After many weeks of anticipation, today finally came and the exhibit of the children’s work on the Fancy Dress Project was unveiled! Children hosted a reception for family and friends and guided them through the documentation of the project. The exhibit included photos and sketches made during their field work at the Charleston Museum, the many patterns and fancy clothing models they constructed, many interesting displays relating to what children learned about fashion design, and teacher narratives describing the evolution of the project and what they learned. Visitors were invited to share refreshments, dress up, and enjoy an eclectic musical selection of “found” LP’s- but that’s another story entirely!  A more extensive documentation of this project will appear soon on our website –

The 4/5K garden was in need of mulch around the plants, so Ms. Deanna and Ms. Mary brought in a bale of straw. As the children were planning their haunted house event, they decided to make the  visits of the 2/3’s to their classroom even more fun by giving them a hayride before they put the last of the straw on the garden. Many trips were made around the playground and a great sense of satisfaction was expressed about how good it feels to work hard to do something nice for our friends.

Several of our children in the 4K group remembered that last year the “big kids” constructed a haunted house out of a large box in the hallway that all the children thought was very cool! They asked if they could build a new and improved version and invite the 2’s & 3’s to visit a “real” haunted house if they promised not to make it too scary for the little ones. Long story short, with the assistance of the experienced builders (5K) it started out as a one-story house, gained a second floor, a red entryway, four chimneys (with smoke) with working windows and doors, and recorded sound effects. On the designated day, the 2’s and 3’s were invited to visit and knock on the door….whereupon the window opened and the mysterious inhabitants gave out treats.

Block-building is a highly valued activity at ECDC, as sustained engagement supports the development of fundamental math/science concepts and spatial awareness/intelligence. Recently, several of our kindergarten children spent the better part of a week working on a very complex structure they named “The Ancient Scroll of China” – it was actually several structures linked together conceptually and linguistically in different ways. One of the components was actually a several story building constructed entirely atop rollers! Look for a more detailed documentation of this work on our website soon.