Thursday, February 27, 2014

MATH!
(and more tacos and dragons...)

The children engaged in constructing some knowledge in good basic math skills.  We used my Unifix blocks a lot this week - I have used these blocks for math activities for children preschool through second grade, there are many things we can do with them.  Below, the children were able to copy a pattern . . .


Colin's first impetus was to put the blocks into towers of one color and then order them from shortest to tallest.






Noe and Colin were able to graduate from two color to three color patterns.


The children were anxious to color in the patterns that they created on their own . . .




The younger class enjoyed making a train with the blocks as long as they could!


Sinh also enjoyed comparing the lengths of the towers the children made - he was proud to have the longest.


The MWF class had a turn at making their own dragon.



The T/Th group enjoyed building their train track on the table.


And then went around and around and around the track!



We have had A LOT of superhero play lately!



On a "dragon-hunting"walk,  Jackson found a "dragon's eye"!


And we all searched for dragon eyes and dragon treasure in the rice this week.


When you find treasure, you get to sort it and count it!








The MWF group found a note that instructed them to find dragon dust outside (some of this imaginative play is coming from a book we look at about dragons.)


Noe found a little bag of it.


So we searched for other clues of the dragons on our walk.  "I think I see footprints!" said Colin.



Time to make tortillas in preparation for our taco party next week!



I brought in my pasta machine to help make the tortillas skinnier . . .



We had a little "tortilla kitchen" going on!




We take a ball of dough first and press it down hard with our hands.


Then roll it out to put into the machine.



The children helped to flip their tortillas in the pan.


Delicious!







Monday, February 24, 2014

What could be more fun than combining dragons and tacos?  The cute story below has been the impetus for many projects and imaginative play.  FYI, dragons DO NOT like salsa that is spicy.


We did a taste test of different kinds of tortillas and chips and sampled some pre-made organic salsa with it.


Hmmm, not bad.  Maybe these dragons are on to something!



We kept track of what kind of tortilla everyone liked.




Thanks for helping clean up, Molly!



Our next step was to make our own salsa!


Carefully cut tomatoes . . .




put them in the blender . . .


add some salt, sugar, garlic...





More taste-testing...amazing how some of the kiddos said, "I don't eat salsa" but they did!


All gone!




Good cooks!


The T/Th group decorated a big dragon together . . .


Fire comes out of their mouth if the salsa is too spicy, thanks for drawing that in, Lucas.


We decided to make our own dragons to take home too.


Blue paint and yellow paint make green.



We added feathers because most dragons have wings.


What a cute dragon, Lucas!


A whole herd of them!


Violet you look so pretty!


So much wind - we decided to make parachutes for our plastic animals out of plastic grocery bags.




Colin decorated the writing table area utilizing our fun tape!


More taco-making and dragon-hunting next week!