Field Trip to the Environmental Interpretive Center!

This past weekend we had a field trip to the Environmental Interpretive Center (EIC) on U of M-Dearborn's main campus!  We invited our families to meet us on Saturday morning so that they could share the experience with their children, and other siblings.

We began our morning with a look around the building of the EIC - they have a bug room, an observatory space, and lots of neat information about our local environment.  The children had fun exploring the building and it was great to see them begin to form a connection with campus!

We then began our walk to the pond.  We walked through the woods, listening to the sounds in the woods and looking at the incredible views of nature.  We had two guides from the EIC who shared a lot of information with us about different trees, plants, and animals.  Once we got to the pond, we spoke about how to be safe while exploring, and then were able to watch for different wildlife.  After a little while, we came together and learned how to take samples from the pond.  The children were then offered the opportunity to scoop samples with a net, collect the sample into a bin, and then observe all of the insects and fish they caught.  We were given sheets to help us identify the samples from the pond. 

We spoke about the samples we collected as a group, and the guides shared neat bits of information about each type of insect. We walked back to the EIC, had a picnic lunch, and then went for a short nature walk to the lake!

Even though it was a hot and humid day, all of the children did really well and learned a lot - and so did the adults!  We are very fortunate to have a place like the EIC to teach us about our local environment and since they are open to the community we hope our families will continue to visit!

 We have been working on another way to represent our face. In the beginning of the year we started drawing and examining each part, now the children are sculpting themselves out of clay. We have started with just our face. Soon we will start thinking about how to represent our entire body out of clay.

Our self portraits have been hung in frames on the wall. The children have been practicing adding details to each aspect of their face. We are excited to share all their hard work with you! 

Art has been a big part of our classroom from the beginning of the year. Different pieces of art work using many different mediums will be on display throughout the classroom. 

Creating our own classroom with in the classroom. With Ms. Schmidt, the children have been exploring the roles in a school. They have made name tags, build desks, assigned roles and acted out a typical day. We even interviewed Ms. Kathy about her job in our school. 

Planting Seeds

As Spring approaches the children helped us to get a head start on planting seeds for in our garden. Our plan is to grow the seeds inside in our "greenhouse" until it is warm enough to plant them outside. The kids were very excited! We asked them, "What should we plant in our garden?" Their responses were: sunflower, roses, cucumber, green beans, peppers, tomatoes. The next step was to ask the children, "What do you know about plants?" They drew their response on a white board and shared it with the class.

We then got down to planting. The green house came with dirt pods. We needed to first add water to the pod to make it grow before we could put the seeds into the dirt. The children worked their fine motor skills by squeezing drops of water onto the pod with pipettes. 

 

Then we had to wait! All of the seeds were planted, labeled and closed up in the greenhouse. Here is how they grew!

Day 1

Day 3

Day 6

Ms. Schmidt's Newsletter

Exploring the Sports of the Winter Olympics

Winter Olympics

For the last two weeks we have been learning about the Olympics. We showed the children videos of all of the different sports. We also showed them the medals and how each Olympics have a different design on their medal. The children then created their own gold, silver and bronze medals. Some children even brought in medals from home to share. We have enjoyed this experience and are seeing it connect to other things we are doing in the classroom. The most popular sport was definitely bobsledding. We will continue to explore the idea of building a bobsled as it develops through the children's play. 

Sending people down the luge

We froze people in ice then send them down an old gutter. The children loved seeing how fast the people moved. 

Building a Bobsled

The children have been very excited about bobsledding. They used the large blocks to make a big enough bobsled for everyone to fit in. They would watch the video and say, "Ahhhhhhh" as the bobsled went down the ice. They also moved their bodies like the people in the sled

Ice Hockey

To explore the idea of ice hockey, the children build goals out of blocks and used tubes as their sticks. They worked together with their team to score the ball into the goal. Hannah was the goalie for the one side and she guarded the goal. The other children moved the ball with the stick trying to score. 

Curling

To get the children thinking about curling, we made a target on the floor just like they do for the sport. The children threw bean bags on the target. They then used number sentences to add up their point to see who got the highest score. 

Skiing

This was one of the favorites for our class. We showed the kids a video of downhill skiing. They then used the flat blocks as their skis and tubes as their poles. They glided around the block area and moved their bodies like the athletes on the mountain. 

Island of Green

For the Island of Green we tried zucchini and avocado. 

Island of Yellow

This week we tired Starfriut and Spagetti Squash.

Here is what you could make at home: 

Island of Orange

Today for the Island of Orange we tried orange pepper and fresh peaches.

The Island of Red

Last week we tried cherry tomatoes and red grapefruit. We had mixed reviews of each. 

Creating Frozen Natural Material Sun Catchers

 The children added natural materials like flower pedals, seeds, leaves, and sticks to a container they chose. They then added water and picked a color of water color to add. After their sun catchers were created, we placed them outside to freeze them.  We popped them out of their containers and hung them outside our window so everyone could see them. Each frozen sun catcher is very unique! The children are excited to see how long they will last until they melt.