June 10th - MNO- North Bend Bar and Grill

In attendance:

Leigh A., Liz L., Megan S., Linda M., Sundy P., Kim H., and Liz S.

The subject of craziness was brought up! How do we turn the chaos into something more peaceful and productive?

• capture their attention
• start with a large motor activity
• have stations
• have a gross motor room every meeting?
• have more hands on project- but not busy work
• split the cirlce time- younger/olders

We also said we need to set up a chore list of things that need to be done to clean up after. We will set up a list and put the jobs on craft sticks each family will pick a stick and preform that task. This is a way to deal with the craziness after snack, and to teach the children responsiblity.

After clean-up if there is time we could have a gross motor game.

We also talked about how we need to make sure to end at 11:30 and be out of there to respect the church. If moms still want to chat they can move on to a house or park...

Speaking of the church, the person who gave us the go ahead for using the space at the church will be leaving the church leadership in July. We need to find out if it is still okay for us to be using that space.

We should also work on a vision for our group - what are we doing and why. And possibly a statement of faith.

We discussed doing themes for more than one week - so we can really learn about the subject.

Suggested themes: (please comment with some your famliy might be interested in)

• Fire Department (Fire Safety) - July 1 and 8
• Sports (Basketball) - talked about doing this in the Si View neighborhood at the sport court
• Instraments- Sundy will play a drum, David A. possibly to play his guitar- would love more people to play
• Space
• Languages- spanish, asl, does anybody know any??
• Repiles- Liz L. son might show us his
• Trains-go on the snoqualmie train
• Volcanoes-build a volcano
• Camping-go camping as a group in September!

We would like to do things that we can't do at our own homes. Such as not do so much busy work and crafts that we can to at home with our individual families, but something more productive.

We also talked about bringing more science into the day, character training, and group activites we cant do alone.

We also need to come up with fall back plans. What if a co-teacher can't come? What if a scheduled field trip falls through? Possibly go to the Watershed?

Also, I feel we should come up with a list of gross motor games. Some moms are really great at getting the children calmed down and interested, some need a little help- I feel if we had a list that would help.

I think that is all! We had a really productive meeting and a great time together!

Oh one more thing - some of you can't make Tuesday nights, how does Monday work for you?? We would love everyone the opportunity to come.

Linda

Oh my, did we have fun or what on Mom’s Night?!  Thanks for the laughs; it does a body (and spirit) good!

Linda made a list of some of the “Business” items we covered.  Here they are (with Leigh’s edits in italics)
Please add anything that might have been missed…

For those in attendance (six of us: Leigh, Kathy, Linda, Megan, Sundy, Kim), these are the items we have agreed upon to implement into Roots and Wings Tuesday School.

·        Using ‘three’ rooms – dividing the big one in half after circle time and using the one across the hall for a ‘youngers’ room.
 

·        The ‘youngers’ room would consist of different stations (same type of stations each time) – playdoh, puzzles, water/sand table, etc. – someone needs to be in charge of these items. Would the moms take turns rotating weeks on supervising this room?
 (We also talked about each mom being responsible for one same station to bring each week, so this does not fall on the same mom to have to bring multiple stations every week.  This is something we need to work towards, not expect to have it in place by Tuesday.)

·        We talked about having multiple teachers – one in each of the ‘olders’ rooms. (I am going to try to have a team schedule up soon.  I need to make sure you understand that instead of planning once every seven weeks, you will be planning (at least) once a month, maybe twice.)

·        Teachers teaming up- need to decide if we would have the same ladies team up all the time or rotate (I am going to set up a rotating schedule for now)

·         We touched on themes versus specialties, i.e. sign language, art, drama
(Do we want to commit to Megan always teaching sign, Sundy always doing drama, etc.?)

·        We felt that circle time at the end of snack would help with some of the craziness. – Sundy, I believe, said she would take this on.  (Liann has offered the sanctuary and a parachute for gross motor play during this time.  The host moms need to stay behind an coordinate clean up, so it will be one or two other moms to coordinate play during that time)

·         We talked about the teachers staying in their room and the moms rotating through so the moms can spend time with all their children especially if they were in separate groups – and so the moms wouldn’t get bored with having to do the same thing over and over again.