A Photographic Friday

The Cardinals joined confidently in our routines this morning and the day flowed seamlessly. We began our day with Choice Time and then participated in an engaging Spanish class, reviewing past vocabulary and reciting new terms for the parts of a family! The children's ability to remember these Spanish terms has increased as they have listened to Alicia question them in the language and now are forming their responses in Spanish.

Our children are dedicated and persistent in their fine motor work in our studio and drawing areas. They created observational drawings of natural materials and continued creating self portraits using colored pencils. Work on paper stories continues to be a strong interest as well. 

The Cardinals enjoyed the idea of going on an outdoor adventure and became excited about going for a walk. We decided to visit the playground across our campus. This was an inviting place for our children to direct their play to an area of interest to them. Swinging, climbing, imaginative games, hide and seek, digging and building all took place with the children working collaboratively.

More Friday Photos:

Dear Families and Friends,

Please enjoy your weekend,

To all of you, it is well wishes that we send!

Love,

The Cardinal Teachers

Taking on Thursday

Thursday, March 14 - The Cardinal News

A Photo Walk through Thursday:

Spanish

Spanish with Alicia was an exciting introduction to the parts of the face. Through song and repetition of lyrics, we recited the names of each part of our face in Spanish. The children visually made the connection with each word as they pointed to the corresponding spot on their face. Here are the words that were added to our emerging Spanish vocabulary today:

-pelo: hair

-ojos: eyes

-orejas: ears

-nariz: nose

-boca: mouth

*You could try a game challenging your child to remember these terms by playing "Simon Says" or having them lead you in a point and name game for each part!

Center Time: The children worked cooperatively and independently in various centers during Choice Time today. Building with magnet tiles and smaller legos continues to be an area of interest where the children strengthen their fine motor skills and experiment with cause and effect. The play dough table sparked the sculpting spirit that was felt at Art with Sam yesterday. Through sensory forms of art, such as this, the children demonstrate patience and awareness as they use the dough. They are becoming aware of how their hands are affecting the dough and taking more ownership and pride in their abilities. Today, many different shaped things were formed as the children experimented with the process of rolling, patting, cutting, and attaching pieces together to represent their ideas.

After enjoying our outdoor classroom, we closed up our morning together with A Pocket for Corduroy. This familiar story tells the tale of Corduroy as he goes to the laundromat with Lisa. Through the story, a lesson is learned about listening to directions and always asking for what you need or letting your feelings be known. While reading, the Cardinals noticed a few art themes, as a painter was a main character in the story and Lisa became a sewing artist as she used fabric and thread to make a pocket for Corduroy. The children listened intently and were able to make predictions as they followed along with the reading.

Enjoy your Thursday! 

Busy Tuesday

January 29, 2013




This morning the Cardinals were very busy working throughout the classroom. There were sculptures being made, buildings being built,

and a large scale, child initiated art project happening back in the studio.

Mid-morning Alicia came to visit bringing with her many Spanish activities for us to exercise our Spanish skills with. She began with our Spanish welcome song as well as our usual Spanish class routine of moving around our circle asking each Cardinal friend in Spanish how they were doing and listening to each individual's reply.

After establishing that all of our Cardinals were doing well, Alicia moved on to a new activity. She brought out four books about different colors and we were able to learn the Spanish names for these four colors and identified which colors were our favorites.




After practicing our colorful pronunciations, we ended our class with a good bye song before Alicia left.

After our Spanish time, we had a great open choice portion of the day with several friends choosing interesting activities. Block building, dramatic play, Lego's, playdough, drawing, collage and books were all active areas of play during our Choice Time today.

After a while, it was decided some outside time was needed and the Cardinals bundled up to head out for a walk.

We wanted to go out and look for some different sculpture-like structures.We left the destination of our walk open ended since we weren't sure where the interesting structures might lead us. We ended up walking out by our caretaker Dave's house and peeking into his tool houses and identifying as many tools as we could just by sight.

As we wandered around the meetinghouse, we looked in on the playground up there and decided to stop for a little while.

All of the toys that used to be up there had been taken out but the Cardinals were resourceful and imaginative. Among the play structures we had a pirate expedition, a tire-swing singing circle, and even an animal hospital that specialized in healing sheep.

Between these imaginative adventures, the Cardinals ran, climbed trees, and had a nice time in the warmer weather.

 Coming back to the classroom, we had a little more open choice time before settling in for lunch.

Creating, Constructing and Collaborating

     Creating, Constructing,Collaborating Cardinals

The children were incredibly involved in working with their hands this morning! After working on journals, several of the children gravitated to the table where a huge container of Lego's were placed. The Lego container was open and the children  were drawn to this area and immediately started to construct.  It was fascinating to observe how the different children approached this invitation. Some children seemed to have a 'plan' and carefully searched for a specific Lego piece or wheel , while others seemed to randomly select pieces to connect and were more interested in figuring out how pieces of Lego and different sizes connected and fit together.  The number of children working on the covered sand table top grew and instinctively, the children seemed to figure out how to move and work together without interfering with each other's work! What an amazing accomplishment for 3& 4 year old children! Some children started working on their own and then moved to working collaboratively on a more elaborate structure with a friend.

We invited the children to work on our beaded sculpture tower today and the children are getting really inventive in the way they are engaging with this experience. They are trying new ways to attach the pipe cleaners and are thinking about ways to bridge and connect parts together. The pipe cleaners are a wonderful material for the children to use as a extension of the sculpture.

Block building was sensational today!

Thursday News

In thinking about Thursday...

This morning in Spanish with Alicia, we traveled to an exciting spanish speaking country, Venezuela! Once there, we looked at a book about numbers just to see how many we could remember in spanish. Happily our Cardinals could name all the numbers Alicia showed them and say them back in spanish. Then, we went over our greetings and our welcome to Spanish songs before ending the class with the squeezing of the "moooooooouchas gracias" cow we always look forward to. Before leaving, one of the Cardinals had a request for our Spanish specialist: Kate,"Alicia I have a question. How do you say "goose" in Spanish?" So we left our time in Spanish with some obvious curiosity and a thirst for more!

Our week of family visitors continued today with Donny's mom, Wendy! She came in with some special items to talk to the class about a tradition their family follows in celebrating Advent. one of the items Wendy brought with her was an Advent Wreath, complete with the three purple and one pink candles that Donny's family lights as a part of their holiday celebration. The wreath she brought to show us is made out of pine needles because they don't die in winter which represents how Jesus' love doesn't end. Wendy shared with us that the word "advent" means to get ready or prepare, and this time of year, those who celebrate Christmas are preparing for Christmas day and the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus, and so each of the candles is lit on a sunday before Christmas to signify getting another week closer to Christmas day. In Donny's house, they light a new candle each Sunday, and then during dinner that week they light the candles that have already been lit. In addition, Wendy showed us a book that they read at home before dinner during Advent that includes a reading for each day that connects to the day in the Christian Advent calendar. The book also included a fun search and find picture that Wendy shared with the class and all the Cardinals had a chance to try. This advent tradition takes Donny's family all the way up to Christmas eve when, Donny shared with us, they leave out cookies for Santa along with a magic key so he can get into their house (which doesn't have a chimney) and carrots for the reindeer.

After sharing their Advent and Christmas eve traditions with the class, Donny and Wendy brought out another family tradition, special chocolate chip cookies that Donny's family made! The recipe has been passed down generations from Donny's great grandmother and the class enjoyed the delicious treat. With that sugar running through everyone, the class decided to have a quick Christmas song dance party before Wendy had to leave!