy
“Use your kid magic to do it!” - Freya
“It’s a bright sunny morning because the rain isn’t here” - Jude
“Bubble no more” - Lucia
“I have a lot of teeth” - Sloane
“Babies say goo-goo ga-ga” - Freya
“Yesterday I ate a piggie” - Winter
“I’m allergic to ketchup” - Tommy
“I don’t like decaf!” - Miko
“I liked the salsa but I liked the chips better” - Tommy
“Do you know why I like this song? Cause my dad likes it” - Tommy
“Your’s looks beautiful Porter” - Arthur
“I like the purple baby”-Sequoia
“Numberland - that’s what they call the land of number blocks” - Sammy
“I got a new camera from the gas station” - Jude
What a wonderful and busy first month! We can’t wait to see what October brings.
Warmly,
Your First Friends Teachers
