Birch trees and building

Reminder that we have family chats this Thursday! See some of you then!

Good afternoon! We hope you are enjoying this beautiful day. The Birch room seized the day and took a walk outside to search for some birch trees in our neighborhood! We were successful in finding the trees! The class was very excited. Here are some of the birch trees we found in our lovely Webster community.

Before our walk this morning, the students built with loose parts, practiced signing in their names, and building with the blocks.

"This is a chocolate, gooey birthday cake. Happy birthday, Ms. Abby!"

"This is a strawberry vanilla cake. It's so yummy. Blow out the candles!"

More building...
The students had a question waiting for them at the block area this morning and it read, "How can you build a home for these animals?" A group of students got to work! Some students built fences with the blocks in order to keep the animals inside.

 A few students built a vertical house, one room for each animal.

 MC: 'The animals have doors."

Teacher: "How do they get down from their rooms?"

MC: "They have jetpacks to help them fly down."

The students continued to add a room for every animal they collected.

"The giraffe is really tall! It needs three blocks."

As time passed, some students began to noticed the tall animal building and asked AB and MC if they could help build. The structure became so tall, the students realized that they needed chairs to stand on in order to reach the top!

"It's almost as tall as the lamp!"

Teacher: "How many animals did you fit in your structure?
Student: "1,2,3..." (continued to count to eleven). "Eleven! Wow, eleven animals! Let's do more!"

The students added more rooms. The blocks could not take anymore weight or height on the structure and it came crumbling down. With a great attitude, the students decided to build it again, except with more rooms! What a creative house they built for the animals!


The birch room participated in a severe weather drill with the rest of the school. We walked to our "severe weather spot" and practiced protecting our heads  in case of an emergency. The students did a great job with listening to directions and staying safe!

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Building Challenges

Welcome back from the weekend! The kids were very excited to see all of their friends at school and they were ready to begin their day! We started this morning by completing our morning routines and switching classroom jobs. Ask your child if they have a classroom job this week! The students completed a puzzle, and built tall towers with a variety of blocks.

It is beautiful outside, so we decided to adventure out to the playscape. The students enjoyed the nice cool breeze while climbing in a tree, building in the rock pit and swinging on the swings.

As the morning continued, the class divided into small groups. Some students went out on the hillside with Ms. Susie to take pictures of cracks that they found in nature. Here are some pictures of their findings!

Other students stayed in the classroom to answer and complete the question: "How can we connect the green and gray carpet with our classroom materials?" They were up for the challenge! They began this project by using the classroom rectangular blocks to build a "pathway" to the gray carpet. The students continued this challenge by building a path cross the gray carpet and back down to the green carpet to create a circle.

They were so excited about their accomplishments, that they wanted to build a connecting path from the green carpet to the carpet under the light table! 

They more times they completed their goal, the students wanted to continue building around the classroom. After some hard work (and great team work) they built paths to connect every carpet in the classroom...they even included the carpet in the back hallway!

While building, some friends identified several letters made out of the paths and materials.

"This is the letter 'T.'"

AB found a "y, v, and d."

ET saw "h and a" while building. 

RM created a "t and y."

After they connected every carpet, the rest of the class came into the classroom to observe their classmates' accomplishments. The other students were very impressed, as was Ms. Susie! Way to go, Birch friends!

Frog in the forest!

Happy Friday! We sure love the forest day! The Birch students began their day by building, designing and completing a 100 piece puzzle.

After making choices, the students held a class meeting to guess the mystery items I brought in for the class. The students listened closely as they shook the bag to guess what was inside. They felt how the items were "bumpy, spikey and round." Some students wanted to guess how many "round things" were in the bag. We had a wide range of guesses, from four all the way to one hundred!

The class opened the bag and the mystery items were more buckeyes! We passed them around and guessed how many buckeyes are currently in the yellow balls. Some kids shook them to see if they could hear the buckeye inside of the "yellow ball." The students want to see how many days it will take for them to crack open! 

We ended our morning in the beautiful forest. There was a lot of discoveries in the forest! Such as new flowers, berries and a baby frog! The students played with the baby frog and returned him to his home after this fun playdate. Students hunted for treasures and climbed trees. 

Have a fabulous weekend!

A Caper Building Challenge

Today in Birch our Building Challenge was 

"Can you build a structure as tall as you?" 

 We had lots of friends up for the challenge. 

Students had all different plans as to how they were going to build their structures.  Some students grab a partner for help and others worked on their own.  Some structures were tall and straight pieces stacked one on top of the other.  Some were more elaborate with angles and arches.

 

"It's not as big as yes yet. We need more pieces."  

 

"This one is my size!" 

 

This building challenge took persistence and perseverance.  It was great to see teamwork as students were helping each other build or cheering them on as they got close to completing their structure.

"I did it!" 

"Stedy, stedy, stedy"

 

H: "Its almost done! I can't see"
B: "I'm making sure its not going to fall over."

 

The students also enjoyed measuring themselves against each other's structures.  

C: "I did it!"

W: "I fits me!"

 

C decided to bring an arch over to help him reach the top.  

Teacher: "C, you grew! Now is your structure taller than you or smaller than you?"

C: "I need more pieces"

C gets off the  arch and says, "Its really big!"

 

W. "It's really bigger than me!"

Towards the end of capers I notice A. making a design on the other carpet.  I was going to ask him what he was doing, but then he laid down next to it measuring himself.  He noticed he was longer than the structure.  He got up and grabbed two more rectangle blocks.  He measured himself again. 

"This is too much. I think I need a square one."

A: "This is right!" 

I love how A took our structure question into a whole new direction than what the teachers were thinking.  We never know how the children can guide our learning.