Thursday News

Throughout the Day on Thursday...

*We had Spanish with Alicia and experienced naming and recalling of body parts in Espanol. We also sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" using the Spanish terms we learned for head: cabeza, shoulder: hombro, knee: rodilla, toes: pies. 

Here are the full lyrics if you would like to practice and invite your child to sing with you:

Cabeza, hombros, rodillas
y dos pies
Cabeza, hombros, rodillas
y dos pies

Ojos, oidos, boca y una nariz
Cabeza, hombros, rodillas
y dos pies

*Shared sculptures and participated more in the creation process: The confidence and pride of the children in their artistic work is displayed as they often ask "Can I show this during Morning Meeting?". After Hannah walked around with her recycled sculpture today, the children were inspired to return to the studio to work. Children learning from children is an intrinsic form of motivation that sparks curiosity in a new way. This time, we introduced two new tools that Hannah used in her more complex sculpture including a stapler and exacto knife (with the aid of a teacher). This led to many children choosing to work in the studio during Choice Time.

*Journal Dictation and Drawing: In response to our prompt, "Draw a picture of something you like to do with your friends". The children enjoyed sharing daily activities and experiences with the Cardinal peers through their drawings and descriptions.

We spent the rest of the time connecting with each other and our surrounding environment in our outdoor space!

Monday News

This morning the children settled back into their classroom routine. Choice time was quiet, but busy with many small groups working together in the magnet tiles and block area. After a little while, some of our second grade reader friends stopped by with books they asked to share with us. So we paused our activities and split into different groups to listen to our second grade friends as they read to us from books they had picked out just for us.

The children in both the 2nd grade class and the Cardinal class truly enjoyed and grew from this experience.  Building community and making connections is such an important goal we hold for all of our children at AFS and this time together certainly facilitates this purpose. Our 2nd graders had the opportunity to practice oral reading skills and our children aspire to someday be able to visit a younger classroom and read aloud to younger children. Children teaching children is a value that we feel is so meaningful for children of all ages.

Sculpture work continues to evolve in our Studio.  Today Evan shared at morning a robot /straw sculpture he created at home this weekend.  He described how he used straws to create the body of the robot and how he used tape to connect the straws. The children were very interested in the straw component of this project and we invited children to use straws at the studio today.  Donny used the straws to create a bed and then Kate decided she wanted to make a bed for her doll. Ideas emerging and our Studio is in motion!

When our second grade friends left us, we headed outside with our hats and gloves to enjoy some of the gloriously sunny weather. There were many different explorations happening on this bright day. In the outside building area was an elaborate house coming together, on the play structure, another classroom had brought out some large pieces of cloth which were spread over some of the structure's railings to create a fun tent that all the classes enjoyed playing under.

After a long time stretching our legs out in the fresh air, we settled back into our classroom for a story from the Rainbow Fish series. After listening quietly, we spent some time recalling themes and events from the story to make sure our memory and listening skills got a good stretch inside, like our legs had outside.

The Joy of Creating...

February 4, 2013

Exploration of sculptures and art is taking on so many new and more in-depth learning paths in our classroom.  We have been introducing Art History to the children through the reading of wonderful books about famous artists. We have read Van Gogh and The Sunflowers, Degas and the Little Dancer and Picasso and The Girl With A Ponytail. At Morning Meeting today we read Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. This books introduces the children to an artist who did not paint like most other artists and who had a great deal of movement and emotion expressed in his work. He did not use an easel and usually placed his very large canvas on the floor to paint! We learned that he used house paint to create his art and often worked on his paintings over several days or weeks.   Stella said, " He had to wait for his painting to dry before he could work on them more. He splattered the paint all over the enormous canvas! We did that when I was a Chipmunk before."

After reading this book, Kate suggested that we bring our trashcan sculpture to the rug and continue to work on it at Choice Time " just like Jacson Pollock had to work on his artwork after alot of days."

 We added recycled items to our sculpture bin and the children were very interested in using them today to create sculptures. They used colored masking tape to connect materials as well as glue.  Please feel free to add any interesting items to our bin!

Block building is evolving into more elaborate structures and the children are  exploring balance and design in a more sophisticated way.  Very exciting times in the Cardinal classroom!

Fun Friday

February 1, 2013

During our morning choice time, it began to flurry outside! Everyone was excited to watch the snow coming down so we decided to bundle up and head outside to play a little earlier than usual.

When we came back inside we warmed ourselves up by gathering on the front rug for our morning meeting. First, Trace brought out something he had brought to share with the Cardinals. He had been very thoughtful asking his teachers far in advance if he could bring this particular toy in to share with his friends. When he brought out his toy the group was amazed. It was a pretend chainsaw that made some of the same noises and movements as a real  chainsaw. Trace demonstrated how it worked and talked a little about why he likes this toy. Then we talked about where we might see a real version of this toy. The Cardinals had much to say about how chainsaws are used in real life to cut down trees if they are in the way, or if they need to have a branch taken off. Trace generously offered to let kids try out the toy themselves during choice time after the meeting.

We continued our meeting with a chapter of the Clementine chapter book we have been reading before rest time. When Jayden came to school this morning, he had asked if we could read another chapter of the book, and some of the other Cardinal friends overheard and expressed they would like to hear more from our chapter book. So we read the next chapter and we had a discussion about what was happening in the story and how it related to their own lives.

The children seemed to 're-discover' our container of found objects and recycled materials from lunches that we thought would be good for creating sculptures.  The coffee holders from Wawa were quite popular and the children loved gluing tops, jewels and small wood pieces into and on the paper holders.  We realized that we did not have many materials to use that would allow us to build up so we started scouting around the classroom for objects .  Small wood pieces served well to support this concept and we decided to look at our homes this weekend and see if we could find things to add to our recycled sculpture box of materials.

Our sandbox was refilled and the children were so excited to have a super full sandbox full of sand!!

For anyone who can make it to our Bread and Soup dinner tonight, a few details:

• Time:  5:30-7:00 p.m.
• Place:  Muller Cafeteria 
• Park closest to the Muller Auditorium.  Enter through the Muller Auditorium doors.  Go down the steps on the right and turn right again at the bottom of the steps.  This will lead you to the cafeteria.