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.

 

Curriculum Night

We have been busy getting everything ready for you all to visit at Curriculum night. Here is a sneak peak as to what you will see when you join us on Wednesday, Novemebr 15th at 5pm.

Animal Habitats

With Ms. Mary the children have been learning about different animal habits. She first had the children use animals on a map. She asked them where each animal lived. They then started looking for closely to the different kinds of habits like the ocean, the forest, the dessert.

                            


Patterns

With Ms. Shareese the children have been exploring patterns. They used color tiles to create patterns then took cameras and searched around the room for all kinds of patterns.

Boats

We have been learning about boats in many different ways. The children drew their boats and constructions a model from their plan. We also have been working on building a boat in the block area. We designed an ocean scene for the wall to go with our boat.

                                

Great 8 Eats

This is our restaurant. We have created a menu, learned about the different job and used recipes. We are excited to serve you on curriculum night!

         

Dear Parents/Guardians,

My name is Ms. Rowe I am an intern in your child’s classroom. I am at the ECEC every Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. By now, your child may have told you about some class explorations we have been working on such as our restaurant theme activities. So far, we have explored jobs of people in a restaurant, menus, and recipes where the children have made tea and lemonade. The activities are based off of the children’s interest and are in connection with Early Childhood standards and assessment where children are able to initiate ‘shared thinking’ with peers and adults and explore experiment and ask questions freely.

    

Exploring these lessons with your children has been a pleasure. In the next few weeks, we will be exploring ice cream recipes, creating our own trail mix, and the responsibilities of waiters/waitresses. I would like to incorporate the children’s home experiences into our restaurant exploration so we welcome any recipes, menus, and restaurant items you can share that we can use in our exploration.

Curriculum Night is coming soon! You’re invited November 15, 2017 at 5:00 p.m. We will be showcasing many of the exciting exploration your child has been working on. We would like you to come by and talk with your child about their explorations. Hope to see you there.

~ Ms. Rowe

What's happening in room 8?

As the weeks have progressed the children have shown us more the the concepts they want to explore more with us. We look forward to seeing where these projects will take us.

We continue to explore aspects of the restaurant. Mrs. Rowe have been working with the children on reading recipes. They have made tea and lemonade by following each step in a recipe. To build upon this idea the children worked together to make apple sauce. They first chopped the apples, then added all of the ingredients into the crock pot to be cooked. While they added the ingredients they took turns writing down the amount for each one. After the apples were done cooking, we put them in a bowl to mash them into apple sauce.

What do you know about boats?

We have noticed the children continue to build boats in the block area. They talk about the different parts of a boat and what they can do on the boat. These are some o the designs we were seeing. 

To inspire them even more be projected a picture of a lake on the wall and played water sounds through our sound machine. This brought about the biggest and most popular boat design of all. They build a large platform so everyone could fit them added the wall. Soon after windows and batteries were added to the boat. They even had a ramp for get on and off the boat. 

Our next step is to have the children each draw their design for a boat. We will build for each child's plan to learn more about the different kinds of boats. 

First week of school

We have enjoyed getting to know one another this first week of school. We are already seeing many areas of focus for the children. 

Introducing Oreo and Blue!

This week we voted on names for our gerbils. We took all of the suggestions the children gave us at Meet the Teacher last week and let the child cast their vote for which names they liked the best.

They have been a very big topic of conversation this week. The children have been asking questions like: What do they eat? When do they sleep? We look forward to researching more about what they do and how to take care of them.

Restaurant Coming Soon!

The kitchen has become a popular place for the children to interact with one another. We will be digging deeper into what a restaurant needs, how it works and the people involved.

Constructing

As we explore all of the materials our classroom has to offer we are noticing the children constructing in many ways. We will continue to share our ideas as we investigate further this concept. 

 

Curriculum Night Spring 2017...April 12th...please, join us!

We look forward to exploring what the children have been exploring together so you can join in the thinking! 
Notes from the interns:
Hello Families,

Working on a design for a maze

I have enjoyed working with your child twice a week. We have learned a lot over the past two months from each other. It’s been great getting to know each of the children and I look forward to learning more about each of them throughout the rest of the semester. I have done a lot of hands on activities with the children, which have included building of different structures. 
The first two weeks I was in the classroom, the children worked on building mazes out of different materials each time. I decided to have the children draw a design of a maze they would like to build on another day based off the different ways they had made the mazes before. Casey had made a path in his maze design, so I had a class discussion about what a path is and we talked about where we see paths every day. 

Exploring how to build a path and move through it

After our discussion about paths, I had them add a path to their drawing of a maze and add anything else they might also want. We practiced building a path and the children were able to drive cars through the path. Some of the students decided to crawl and walk through the path instead. Some of the children had added a bridge to their maze design. We then explored building bridges. My plan is for the children to explore the different parts a maze might have.

Working together to build a bridge out of blocks

During these activities, the children are developing a simple sketch, drawing or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem. Throughout these explorations, the children will be using team work while building and creating things. One way you can participate in the children’s exploration could be sending in any pictures you might have of yourself or your child at different structures you have visited. For example, the Mackinac Bridge. I would like to invite you to the Curriculum Night at the Early Childhood Education Center on April 12th from 4:30pm to 6pm. I look forward to seeing you there and telling you more about the explorations we are working on. ~Ms. Hanton

Exploring the World of Frogs!

Drawing a picture of the frog jumping

Since the beginning of my internship. I have watched the children very closely and discovered that they love animals. In the classroom, there’s a pet shrimp. Being an animal enthusiast as well I decided it would be a great idea to introduce my frogs Fred and Ed to the children. The children started with observing the two tree frogs. From there the children have been wonderful scientists. The students used observation to gather information about the frogs. They wanted to know where the frogs live, what they eat, and how they stick to the wall.Students wondered why  the frogs were not in water.  It came as a surprise that these frogs live in trees. The children also use the materials around them to make predictions regarding the frogs. They noticed pictures of worms and crickets. Learning that the frogs eat mealworms and crickets; they had the opportunity to feed the frogs mealworms and watch how the frogs ate. Many of these are coming up because of their interest in the frogs. Students also had the opportunity to draw what they saw.

                                                                                                                                                                              

We were interested that the tree frogs did not live in the pond. We decided it would be a great idea to build a tree frog habitat for Fred and Ed to stay in while being in the kindergarten classroom. In the classroom the students had a red worm colony. They enjoyed being able to compare mealworms and red worms. Mealworms evolve to become black beetles. The students were shocked to find out that these worms don’t turn into butterflies but black beetles. Toward the end of our discussion we built a habitat for the mealworms using oats for bedding and slices of potatoes for food/water source.

                                                        Exploring mealworms

(website:http://eschooltoday.com/ecosystems/what-is-an-ecosystem.htm)

After learning about habitats, the students were wondering who the tree frogs neighbors are. In this lesson, the students learned about the ecosystem. The frogs' ecosystem was being destroyed by natural disasters and by humans. They learned that when people cut down trees to build homes they are destroying the frogs' habitat. Lastly, they learned about the food chain and what creatures eat frogs. The students used a computer to navigate a website that taught the ecosystem and had a game that the children can play which taught them about the food chain.


We would like to welcome you to our curriculum night to further discuss what we have been doing in our class.The Early Childhood Curriculum Night will be at the ECEC on April 12 from 4:30-6 p.m. Hope to see all of you there!!! ~Mrs. Ahmad

Classroom Explorations:

As we were building tall, the children were “decorating” the buildings . We started calling this building with details. They used everything they could find in the block area to add to their building. We introduced the book Arches to Zigzags: An Architecture ABC. This book helped to identify architecture vocabulary. We read the book a few pages at a time. Then the children built incorporating the details corresponding to the new vocabulary.
 


 

We have become the experts about many creatures this year. Worms and frogs have been of great interest this term. We have even been teaching the toddlers in Room 2 about worms!

The children have shown an interest in music and musical instruments. We have explored drums, auto harps, piano, and bells, in addition to rhythm instruments. While they were using these instruments the children were creating performances. We asked the children, "What do you need for a Performance?" They responded with:

Stage- we built a stage out of the blocks for the people to stand.

Lights- we added different colored lights to shine down on the stage. 

They continue to add components to the performance area as well as to their musicality. 

 We look forward to sharing all of their learning with you and are grateful you have chosen to share your children with us!! +Peace, Cyndi and Suzette  (Mrs. McAuliffe and Ms. Zoia)