Sunday, March 18, 2012

SPRING IS COMING!

The children enjoyed this fun and simple story (above) about a child who discovers the qualities of warmer weather as the snow melts and the mud appears!

We decided to make our own mud with pudding...

and crushed oreos for the dirt!

One day there was a box with "something" in it.
We made guesses about what it was.
It turned out to be seeds for us to plant!


We each got a cup and we put some soil in it, poked holes with our finger and put our seeds in them and covered them up.  We decided to plant beans, like in Jack and the Beanstalk.  We took lots of good care to water our plants every day.  We predicted how many days it would talk them to sprout.

 

We also played with Jack's old hot wheels track, playing around with varying degrees of slant to see how fast the cars would go and which cars went down the track more easily than others - a good physics experiment.



 
Over the last few weeks we have been learning to "read" (memorize, sequence, pick out first letters of words and use pictures as cues for what the words say) this early reader, The Frog and the Fly.  It was fun to take turns being "teacher" and read it to each other.


We got out our number puzzles and were so much better at them!


We found some real mud outside and (below) celebrated Camille's third birthday! 


One day a new plant appeared.  It is green with pink speckles.  I asked the children to name the plant - we had many ideas and will try to decide on one this week.  Below, Jane looks at the plant with a magnifying glass.


A lot of the proof that the children are learning to socialize harmoniously is exemplified in how they make up games together outside. 


Both groups worked on a little zoo in the block area this week. 


Our pencil grips and ability to begin making more representational forms is coming along nicely!


We collected rocks this week and painted them gold/yellow for St. Patrick's Day...


One day we found a note that told us to look for our "gold" all over the room.


The note also gave us a recipe for some yummy green mints that we made...



Another spring activity we did this week was to decorate a tree branch.  We painted, added glitter, tissue, feathers and fabric.  Below, wrapping pipe cleaners around the branch proved to be a good fine motor activity.



Our beanstalks began growing!


We read a fun book about a sheep that designs her own t-shirts.  We began decorating our own this week...



We collected  more small branches in preparation to make a bird's nest this upcoming week.  Below, Owen has learned how to put his own shoes on!



 Elliott's family brought in an Amaryllis for us to plant!

Kaden and Karsten have been being wonderful dads...

Saturday, March 3, 2012

What is Green?








We began our first days of March through the lens of things that are GREEN . . .


Elliott made some great circular forms over and over on the paper - other children followed suit.


Having a place in the room to constantly pick up a marker or crayon and exercise our pencil grip and evolving variety of marks we make on paper is an important way to develop early writing skills. 


We colored on big paper with many shades and tones of green markers, crayons and oil pastels.
Below, we found blue and yellow paint in some shaving cream at the easel . . .



and found that it made a familiar color!  


Our green drawing evolved throughout the week (below) as we added scraps of green paper with glue.


Good cutting practice!


Kaden and Karsten made "pancakes" from our green play dough.



Our big green paper became our "beanstalk" as we play acted Jack and the Beanstalk!


Owen played "Jack" and is getting the gold from the sleeping giant (Elliott).


We created a castle and Jack's house for props for the beanstalk, based on pictures from the book we were reading.



And, we, of course, found green things in our room, to continue to distinguish our growing color-knowledge.


Other fun parts of our week . . .


The T/Th group having lots of FUN together outside!



Jane shared her music maker, that everyone really wanted to look at . . . 

Lilya mixing blue and yellow to make our star color of the week.


Friday, we tried "straw painting".