Tuesday

This morning, the children drew observational drawings of pumpkins on the table using oil pastels. 

The children took time to notice differences in each of the pumpkins. 

"I don't need that orange, I need the one that looks like these lines."- RJ

                                                           

CS drew her pumpkin taking a closer look. She said, "I need green for the stem." 

"I want to draw the one that looks like fire."- AK

                                                                          

Later in the morning, a group of children went visit the Forest after being away for a few weeks. 

Please be sure to dress appropriately for outdoors this time of year!!

Balancing

Catching Up!

Let' catch up with what's happening with the learning taking place with the baby play in the classroom.  The children have been very busy with not just playing with the babies, but adventuring deeper about why they care for the babies.

Their last dicussion has been about the recent storms in Texas and Florida.  The children became very concerned about what was happening to the babies of families.  We had many meetings about what babies need.  They named items like diapers, bottles, blankets, bibs, and formula.  This group meeting led to the children wanting to do something for the babies that were affected by the storms.

A small group met with Ms. Marty and shared their idea of collecting baby items to send to the babies in Texas and Florida. Morgan said: "Babies don't have stuff, we need to send them  things."  Layla said We take care of the babies in the classroom, we should care of other babies like that."  With Ms. Marty's excitement, the children started planning how this adventure would work for the program.  So, the small group started planning and sharing their thoughts and ideas with the classroom.  Everyone is so excited and helping to make the collection a great success.

While that is taking place, the love for caring for the babies is taking front seat in the classroom.  Check out the love below.

Can't wait to see what happening next in Birch with the babies.  Stay tuned!

Small Capers

            A small group of children went outside on this beautiful fall day.

        Our neighbors in Maple have tadpoles in their room.

                     Observational drawings of the tadpoles 

                 Exploring magnets vertically in Dogwood

                    And children from a lot of different spaces investigated the maps

                                 And the globe 

Fun Day with our Visitor

Today in Birch, we had a visitor come and share all about Fall with the chldren.  Ms. Jana, Lucas's mom stopped by.  She shared that when walking outside in your yard you can find many wonderfrul things that show that fall is coming.  She showed the children several different items that they found in their yard.

Jana had leaves for the children to toss in the air.  Look at the fun!

The children had time to explore the many found itens from their walk.

Next, the children went to the kitchen and made a new batch of playdough with Ms. Jana.  Can you guess what color they made the playdough?

ORANGE!  The color of fall.

What a great morning with Ms. Jana!

Experiment

                                                We did an experiment in the classroom this 

                                             morning. We used baking soda, vinegar, a bottle, 

                                             and a balloon. The children predicted what might 

                                                happen when the two ingredients mixed up. 

                                                                  

                                                                 "It will explode."- CS

                                                   "That the balloon might pop off of that."- CI

                                                       "The balloon is going to come off."- LB

                                                                      "Pop."- CG

                                              "Maybe the balloon will fly around this school."- CS

                                                     

                                                               

"It's getting bigger." -CS

                                                               

                                                              

How did it do that?

                                                             

"It's getting little."- CI

                                                       

Larger Scale of the Community

 Making a community on a larger scale.   The children started to reconstruct their map of the community on a larger scale.  They are using the larger rug in the classroom to recreate their streets and community favorite places. 

Adding houses.

Relaxing in their houses.

And just enjoying a friend in their houses.

Manipulating loose materials

The children used the table with tape as their canvas for designs this morning. 

Can you see patterns?

Sorting and classifying 

Sorting

The children were sorting beans and asking many questions about what is each type of beans.  The children hit many goals with this activities.  They sorted by color, size and type of bean. With sorting  the beans, using the twezzers, the children strenghten the fine motor skills for writing.  Playing is fun and developmental at the same time.