Spooky Season! Clothing Swap!

We have had a lovely and playful week here at Brooklyn Schoolhouse! Our days were filled with animal picnics inside, dance parties outside, and lots of laughter everywhere! 

Our story this week was The Ghost in the Dobbs Diner by Robert Alley. This book is extra special because it takes place in Zoe’s hometown of Dobbs Ferry! This spooky silly tale certainly got us into the Halloween spirit, which we’re so excited to celebrate at the end of the month.

Continuing with our Halloween theme, our music teacher Tony sang a variety of spooky silly songs with us on Tuesday this week. On Wednesday during Theater Adventures we received a letter from Calliope the Cat: Gary the Ghost stole all of the pumpkins for the Halloween party! After traveling to Halloween Town in our Magical Elevator, we discovered that Gary the Ghost only stole the pumpkins because he didn’t get invited to the party and felt sad. We helped him explain to Calliope that he’s actually a nice ghost, and so he was invited to the party and returned all of the pumpkins!

We ended our week at Brooklyn Schoolhouse with our fall clothing swap! This was a wonderful time for children to swap clothes with each other that they no longer wear — what a lovely way to foster community within our school! We practiced swapping clothes by gluing clothes onto paper dolls with everyone’s faces on them.

Finally, we celebrated Lou’s third birthday this week! Thank you Zoe and Paul for bringing in cupcakes and reading us two books.

We hope you all have an amazing weekend, and enjoy any new clothes you got from our Clothing Swap. School will be closed on Monday 10/20 for Diwali- we’ll see you Tuesday 10/21! 

Sincerely, 

Your Brooklyn Schoolhouse Teachers

Photos From Our Week

Exploring Together: Songs, Stories, and Play

This week, our community came together for our very first All-School Sing! It was such a joyful morning filled with familiar faces — children, teachers, and families — all joining in song. The room was full of laughter, movement, and connection as voices blended to celebrate the start of our year as a community.

In the classroom, our book of the week was Knuffle Bunny Too by Mo Willems — the sequel to Knuffle Bunny. The story follows Trixie as she makes her first best friend, sparking wonderful conversations about friendship, problem-solving, and how we care for one another.

As we welcomed the new season of fall, we brought out wooden leaves and popsicle sticks, and the children immediately began creating. They explored ways to connect and balance the two materials, turning them into fascinating shapes and patterns — their imaginations in full bloom!

At the playdough table, children used metal rings and rolling pins to transform their ideas into familiar things from home and the world around them. Manu shared, “I’m making two pancakes and sausage,” while Max proudly said, “I’m making a nest!” These moments reminded us of the rich stories that unfold through sensory play.

During small group time, we introduced ramps in our block area, which led to lots of thinking, testing, and building. The children decided that a ramp is “something that tilts” and expanded their ideas by adding walls, finish lines, and steps — showing curiosity and collaboration every step of the way.

As a reminder, in observance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, there will be no school on Monday, October 13th. We’ll see everyone again on Tuesday and hope you have a restful and lovely long weekend with your families.

Photos From Our Week

Can I Play With You?

We had an excellent first week of autumn here at Brooklyn Schoolhouse! We had two animal (puppet) friends, “Bill the Owl” and “Horsey,” visit us during our daily meetings on the rug this week. Bill and Horsey helped us practice different words and phrases we can use when we want to play with friends at school: this included “Can I please play with you,” “What are you playing,” and “Would you like to play with me?” These interactive puppet shows during meeting are a playful and instructive method to give children the opportunity to explore and practice how they can initiate play and form new friendships within the classroom. 

Continuing with our theme of friendship, each day this week we read a different chapter from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad Together. Children really enjoyed hearing four different stories about the same two characters, and even began incorporating themes from these stories, such as gardening and making a list, into their independent free play throughout the classroom. 

We had our first “Tony Time” on Tuesday, where kids sang and danced to songs on the rug with our music teacher Tony. We also had our first “Theater Adventure” with Sophia this week: Princess Anna of Arendelle from Frozen wrote us a letter asking us to rescue a magical mountain stone that a Grumpy Troll stole! We went on a wonderfully exciting adventure to find the mountain stone, and will return it to Princess Anna during our Theater Adventure next week!

We’re so looking forward to next week, and hope you all have playful and restful weekends! Reminder that our first “All School Sing” will be next Tuesday.

Our Names

This week at Brooklyn Schoolhouse, we got to know each other even better! Some children stayed for lunch and rest, and all the children continued to learn their school routines and each others’ names. Each day in the classroom, we noticed who was not at school, looking at a picture of each child’s face and saying their name aloud. This supported children in familiarizing themselves with each others’ names and strengthened our sense of classroom community. We played together outdoors and indoors!

In small groups this week, we worked on a literacy project that highlighted our names. Each child had a piece of paper with their face and their name, written in lowercase on one side and uppercase on the other side. In a “letter scavenger hunt,” children found the letters in their name, then worked on gluing the letters down to decorate their paper. All children explored the letters and practiced matching letter shapes to their corresponding sounds, and children found one, some, or all of the letters in their name. This project supported children’s early literacy, executive function and fine motor skills as they worked to identify letters and sounds, follow instructions and use two hands to glue down letters to paper. The project also helped children become familiar with both lowercase letters (which support their early reading skills) and uppercase letters (which support their early writing skills).

Another exciting development is that we have new bouncy balls this week! Children were excited about the new materials and practiced throwing and kicking the balls in the yard. We talked about how to throw and kick the balls safely by checking the area around us before we throw or kick and asking ourselves if there is anyone near by or if the coast is clear.

The children who stayed for lunch and rest this week learned (or reviewed) their lunch and rest routines. At lunch, children have three jobs: 1) “tummy to table” (so we keep our bodies near our lunch), 2) “take your time” (we can eat slowly and feel calm), and 3) “listen to the story” (we listen to an audio story while we eat, and talk to our friends once the story finishes). At rest time, the teachers dimmed the lights and read “Squares & Other Shapes” by Josef Albers, a book that shows “Two little rectangles lying down for a nap.” We then talked about how during rest time, the children would all be “lying down flat.” The teachers invited children to take a baby doll or block, lay the toy flat, and tuck it in with a blanket. This set expectations for the children to lay their own bodies down flat on their mats for rest time.

Finally, this week’s story was “Knuffle Bunny” by Mo Willems. Many children were familiar with this book, and the group had a fun time speaking in “baby language” with the character Trixie as she says, “Aggle flaggle klabble!”

Looking forward to seeing everyone next week!

We Are All Together!

What a wonderful, playful and explorative first full week at Brooklyn Schoolhouse we’ve had! Last week we discussed what it means to all be together at school, and introduced our “attendance stick” during our morning meetings: moving a picture card with each child’s name and face from a “home bin” to a “school stick” signifies that they are now part of the larger Schoolhouse community, and allows us to celebrate being together. We also sing a “we wish you well” song to any friends who are not at school during attendance, which further fosters our sense of community within the classroom.  

Outside in the yard last week we built rocketships on the rug, drank tea in the kitchen, and danced to Laurie Berkner’s “The Goldfish Song.” Inside the classroom children explored dress up and imaginative play, decorated their cubby labels, and made fresh playdough that smells like sage. Our story last week was “Ming Goes to School” by Deirdre Sullivan, which allowed us to talk about our favorite parts of the day at school and compare our schedule to Ming’s.

Last week we introduced “routine cards” to demonstrate the steps we follow after we are done eating snack: 

• First, we put any food scraps in the compost basket 

• Next, we stack our bowls to make a pile 

• Finally, we put our water bottles back in the water bottle bin 

Establishing routines like this one allows children to gain confidence within the classroom and familiarize themselves with the space. 

We are so excited to continue to learn and grow with your children this week! Remember that school will be closed on Tuesday September 23rd and Wednesday September 24th for Rosh Hashanah.

Midweek Photos

Here is what we have been up to so far this week!

Phasing In To Brooklyn Schoolhouse

It was the first week of the new school year at Brooklyn Schoolhouse. New and returning friends explored each area of the yard with their grownups, teachers, and classmates.

Kids loved cooking in the water kitchen with pots, pans, whisks, and scoops. It was so fun to splash, pour, and stir while setting the table for tea parties.

The red rug is a fun place to read stories, like “Are You My Mother?” by Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. It’s also a great place to build things like rocket ships, houses, and magnifying glasses out of bristle blocks.

Friends used brushes and paint to make beautiful marks on brown paper. They got inside and on top of climbing blocks to play peekaboo with the friends around them.

Another exciting area of the yard has been the animal rug, where sea creatures, like whales, starfish, and lobsters, can swim with each other or migrate to other areas, like foam blocks or the rock garden.

Each day, we practiced routines that will be foundational to our year together. For example, everyone learned what a “dot” cushion is and how to sit on one for our morning meetings and story times. This week, we read a Brooklyn Schoolhouse favorite called “Owl Babies'“ by Martin Waddell, a story about a mother owl who left her three baby owls in their tree trunk nest to go get food. It was fun and comforting to recite our favorite lines together, like, “I miss my mommy!” or “All owls think a lot.”

We ended our week celebrating Jonas’s 4th birthday. His parents, Annie and Andrew, and younger sister, Remy, joined us to eat corn muffins and read “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Happy Birthday Jonas!

It’s been so wonderful getting to know you and your children this week, and we are excited to continue next week when we merge our two half groups together. Please refer to your phase-in schedule for details about next week.