Spring is in the Air!

With the arrival of Spring (finally!), there have been some major changes in our classroom. The most significant change has been our new schedule. The reason for the change was primarily to extend freeplay for a much longer period of time. The children have proved that they have grown and matured immensely since September as they are focused and engaged in their play and problem solving all throughout this long stretch of time in the classroom. With a longer freeplay, the children also have the opportunity to use materials they would not normally explore and engage with friends in a more in depth and meaningful way.

Curriculum wise, the outer-space talk has fizzled out as the children are expressing more interest in planting seeds and exploring the nature of our home planet. So, to bring an end to our space curriculum, we first talked about what it means to make an estimate, and then each child made an estimate about how long they think it will take the Sun hanging in our classroom to finally collapse. They had observed over a period of time that the Sun they made was slowly creeping closer and closer to the floor. Based on these observations, some children estimated 100 days while some estimated 16 days. One of our students thought that Amanda would become so impatient with the falling sun that she would rip it off herself! Only time will tell... All of the estimations are posted on our classroom door.

Using the Sun to transition to our current curriculum, our class talked about the new changes in season and why they take place. We discussed the changes that will occur as it becomes warmer, and the class expressed a strong interest in planting a vegetable and flower garden. While they've been out on the playground, they've been working hard to prepare the soil in the garden to plant new seeds and they have even been observing some plants that have already begun to grow. In addition to blooming flowers, we also discussed hibernation and why animals will soon come out of their long slumber. During our afternoon rest, some of the children pretended to be hibernating bears as they 'slept' all of the way through rest time.

The children have been learning about how to find the root word, or the basic element of a word with out the suffix or prefix. Learning about root words has helped the children think about how to create words using letter buddies. For example, when we talked about the letter buddy, -ing, the kids recognized that -ing comes at the end of words like walk, run, and swim. Along with letter buddies, I've been working with the children to sound out letters in order to read words or write them in their journals. They children are excitedly diving into reading and are very eager to learn. I'm so pleased with the level of enthusiasm-- as you know, they bring in books from home on a regular basis and enjoy reading them with their friends. Whether the words are memorized or they are making up the words on their own, these are the significant, early stages of reading and they will be independently reading in no time! Some of them already are, as they are reading 'early readers' books in front of the class.

Macy's mom, Krista, came in last week to do a project with the kids that followed along with what we have been talking about in our classroom. She talked to the class in depth about how to find symmetry, and used the letters of our alphabet to demonstrate this concept. She also talked to the class about how butterfly wings are symmetrical and worked with all of the children to make their own symmetrical butterfly wings. First, they drew wings on a folded piece of paper. After cutting out the wings, they painted one wing, which was then pressed onto the other wing in order to create an exact, symmetrical design on the other side.

We had Carolyn come in on Friday to read "Click, Clack, Moo" to the class. The kids loved the personified animals and onomatopoeia throughout the story. When asked what their favorite part was, most of them replied "I liked the whole thing!" A big thanks to Carolyn and Krista for coming in to share these fun activities with the class.

I also want to give a HUGE thank you to Stephanie Lee for organizing our latest field trip to the show, ImaginOcean, and to all of the parents who were involved. It was a great show, from the black lights, to the neon puppets and music. Everyone had a fabulous time and everything worked out very well considering the last minute planning. Thanks to everyone for being so flexible.

Some of the other activities going on in our class have been finger-printing caterpillars, cooking strawberry soup, building high car ramps using blocks (the kids noticed the sharper the incline, the faster the car goes!), picnics in the classroom and on the playground, and experimenting with cornstarch and water.

Lastly, I'm sure you all got to see the pictures from Picture Day! They came out great-- Just a reminder to bring in your order ASAP. Also, drum day has been rescheduled to a later date due to the damage from the rain storm.

Enjoy your weekend, Everyone!

This week has been full of varying interests and activities, but the human body has been one in particular. We read the book, Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series), by Taro Gomi, which inevitably created a commotion of questions and comments from the class. We talked about why we go to the bathroom, why our body needs nutrients and how we can get them. Later in the week we read "Gregory the Terrible Eater" and came up with a list of nutrient dense foods under the fruits, veggies and protein categories. After reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", we talked about why too many treats hurt our body and why we need to eat food from plants and animals instead. The children were given the opportunity to explore a 3-D model of the human torso which contains removable pieces.

We will talk more in depth about how our body works, but before we move on to the human body, we're going to continue to discuss more about butterflies and insects. Our butterfly garden mural is on its way to completion and all of the kids have been making very creative contributions. We have started to discuss the many different kids of butterflies and where they are found around the world. The class learned about symmetry by observing a variety of butterfly wings. They practiced this concept by painting one side of a piece of paper, folding it in half and opening it, revealing a symmetrical image. Many of the kids were already familiar with this activity. We also used shaving cream, food coloring and a toothpick to create a design on paper and then pressed it with another piece of paper. They recognized on their own that they had made a symmetrical design.

One morning before meeting we decided to meet on the rugs while sitting in chairs rather than crisscross on the rug. The kids really got a kick out of it and had a great time. We played a facial expression guessing game where the kids had to figure out how their classmates were feeling based on the expression on their face. Some of the feelings they demonstrated were Angry, nervous, sad, happy and surprised.

Also this week, some children chose to build on top of a mirror which creates a totally different experience and a new dimension to block building. It can give the impression of a much larger structure while also providing an opportunity to take a glance at yourself while building.

There was a lot of Olympic chatter throughout the week that definitely permeated the block area. The kids made a HUGE 'Olympic Stage' that covered the entire rug. Here is their explanation of what they built:

Sarah: This is the torch and you turn it when you get a medal.

Savannah: When you turn it, you get 10 medals and you did a good job skiing. You an go all the way to the top if you really, really win. Then you can jump from here to here.

Josh: When you go skiing you can jump. I saw on TV there was a lot of bumps.

Sarah: I made a snowboard with cardboard!

Caden: You can stand on the board with airplane arms

Josh: We watched the Olympics hockey game. The red team won and got a god medal. The blue team was sad because they lost and got silver.

Sarah: The blue team is USA

Savannah: The red team is Canada

Leo: I watched the Olympics. I watched and watched and watched but I didn't see the US!

Dylan: This part shoots rockets. A cannon goes up over here.

Josh: Over there I made a ramp. The cars go up across the bridge so they can watch the parade. Dylan says its an Olympic stage.

Emma: If you take off the triangle, you can twist it and get a medal.

Sarah: A fire truck is here. They are going in the building to take the fire out.

Check out the pictures of the block building on shutterfly!!!

I'll see you all during the week. Take care everyone!