Can you feel the music?

Hello everyone and I hope you are all staying warm out there! The Birch room began today by sharing what we all ate for breakfast along with a few greeting games. For choices today, some friends played a letter game with letter dice! Others played a card game practicing their numbers. Some students designed letters out of fabric and blocks.

    

 


A group of students went with Ms. TC to exercise in the gym while others built structures out of our classroom blocks and played a counting game at the light table. Also during this time, students had an opportunity to listen to some jazz music in our art area and draw their feelings to the music. We talked about how to express feelings through the use of different colors and writing strokes. Before lunch, we read a book by Eric Carle called I See a Song. The students noticed how it started out as a black and white man beginning to play his violin. As the story continues, Eric Carle tells the story through his use of color and paint strokes. At the end of the story, the man is full of color and takes a bow after his performance. Reading this story brought a lot of conversation about the feeling of music and how people can feel different emotions from music. Hope you have a cozy evening!

Students playing math game 

Students drawing to the jazz music

Happy Monday!

Good afternoon and it was a short but exciting day at school! We began our morning by playing some card games and practicing our number recognition. Others built a great big structure with our blocks! They added detail to their creation by using loose parts and they were very proud of their city they created. Some students created books while others exercised in the hallway. The students took turns pulling each other on the scooters!

 

 

Stay tuned for more Birch adventures later this week!

It's pizza day!

Good afternoon and happy Friday! We began our morning with a few morning greeting games and making choices. Today, our choices consisted of building with loose parts and blocks, playing a number identification game, and building names and words with letter tiles and writing them! Building and writing letters and words was a great challenge for the kids and they seemed to be excited to do this "big kid" activity.

 
 


We continued our morning by playing and exercising in the gym. Some friends started to lead others in a yoga class on the big blue mat and others were practicing some dancing and stretching. We had some friends build structures out of wooden materials while others completed puzzles.

Later on in the classroom, we enjoyed more puzzle making and self portraits. The students seem to really enjoy finding their skin color with our multicultural writing materials. Other friends used tiles to build a computer. The kids also played with our dramatic play doll set.

 

We danced to some music before our delicious pizza lunch. Have a great weekend with your child!

Tying and marbles and Jazz

Hello everyone! The Birch room has participated in a lot of activities and fun! We began our morning by sharing what we ate for breakfast. Our choices this morning consisted of experimenting with the sand and clay, building with loose parts, designing with buttons, and playing Uno games. Some students practiced their number recognition by sorting the Uno cards! Others practiced their tying knots and bows with string and weaving. Another group covered the Hundreds Chart with beads as they named the numeral.

 

In the collaboratory, the students built a house with no front door or roof. They used the wind tunnel to see if they could get the scarves to land in the house.Other friends went to the Tinker Room and created mushrooms out of loose parts and practiced their weaving on the weaving wall. While weaving, they created a bird's nest out of the colorful yarn.

 

Before lunch, we painted and experimented with marbles and a variety of styrofoam containers. The students enjoyed testing out the marbles and the "tracks" inside the different containers. We ended our morning by dancing to more jazz. We practiced our dance moves and what it looks like to dance in one area and respect other people's space. The kids seem to really enjoy the jazz music and it is a great way for them to express their feelings! Don't be surprised if you come into our room and we are swinging to the music!

Let's learn about Rosa Parks!

The Birch room has been full of energy today! That being said, we have done a lot of physical activities!

To start the morning, the kids came into the classroom talking about the jazz music we listened to yesterday. We listened to more jazz and shared the instruments we heard and researched these types of instruments! We watched a few videos on how musicians play a trumpet, trombone and clarinet. After our little jazz session, the students made choices throughout the classroom. Some built their names out of letter tiles while others made designs with fabric and color tiles. Another choice was to draw a piece of still art (acorns, seashells and sticks). 

 

 

 

We continued our morning by playing in the gym with our Magnolia friends. Back in the classroom, a group of students spent some time at the still art and talking about their families and pets. It was fun to share these stories with one another and continue to learn about the students' home lives. 

The class came back together and we read one of our We Stories book about Rosa Parks. Before reading the book, we talked about what we observed from the illustrations on the cover of the book. Some students made a prediction about the book saying "She is going home on the bus., She is going to get on the bus., and She is on her way to work." Rosa Parks helped people learn how to be nice to one another. People in Rosa's town began following Rosa and realizing that it was important to be nice to other people, even if they look different than you. 

We began talking about the differences between the students in our classroom, such as skin tone, hair, eyes and height. One of the students asked, "Did Rosa Parks have a heart?" A handful of students said yes because she was a person and this struck up a conversation how we all have the same things on the insides of our bodies and how we look different on the outside. This was such a great conversation to witness and we were very impressed by the connection the students were making. Stay tuned for more reading about leaders and role models of our world!

Discovering Jazz

Happy Tuesday to you all! I hope you had a great weekend with your family. The kids were excited to be back at school with all of their friends and they were ready to have a great day full of play and learning!

We began our morning by talking about some activities we did over the weekend. A lot of friends talked about the snow and some even made cookies! Our play choices consisted of drawing a picture of a friend, creating designs out of loose parts, drawing on the art easel, and identifying numbers on a 100's chart with beads. Some students played a game on covering the given number with a bead. They took turns being the "teacher" and the "student."

  

Later on, a group went down to the collaboratory. Back in the classroom, some students wanted to make an elephant out of the clay. We talked about what an elephant looks like and we even did some research for a picture of an elephant. Each child took a turn drawing on our group sketch. After sketching out an elephant design, we got to work! The students decided what part of the elephant they were creating and we put the pieces together. When the rest of our class returned to the classroom, we shared our sketch and clay model of an elephant. This inspired other friends to work together and create an object out of clay. A different group of students decided to create a cat! We looked up a picture of a cat on the computer and the students began their art piece.

 

 

As the morning continued, we worked on decorating our new classroom "Birch" sign. We created this out of loose parts and plan to hang it on our classroom wall! Make sure to check it out in the next couple of days.

To end our morning, we started to read some of our We Stories books. Today's book was called "Dream Big, Little One" by Vashti Harrison. The author wrote about famous people and leaders in history. We began talking about the meaning of the word "leader." Some students shared how a leader can be "strong, brave, not scared, confident, and set a good example."

One of the people in the story was a great Jazz musician/singer. The students became curious about jazz, asking what it is and what it sounds like. After reading, we turned on some jazz music. The students closed their eyes and shared what instruments they heard and how the music made them feel. After listening, the kids wanted to dance to the music. They shared how they felt "calm, relaxed, quiet, at peace, sleepy" and "happy." After playing some smooth jazz, we turned on some upbeat jazz and the kids were dancing and swinging with the music! They seemed to really enjoy this new discovery and shared how they would like to listen to more jazz! Don't be surprised if you see us swinging to the music in the Birch room!

Friday Fun

Good afternoon and happy Friday! The students have been building structures, reading, stamping, riding bikes and counting to 100! We began our morning with our usual morning routine. The students built cakes with loose parts and Kenetic sand, and practiced building numbers out of beads and loose parts on the light table. While building in the collaboratory, we built a big rocketship and sent Ms. Abby off to outer space! They also built a remote control which they could control the rocket down on earth, ha!

 

 


Later on, we went and exercised in the gym. We rode bikes and built a big elevator for our play people. Some students also built a track for cars and balls. When we returned to the classroom, we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate that some of the students made in the kitchen with Ms. Gayle! After hearing the story of Billy Goats Gruff, some friends made up their own stories or acted out classic fairy tales. The students are also loving our new addition to our calming corner in the classroom. Ms. Lauren and Ms. Katie added a nice cover over this area to make it nice and cozy! Take a peak when you pick your child up this afternoon! Have a great, long weekend!