Memories of Monday

The children enjoyed returning to school after the weekend and greeted one another with smiles. Our morning routines of signing in and question of the day have taken on meaning for the Cardinals as they show increasing time and dedication to each task. The sign in table has become an area of morning conversation as the children share their thoughts and weekend activities with each other. "How are you?" and "I had a sleepover this weekend! Did you ever do that?" were some comments and thoughts overheard today. Our question, "Can you find 3 rectangles?" posed a challenge that the children took on with pride. This goal directed their focus and they began counting sides, asking themselves, "Does it have 4 sides?" and commenting, "I only found 2. I need to find one more!"  Familiar routines such as this provide the children with stability and an awareness of what to expect that is vital to their growing sense of self and independence. Through question of the day, we continue to provide the children with the opportunity to practice reading beginning sight words, practice one to one correspondence and experience other math concepts such as identifying shapes.

During Choice Time, the children have become more interested in playing board games. Today, Nature Lotto was set out as an invitation on the rug. In small groups, the children played this game taking on the role of matcher or card caller. Social skills such as taking turns and compromising were essential pieces to helping the game run smoothly. As the children participated, they were able to identify plants and animals, describe traits seen in the photos and match the same photo with its corresponding bingo card. In the Cardinal class, being helpful and caring for each other as just become a way of life and in this game in particular, it was clearly evident in how the children called one another's name to help them get a matching card if they had missed it at first glance! 

During our Choice Time, an impromptu concert appeared in our hallways with Kindergarten performing a special Earth Day Song.  The children excitedly gathered in the hallway and danced along as they listened to their older peers sing about our home. Our older peers in Kindergarten are role models and inspired conversations about helping the planet Earth that continued throughout the morning. During Morning Meeting, the children began to share ways in which we can help the planet. We played a game in which we classified things people do or acts we may see and put them into two categories: helpful or not helpful for Earth.

Before lunch, as an extension to our morning discussion, we read the story, Miss Rumphius, which tells the story of Alice Rumphius and how she set out to make the world look more beautiful. This sparked our conversation again and the children each shared ways in which we can help Earth, including "You could pick up the trash and make sure you don't put trash into the water or the fish will go somewhere else", "Putting the stuff in the trash and not leaving it on the ground or in the house", "By planting stuff. Daisies.", and "We can plant more flowers. I do that every fall." Discussions such as this build expressive language skills and help the children make personal connections to the stories we read.

Enjoy Other Photos from the Day: Connecting with Nature and Each Other!

Thursday News

 January 17, 2013


                                                     Problem Solving Skills Developing...

This morning, the building rug was very busy. It began with Xander and Trace who announced that construction was going on so everyone should be careful around their project. The two then proceeded to construct an awesome village looking site complete with towers, walls, and doors closing off the entrance. When asked about their building project, the two explained that this was Santa’s office and inside was a toy factory that had to begin working for next year’s Christmas.

As the project grew, so did the problems that arise from any block building project. The classroom was filling up with children who wanted to join building, or who were playing in the surrounding areas. As with many building projects, Xander and Trace ran into setbacks. While trying to carry a few blocks to the site, blocks were dropped onto Santa’s office taking down a whole corner! The two expert problem solvers, however, were not deterred and soon the damage was repaired and their site was receiving admiration from their fellow Cardinals. Other classmates were so impressed they wanted to join the fun and soon Santa’s office had a line of ‘electricity’ connected to power the office! The care and creativity these two showed was infectious and inspired other Cardinals to make towering buildings of their own and to even help the builders write signs warning visitors to “Do Not Touch”

 
Art Class

We began Art with a discussion on the rug. Sam shared with us that she had been reading our blog and has noticed our growing interest in sculptures. She asked us, "What is a sculpture?" and then some very interesting ideas were shared such as, "It can be made out of plastic". Sam then extended our view by comparing a painting to a sculpture. She carefully made the connection for us that a sculpture is something you can examine on all sides (a 3-dimensional figure) whereas a painting is flat and only has a picture on one surface. She made the visual connection for us by displaying a sculpture and a painting that she had right in the Art Room. Then, we turned our attention to the Smart Board. Sam introduced a man named Mr. Imagination, a sculptor who used recycled materials and "trash" to create different objects or depictions of faces and people. Sam shared with us that he often used bottle caps and other items such as old broom heads or paintbrushes to create his pieces of art. We examined two pieces from Mr. Imagination and identified what we saw. 

Then, Sam invited us to be sculptors. She provided old paintbrushes and model magic for us to work with. She explained the process of creating a face on the paintbrush, using the bristles as hair and then working with the modeling dough to create specific facial features. We happily engaged in this process and showed attention to detail as we worked and molded the dough to provide the pieces we would need.

The children will continue to work on their sculptures next art class and will have the opportunity to paint and use found objects to create their artwork. After returning from art, the children continued to engage in a discussion surrounding sculptures. We were impressed by Mr. Imagination and his ability to use recycled materials in his sculptures. The question was posed, "What if we used our trash to create sculptures?" This presented a perfect opportunity to begin a language experience chart generating ideas of trash items from our lunches that could be used in art. Some items on the list included plastic straws, bottle caps, yogurt containers and juice lids.

Wednesday News

January 9, 2014

The children are enjoying the sensory areas of our classroom and have been eager to  work independently in these areas as soon as they arrive in the morning!  Today, one table in our studio was set as a provocation to invite children to explore water. In thinking of our provocation we look very intentionally at the materials we are setting in place that may facilitate discovery and exploration for our children.  Science concepts such as  floating, sinking and  cognitive development such as  imaginative thinking were a few of the thoughts we discussed in planning for this area in our classroom. We placed small plastic animals, plastic cups, tin cups, glass jars and measuring cups in each tub of water for children to explore.   

Dough, molding tools  and cutting tools were set up at another table in our Studio area where children were invited to explore molding, sculpting , cutting and shaping with dough. The dough had gotten rather hard and dried out and the children discovered new ways to shape and work with the dough.  The children were very interested in working with their hands at the dough table and we realized that we were definitely due to make a new batch of playdough! Dough provides wonderful opportunities for children to develop fine motor skills, stimulates cognitive thinking skills and builds social skills.  The children were engaged in continuous conversation while working with their hands and ease of conversation was a joy to observe!

The children have been enjoying playing board games this week. Today we introduced Nature Lotto. This games facilities  visual discrimination skills, vocabulary skills, cognitive skills  and social skills.  The ability to take turns and plays board games cooperatively is a true reflection of the social maturity that we have been observing this year.  Very exciting times!

Outdoor play was such fun today! Enjoy the photos that truly capture the time we spent outdoors!

We changed our Journal writing time today from early morning to after Choice and Outdoor play time. The children were asked to think about something they enjoyed doing or playing with at school today and to draw a picture in their journal and then tell a few words or story to describe their work.  The children enjoyed dictating their words and many of the children talked about friends they played with during the morning.