As the Cardinals entered our classroom this morning, they quickly began following the Morning routine by participating in our daily emerging literacy activities. This includes signing in, reading and casting their vote for question of the day, and working in their journals. The cold weather inspired our journal writing today, as the children enthusiastically drew a picture in response to the question, "What do you like to do when it is cold outside?" The children dictated various stories that illustrated their home experiences. The work of the children in their journals is growing in detail as they are drawing faces and structures, depicting the setting and characters of their stories. Their verbal dictations clearly connect to the specific shapes and colors seen in their work.
Our morning continued and flowed to our meeting together which began with the sharing of our "cold weather" stories. This acknowledges the work of the children and allows them to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride as their work is read aloud to the larger group. This sense of acknowledgement and recognition continued as Kate brought in a plastic dinosaur and was very interested in sharing it with her friends during Morning Meeting. Throughout our day, learning experiences often arise such as this, that may be unexpected. We used the dinosaur, "Don" as a tool to continue our study of sculptures. "How?", you may ask! The teachers began by discussing a step in the sculpting process that artists may go through. We talked about observation and identifying a thing or a "model" that we may want to make a sculpture of. This led us back to "Don", as we used him as a model for sculpting. With the help of the Cardinals identifying the different parts and shapes of Don, the teacher molded and shaped a dinosaur sculpture. Following Morning Meeting, many Cardinals tried out this process using wooden cars and blocks as models for sculpting at the play dough center.
The children took in the fresh, crisp air by running, jumping, and climbing in our outdoor play space. After strengthening our large motor muscles, we warmed up inside with a shared read aloud on the rug. Shannon introduced, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszka and Lane Smith. This story changes the point of view with the Big Bad Wolf telling his side, defending himself with the explanation of "a bad cold" which led to sneezing the houses down. This story led to a meaningful discussion of right and wrong, demonstrating an emerging understanding of ethics among the children. After the story, the teacher posed the question, "Do you think the wolf was really a big bad wolf or not?" The answers show the higher order thinking process that the Cardinals went through to determine their answer. Some responses included, "He was a nice wolf because he didn't mean to do that.", "I think he was kind of nice and kind of mean because he was making the cake for his grand mom but he still ate the pigs.", "A bad wolf because he sneezed so hard and the houses fell down.", "A nice wolf because he was trying to get sugar from the pigs for his granny.", and "He was a nice wolf because he didn't mean to do that." The story posed a different perspective to a familiar story which challenged the children to also look at it in a new way.
The morning quickly came to a close with children exploring our large space in our downstairs common area, beading on our collaborative art sculpture, painting at the easel, cutting shapes, and participating in dramatic play!
No comments:
Post a Comment