Nature Education...

I'd like to thank all of our families for the lovely parent-teacher conferences this past week.  It's been truly wonderful to hear your feedback and the wonderful stories about your kids and how much they love school. 

As I was thinking about what to write about for this blog post, I decided that I would write about something very near and dear to my heart--NATURE EDUCATION.  Most of my families probably don't know that I do trainings for the Early Learning Coalition of Orange County (they are almost always full to capacity) on this topic mostly, and I also travel all over the southeast (so far) to conferences for early childhood educators on this topic as well.  I'm just going to throw out there that I absolutely believe it is my responsibility to provide nature exposure in any way I can to the children I care for every day.

I challenge you to think about your childhood and what you loved about it.  Take a moment to think about this.... my favorite memories are of playing in the woods behind our apartments (can you IMAGINE?!).  I would no sooner send my grandchildren into any woods than cut off my own arm--the world is just a different place.  So I have committed to providing nature exposure to my class every opportunity I can.  I want them to have the body confidence that comes from climbing irregular surfaces, jumping from high places (high to them), rolling down a hill, building with blocks that are as big as they are, feeling weird textures from plants and trees, experience the sights and smells you can only find in nature, and all the other amazing things we grownups don't see or do every day.   

I see firsthand the benefits this has for children.  The ones who need to move more, the ones who need exposure to sensory experiences, the ones from other countries who get off a plane and come to my classroom the next day, the ones afraid to get dirty or touch bugs; they NEED this.  It makes them feel comfortable.   The garden is an amazing place at our school, and I don't know one single child who does not walk through there to see what's going on at least once a day.  I do the same thing.  I like to smell the herbs. 

Along with these benefits, I see how children are better able to focus when there isn't a bunch of florescent plastic everywhere, and the reason I can see this is because that's what my classroom USED to look like.  It was cute, in a very color-coordinated kind of way.  Now it's pretty sedate except for exuberant children's work.  I stick to natural colors that are muted and throw in colors here and there.  My furniture and bins are wood or baskets. 

What's more, I have made a shift to working WITH children instead of trying to make them conform to my schedule and what I want them to do.  I promise you that I can teach your child everything they need to know without forcing my will on them. 

Our classroom is not the free-for-all that it may sound like (or possibly look like from time to time).  It's a learning community where we all learn to work together and help each other, and find out where to look for the things we want to know.  I personally learn something new every day. 

Trick or Treating through Thanksgiving....

This is an ACTUAL discussion that we had in our morning meeting one day last week....

Ms. Amie says, " If we are singing our good morning song and somebody doesn't have a group, please let them into your group." 
Small Child says, "Yeah, and if everybody did that then everyone in the world could be happy and we'd all have a LOT of friends."

If only, my friend...if only.  (And I know I always say I'm working on World Peace in our classroom, but doesn't this prove it?)

So we did a little trick or treating at Millican Hall right here on the university.  It was a lot of fun and I'd like to PERSONALLY thank our photographer who took these amazing photos...since I forgot made a choice to leave our camera in the classroom....

We had our own election in EE5, as some of you already know.  We decided to avoid the negativity but help the children understand a little about the process of making a choice based on what you think.  Our candidates were Oreo and Chocolate Chip.  We had campaign posters and a debate where each candidate's representative could explain why we thought you should vote for each one.

We made a voting booth with a curtain for privacy because you can keep your vote secret if you want to....

Our volunteers at the polling station were very helpful.  Anyone could vote and we had visitors from other classrooms all morning.  

After voting, our campaign helpers gave each voter a sticker that said, "I voted in EE5!"  

As a side note, I was pretty sure I would have to station an adult  at the voting booth to help our volunteers guide the voters, but they were having NONE of that!  They took right over, kept things organized and moving and there was never a line waiting.  Amazing.   All in all it was a wonderful experience and a clean campaign.  (Chocolate chip won 38-36!)

Today I walked around a snapped a few pictures of what was going on....

I also want to let you know, that Mr. Oscar and I are VERY thankful to have these wonderful little people in our lives.  Thank you for sharing them with us!  We couldn't love them more!

October 24-28, 2016

We had a great week this week!  We did so much, and are REALLY looking forward to Monday, and Trick or Treating.

We set up this lovely invitation, with writing materials, books, pumpkins to inspect, pumpkin seeds, a book about the pumpkin life cycle, a magnifying glass and some little acrylic pumpkins to play with.  Imagine all the literacy and conversational opportunities that go along with a simple setup like this.  We can add to it based on the conversations we have with our friends, so it's a living representation of what our class is interested in.

We did some measuring this week, we measured how tall our pumpkins are...

 

We weighed them (with counting bears on the other side of the balance)...

 

 

We measured how big around the pumpkins are with yarn...

 

We found out if pumpkins sink or float...

 

 

We explored the inside of a couple of pumpkins.  How does it smell?

 

 

 

 How does it feel?

 

How does it look?

 

 

We finally carved it...

 

 

One of our goals is to always make learning visible.  Because of this, we have many different ways to document the learning that happens in our classroom.  One way that I love is to make a portfolio of each child's work for a LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME, that they can take home and show to mom and dad (and everyone else who will look).  We did this with our pumpkin investigations and it looks like this...  

On the back is some artwork that each child did with or about pumpkins.  Representing what we know is really showing what we have learned.

 

 

(Sorry it's sideways, I tried to fix it several times and there's only so much time I'm going to spend on something like that.)

 

 







Wrapping Up Our Space Study...

We wrapped up our Space Study this week, but I had some pictures to share.  Look at these astronauts working on blast-off sequences...

 

 

 

Looking out the porthole into space...

 

 

Trying on super cool space helmets...

 

 

 

This is how astronauts sleep, but I don't think they have quite so much fun with it!  You would be SHOCKED at how much these kids know about space!

 



 

 

 

We threw together a few space sculptures, including a robotic arm, a space shuttle and several space cats.  

 

 

 

Space bingo was super popular, as are all games.  

 

 

 

So, all the kids can talk about is pumpkins and Halloween, so we are going with it.  We have a BUNCH of pumpkins in our classroom, some real, some fake, some jack 'o lanterns,  some trick or treat pumpkins, as well as a bunch of gourds.  We will be doing a TON of activities with these over the next couple of weeks.  Can't wait.  In the meantime, we filled our sensory table with straw and pumpkins and small treasures.   Yes, it's messy. Yes, it gets all over the floor.  No, we don't care.

 

We did a little writing outside this week, since the weather's been so gorgeous.  We have quite a bunch of prolific writers.

 

We also found this guy outside and followed him around while he visited all the flowers in the garden, pollinating his little heart out.  And yes, my class of four-year-olds know what pollination is and why it's important.  This is my plan to save the earth.  I also have a well-developed plan for world peace, so if you would like to know about that, message me.

 

 

We made pumpkin pie play dough this week, the kids are having fun with it already.  They love the smell.

 

Playing with pumpkin pictures on the light table and adding features to demonstrate different emotions.  

 

 

 We measured how many pumpkins tall we are....

 

We went on a spooky walk (which is very similar to a Bear Hunt).

 

Can I just point out how lucky we are to have all the grownups we have in our classroom each day?  These college students add so much to all that we do.  This is Ms. Elise, who works in our classroom twice a week and really brings something special to our classroom.  

 

 

Ms. Amanda is an intern in our classroom, and helps us all in so many ways.  

 

We also have three other interns, as well as our regular work study students, who have been in our classroom for years and help us do all the amazing things we are able to do with your children.  So, thanks!

 

 



 

Starting Our Space Study...

Overheard in the classroom:

Child, "Does anyone know whose paper this is?  They did NOT write their name on it.  What's the rule in EE5?"

Another Child, "It's TOTALLY not mine."

A third Child, "It's TOTALLY not mine either.  And the rule is...you write your name on your paper."

Original child, "Are you sure this is TOTALLY not yours?"

I can't make this stuff up.



Some of the kids were talking about the hurricane today, and it occurred to me that sometimes we don't understand stress in small children.  Think about all the preparation we all went through to get ready just in case this hurricane was bad, and how  your children may have viewed that preparation.  We all know that the hurricane didn't do much damage in our area, but the kids have no way of understanding that.  We don't know WHAT they think of any of these stressful situations.  So we gave them the opportunity to talk about it in our classroom, at our meeting (large group) and again at the writing center (small group).  I would encourage parents to do the same, just listening to what their impressions are.  Here are a couple of drawings from today about the hurricane...

 

Please notice all the swirling rain and wind.  This must have been very scary to them.  In the second picture, those shapes are trees flying around.  

 

We all did a little post-hurricane clean up out on the playground today, adding all the sticks and debris onto the compost pile.  The kids were really helpful.

 

 

 

In spite of the storms this weekend, we did come in to find MANY passion flowers blooming--red and purple.  Aren't they pretty?

 

We added a little micro-play to our science center today.  Our sensory bin is filled with black beans, planets, astronauts, rocks, space vehicles, and some other cool stuff.  It' was pretty popular today.

 

We did a little paint stamping with stars and spacemen and added a little glitter because "space is very sparkly", as one of my friends told me. 

 

Some friends used tiny blocks to build structures like the ones on the pictures.  This is a really good fine motor and problem-solving activity, and there is also some negotiation going on as well.  

Patterning with stars....