Friday News

May 10th, 2013

This morning we really embraced the Nature theme we have been building on for the past few weeks. Trace's mom, Melissa brought a gift for the class from her garden center of various garden materials like pots and planters and watering cans, and these combined with the fake flowers we have been enjoying have inspired talk of converting our play house into a Cardinal Flower Shop!

Besides discussing our future flower shop, there was lots of colorful building, group reading, and other areas of business.

Our spring theme continued at the journal table with a journal question that asked what we have been observing about the growing plant life, and there were several thoughtful ideas preserved in illustrations in our journals.

After a few friends had done amazing work in their journals about observations they had made, we decided we would continue this work outside and maybe find some new observations. We took our snack with us and enjoyed a long play time in our outdoor classroom.

The children laughed and played, and when they came across something that particularly inspired them, they had the option of recording it in their journals.

Mid morning, we took a break from the beautiful outdoors and went inside to meet Sam in her art studio and she had with her the painted cylinders we had worked on the last time we had met.

This time the children had the opportunity to begin to make the cylinders colorful with several interesting techniques, painting with brushes, their hands, and even a fun rolling motion putting paint in a box and then rolling the cylinders inside to create a marbled effect.

After art with Sam, we reflected on our early morning in a brief Meeting for Worship style meeting on our rug, and then went back outside to finish our morning.

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!

Photo Friday

Cardinals' Photo Friday

 Take a look at our day through pictures!

T-Shirt Making - Stamping and Printing

What is a Stencil? How did we do that?

 

Building Community - Meeting Fourth Graders and Responding to Questions about our Playground

Outdoor Play - The Places We Explore

The Cardinals are getting excited and anticipating our Fall Festival which is coming up on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 beginning at 10:00 am. We invite all families to come share this special experience with our Cardinals. We have had such a joyful experience creating our very own T-shirts and headbands to wear on this occasion. Our week was filled with many great experiences in art, building community and discovering in various ways. Have a great weekend and we look forward to another wonderful week ahead.