Arbor Day Walk

 Happy Friday! Today during our morning meeting we had a conversation about how today is a special day called National Arbor Day. Some of the class said they have heard of Arbor Day and some have never heard of it before. Our class wondered what Arbor Day was and why it was special. We talked about how Arbor Day is about planting and taking care off trees. Our class decided that we can take care of trees in our community by not picking off leaves and branches. 

One child also remembered that the Sycamore class planted a tree in the forest and we could check on it today. On our walk we looked at many different trees in the neighborhood and tried to figure out what type of tree they were. Some of the trees we found were dogwood, maple, and pine trees. We searched the neighborhood for a birch tree but we did not find one today. We will continue to use our eagle eyes on our walks to see what trees we can discover. Have a great weekend!

"I see the momma bird in the nest!" -A

We found a dogwood tree!

"This tree is so tall!" -M.Y.

"That's a pine tree" -M.R.

We had to check on little tree!

We also checked on the small plum trees that are planted at the front of the forest.

We noticed a lot of construction going on in Webster today.

Thursday Fun

Today we went to the gym to ride bicycles, climb the rock wall, and have fun with the gym room materials. Students enjoyed kicking around the stuffed soccer balls and throwing them in the basketball hoop. Back in the classroom we practiced weaving and used our imaginations to build new structures. Then we decided to go outside and dry off the slide. Everyone had fun taking turns going down the slide and wanted one more turn. We also collected some sticks and leaves to create more nature collages.  

Our class has been learning about the Earth and how to take care of it.  Today we read another book on recycling, which talked about how glass bottles are recycled into new bottles. Whenever we talk about recycling T. always brings over our blue recycle container.  Ask your child what they can recycle today.

Rainy Day Explorations

 Good afternoon! In the morning our class explored painting with colored ice cubes on watercolor paper. Some of the class wondered how I made colored ice cubes to paint with so I asked "How did I make ice cubes colorful?" Some of our ideas were: 

"You probably put paint in them to make the different colors" -M.Y.

"You used cold and hot water to make the ice cubes. I don't know about the colors" -F

"I think you used food coloring to make them different colors" -A

"You must have used water paint! But now they are melting!" -T

After painting with our ice cubes we decided to use them for our ocean animal small world play. One child said "These ice cubes are melting all over my animals!" On the projector today we used small colorful shapes to make designs on the wall. We traced our designs and colored them in using markers and a big piece of paper on the wall. Ask your child about their favorite part of our rainy day.

"Ms. Brittany, can you turn on the floor is lava song? Then we can pretend to stay off the lava" -A

Sycamore Tree at the Forest

Today we walked to the forest. We looked at the new sign another classroom had put up on the tree they planted. M.B. explained that her sister wrote the sign. She then showed us her name on a popsicle stick by the tree. We talked about how planting trees benefit the Earth. We have been talking in class about how we can help take care of the Earth. We look forward to watching the tree grow and maybe someday it will be big enough for us to climb on it. Until then we will continue climbing our favorite climbing trees and logs. Ask your child what they can do to help take care of Earth.

“This is our sycamore tree. I planted it too.” -M.B.

“We just love mud,” -T.

“I can use my stick to jump over the mud,” -A.

“Over here,” -T.

“Let’s play the 3 little cheetahs,” -F.

“I like 3 little pigs because my mom has that book,” M.Y.

Ramp Exploration

 Good afternoon! Today in our classroom some of the class decided they wanted to make art for our custodian, Ms. Lavern. They decorated pictures with markers and helped hang up the artwork on her door. When Ms. Lavern saw the artwork she was very surprised and told us that it made her Monday a little bit brighter. On the playscape we explored new materials for the sandbox area such as funnels, scoops, and sand shapers. We also discovered a new ramp set in the sandbox area and decided to build ramps to roll balls down. Our class also found a big family of roly-polies outside under a piece of bark. They decided to help take care of them and loved watching them roll up into little balls. We brought one roly-poly inside in a small cup to watch in the classroom. Ask your child about their favorite part of today!

Can you spot our baby roly-poly?