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.)

 

 







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....

 

 





Inside the Classroom, and Outside the Classroom...

This week we did some early documentation with our class.  We got name-writing samples from each of them, they made a self-portrait, took their own selfies, the children started signing in as well as their parents, and we talked about their favorite things, which we are compiling into a class book (coming soon!).  Why would we do all these things?  Are they "assessments"?  Are they tests?  Are we comparing your children's abilities to everyone else's?

NO!  We want to have documentation so that at the end of the year, you can see exactly how far your child has progressed.  Imagine comparing your child's self-portrait from the beginning of the year to the one they will do at the end.  It will AMAZE you.  The only comparing we will do is your child's work over time.  That's all the comparing I hope you will do too. 

So what did we DO this week?  Lots of things....we went on a Bear Hunt together.  (Please note that if children choose not to participate, it's okay with us.  Some children need to watch and make sure things are okay to do for them--we're good with that)

 

 

We read about a million stories.  Which we love to do.

 

 

We built with translucent blocks on the light table--very hard to photograph.

 

We played in the water table.  I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH... If your child is having a hard time, fill up the sink, pull up a chair for  them to stand on and dump some plastic utensils into the sink.  Done.

 

 

Each week, our class has a gardening lesson.  This week we walked around the garden and identified the things that are growing there right now.  We saw watermelon, papaya, banana trees, a lime tree, eggplant, a big weird squash, and we tasted some Muscadine grapes right off the vine. 

 

 

We also ate some sunflower seeds that were still soft.  Did you know you could eat them like that?

 

The other part of our lesson was learning about the plant life cycle which we did by telling a story similar to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by   It was called Sunshine, Sunshine, What Do You See?  and it had felt board pieces that we all got to add to the story board.

 

After that, we ate a watermelon from the garden and saved the seeds to plant next summer.  I'd say that was a great day in the garden!





 All in all, we had a great week. 

Documentation...

I LOVE documentation.  This blog is documentation, displays in our classroom are documentation, discussions with the children are documentation.  Documentation is making the learning VISIBLE. 

For example, we are learning about great artists and different styles of art.  Over the next few weeks, you will probably see a good amount of art on here and coming home, as well as all over the walls (and hanging from the ceilings, and in the windows) in our classroom. 

First we asked the children what they know about art, this is what they said....

 

We looked at some pictures of the Pointillism style (at the top of our dry erase board) and talked about how we can make dots.  We decided together (or THEY decided, rather) that we could use Q-tips, our fingers, the dot painters, pencils, or markers.   We read a really good book called "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds.  Our first project was using Q-tips....

 
 
 

 

We also did some color mixing and each child made at least one card with their own personal color on it.  I personally think these look amazing together.  

 

 We painted some Kandinsky-style circles--trees and abstracts.

 

Easel painting galore!  I think this particular painting is VERY interesting.  Obviously a square face...

 

 

A little transient art, which is temporary, then left for someone else to add to or change.

 

 

 

More transient art on the light table, with shapes.

 

 

 

Makin' Mud in our outdoor classroom during Gardening time...

 

 

And painting with said mud.

 

 

More outdoor classroom photos--this is the mud kitchen, or should we say the SAND KITCHEN?!

 

 

Reading a story with some good friends outside is really good for whoever wants to join us.

 

And of course, a little art outside.