The Language of Paint

This morning, we added paint to the City Mural. The children who have sketched the buildings began to add color and more detail to their designs. We have spent the year trying to make sense of the world and our place in it so we are working to organize our ideas into our own "map."

Half of the buildings are completed and we will continue our work tomorrow. 

Clean Up to Beauty Up!

Yesterday, Birch spent the morning cleaning up the Hillside playscape.  They pulled weeds, raked up old leaves and rearranged a few tables to make room for more play space.  After cleaning, we talked about how we could make our space beautiful.  Flowers have been on the mind, so they all yelled "Let's plant some flowers."  So today we went out and started putting some soil together for some seeds,

As we were planting,  we found some planters that needed a little sprucing up.

Watering the new seedlings.

Repotting a new plant that was given to Birch.

Small Capers

The World needs Bees!

Birch had a visitor today.  LG grandpa is a Bee Keeper.  He came and shared with the children all about bees and what makes them so special to the world.

Things to talk about with your children:

• What do you wear to keep your body safe when working with bees?
• How do bees communicate?
• What is the job of a bee?

"The flowers are blooming." -MS

Back in December, we observed a tree on the hillside. You can click on the link below if you wish to look back. 

http://afcbirch.blogspot.com/2017/12/tree-observations.html

Today, we went to the hillside and observed the same tree.

Observations:

"The flowers are blooming."- MS

"There are white parts and green leaves. The tree is gray at the bottom." - AB

"I need to add my branches."- CS

"It's green and white."

How do we cook corn?

A few weeks ago we were playing with corn meal in the sensory table.  Some of the children started talking about what you could make with the cornmeal.  This led us to a discussion about all sorts of corn including popped corn and ears of corn.  

When the ears of corn appeared in the sensory table there was a lot of excitement!  

"How do we get the corn out?"   "Look! Some of the corn is white and some is yellow."  "Can we eat it?"

That questions led us to the kitchen where we discussed how to cook corn.

C - "I think you cook corn in the microwave!"

M - "You cook in on the stove in a bowl of water."

M, J, C, & D - "You should put it in the oven"

We decided to do all three and see what happened.  

After cutting the corn off of the cob, we taste-tested all three.  We were all surprised to find out that all three methods worked!  Even though the did all three work, the children all agreed that the pot of water method worked the BEST.   

Blogged by Ms. Lisa

What type of feathers are these?

A few weeks ago, we took a walk to Straub's to pick up some ingredients. During the walk, we noticed a hawk flying overhead and seemed to be protecting a nest. We took a different route on our way back and as we walked, we found one of the feathers we assume is from the hawk. Over the course of the next couple of days, the children found two other feathers. We spent the morning researching what type of bird the feather may belong to.  

We have a book full of birds that we looked through as well.

"Let me see if I can find it in here."- PW

One of the feathers we found is black and yellow. And we noticed black and yellow feathers on a type of woodpecker after using the computer to research. 

We sketched our own drawings of this type of woodpecker. 

Woodpecker sketches

Later that morning, we went on a quiet walk around the school to see if we could spot any birds. We saw some cardinals and heard some crows, but no luck with the woodpecker. 

Looking for birds

Yeah! It's Caper TIme!

The Birch classroom had a great time during Caper time this morning.  It started with he slimy goop.

Unto taking care of the babies,

Showing off our moves in the shadow dancing,

To hanging in the hallway and finding a small quiet stop to just sit and build with some manipulatives

Then to the Collaboratory where the sky's the limit.  

They made it to Maple where an Ice Cream Parlor was created and every flavor that you could imagine was sold.

Last, in Dogwood, the children played with some magnet builders that ended their morning.

What a wonderful day in Capering!