We're Going on a Leaf Hunt!
9/27/2018
This week we did a mini study on leaves to get us thinking about autumn and as a lead in to our Tree Study. We counted leaves, sorted leaves by color and by size. We practiced being botanists and picked a favorite leaf to study and write about. We went on a leaf hunt to collect leaves for all our projects. We used leaves in art and in our discovery center. On our leaf hunt we found many types of leaves, red, yellow, orange, purple, brown, pink, and even a few white leaves! Being outside in nature provides children opportunities to explore and discover without boundaries and without a predetermined agenda. They use their own senses and critical thinking skills to observe and learn. This type of learning integrates students' kinesthetic, auditory, and visual experiences. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, writes "Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity." One of my favorite things about being a teacher at PNA is that I have the ability to move learning outside the classroom whenever possible.
Friendship Applesauce
9/21/2018
This week we explored what it means to be a good friend. We answered questions such as "How do friends share?" and "How do we treat each other at school?" During Morning Meeting, Read Alouds, Center Play, Small Groups, and our Closing Circles, we looked at the ways we interact and practiced being good friends. We talked about sharing and fair ways to play, using our words to be kind, listening when our friends are telling us something, and how to fix problems we may have with our friends. We took turns playing follow the leader and learned a new song which helped us practice asking friends "come play with me!" On Friday we made friendship applesauce. At circle we talked about how each student's apple was different; different colors, different sizes, and different tastes, but that together all these unique apple can make some really wonderful applesauce. Then we made a graph of our apples' colors and counted the apples. The students then washed and cut their apples and put them in the pot. After cooking, we used my grandmother's food mill to press the soft apples to applesauce. It was really delicious!
Of Clocks and Gingerbeardmen
9/14/2018
We had a busy week in Early Kindergarten! We did a baking project, had a class visitor, and chased after some gingerbread friends! This week was all about cementing the beginning of the year concepts we have been learning these 4 weeks. We started out the week talking about time. We discussed clocks and connected the concept of time to our own school schedule and the students' routines at home. The purpose of these lessons was to give the students beginning skills in time management, as well as providing them ownership over a resource (our visual class schedule) to help them process our daily transitions, and feel comfortable in the classroom. We transitioned to talking about Who works in our school for the second part of the week. We had a visit from Mrs. Hoefer, Head of School. The students asked her questions about her job at school that they had thought up the day before. In an effort to continue getting to know the other teachers and students in our school, we baked two gingerbread friends on Thursday, who then ran away from us Friday morning. We had to search the school looking for them. The purpose of this activity was to continue to familiarize the students with the rest of PNA. We asked around the front offices, and in the other classrooms, getting to connect with the older students and their teachers. We eventually found out runaways in the 8th grade class. I want our EK students to feel like they are apart of the whole school community and that the school is a safe environment where they belong. Sometimes it can be hard to move outside of our classroom bubble. Hopefully we will continue to do activities like this that allow us to visit and partner with other classes at PNA. More Highlights from the Week!
Building Our Classroom Community
9/7/2018
This week we spent our group times discussing what the students hope to learn at school this year, and what rules we need to have at school so that everyone feels safe. In talking about what we hope to learn, we had a "book picnic" outside and read "Look Out Kindergarten, Here I Come!" by Nancy Carlson. In this book Henry questions his mother about what he will learn at school. This helped us launch into our own shared writing about what we could learn this year. We ended this discussion with a surprise bubble activity. While we blew bubbles we paid close attention to what colors we saw in the bubbles. The next day we used liquid watercolors to paint bubbles that will be displayed to remind us of our hopes for the school year. The process of talking about what we can learn in school helped the students become excited for their learning, gave them a goal, and also opened up new possibilities for what may happen at school. We spent the second half of the week talking about rules and working as a group to generate what our rules will be for our classroom this year. We spent time talking about the need to be safe in the classroom, as well as being kind to each other. I took the 14 rules the children had suggested for the classroom, and together we divided them up into 4 categories, or Big Rules. Those Big Rules are: Be Safe, Be Kind, Take Care of the Classroom, and Listen to Others. Being able to pair a Big Rule with a small rule (Remember, Be Safe; have walking feet in the classroom) helps children understand the reason behind the small rule as well as building self awareness that will build self regulation. Highlights from the Week Building friendships and language skills at centerplay; mud soup and rainbow rock stores at recess! Using fine motor skills and counting to make a Pet Graph; exploring colors with paint mixing.
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April 2021
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