It's Just Trash....or Is It?
5/1/2021
When our Beluga class celebrated Earth Day, I thought a week would be enough to satisfy the children’s interest, but it turns out that we were just getting started! After a general overview of basic things each of us could do to help the earth, we have begun exploring topics such as gardening, recycling, composting, and vermiculture (worms)! We spent oodles of time talking about garbage. As a society, we throw away so much stuff, and young children (and many adults, too) rarely think about what happens to it after the garbage man takes it away. As a class we talked a little bit about what happens to garbage that isn’t recycled or composted. We discussed the concept of landfills, and how they are not an endless option for trash disposal. The children were also concerned about the amount of trash they had cleaned up on the playground and parking lot, so we made "Please do not Litter" signs to remind everyone to pick up after themselves. In order to more thoroughly investigate the concepts of reduce, reuse and recycle, we invited the children to bring in some of their recyclable trash – plastics, cans made of aluminum or tin, cardboard boxes, and we also explored the kinds of things they brought in their lunches. We sorted by the main types of things which we brought in (metal, paper and plastic), we looked at the different codes on the plastic items, and we watched a few YouTube videos about different kinds of recycling. One of the most popular things we did was to see what the children could create with the recycled items. It was wonderful to see their minds engaged in the task of creating something new to play with from what they had classified as garbage. Another idea which has captured the children’s attention is the idea that food scraps can be turned into soil. One day we collected all of the children’s vegetable waste such as banana peels, orange peels, and apple cores in an empty ice cream bucket. The children didn’t think that there was very much, and truly they were correct. I pointed out, however, that we were only 12 people; and then we wondered how much waster would the whole school produce in a day? In order to answer that question, we created a Green Food Waste bucket for every classroom, along with a list of what could and could not go into the bucket. At the end of the collection day, the children were excited to see how much we had collected! We weighed each bucket on a scale and then added up all the amounts. After converting our grams to pounds we discovered that we had collected almost exactly 5 pounds of fruit and vegetable waste which filled 2 one-gallon ice cream buckets! Perhaps that doesn’t seem like very much, but when you multiply it by the 150+ days we have been in school, we decided that if we wanted to take better care of the earth, it would probably be a good idea for PNA to build a compost bin for our garden area on the playground!
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For the past month or two in the Beluga classroom we have been actively focusing on feelings and our relationships with others. Sometimes “friendship” may actually be the theme for the month, as it often is during the month of February, but it is also is an underlying theme which permeates all of our preschool activities. Whenever you hear that your student’s class has been focusing on “friendship” that is a clue that the teacher is emphasizing (and re-emphasizing) what educators call social and emotional learning, or SEL. There are many reasons that social and emotional learning is one of the fundamental purposes for preschool. A quality early childhood education (ECE) program does much more than prepare a child academically for kindergarten, although at PNA we do feel that academic readiness is very important! A great ECE program should also support a child’s growth in all developmental domains. Most early childhood educators would agree that social and emotional growth in the preschool years is just as important as academic achievement, and many would argue it is more important. One reason for this sentiment is that social-emotional growth has an impact on every aspect of a young child’s life. Self-esteem, personal relationships, and academic growth are all affected by a child’s ability to feel good about themselves and their ability to successfully interact with others. According to an article written by Jeannie Ho and Suzanne Funk and published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children in March 2018:
Without question, parents and other family members have the primary responsibility for a child’s social and emotional health. However, because social and emotional health has such a powerful impact on a young child’s success, and because children spend so much time at school, it is vital that social and emotional learning be woven through all aspects of a child’s experiences at school as well. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, there five core competency areas that are widely recognized as critical social-emotional skills:
It is critical that we, as adults, remember that just as a young child's physical, cognitive, and verbal skills develop over time, it is the same with social and emotional skills. In order for children to develop effective SEL skills, they need explicit instruction followed by LOTS of time and opportunities to practice, so preschool is a terrific setting for this! While it can take a long time for a child’s social and emotional skills to fully develop, the rewards are totally worth it – Your child will be ready to take the next step into kindergarten and begin their personal journey towards becoming a PNA student of vision, courage and integrity! Funk, S., & Ho, J. (2018, March). Promoting Young Children’s Social and Emotional Health. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2018/promoting-social-and-emotional-health Sel: What are the core competence areas and where are they promoted? (n.d.). Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://casel.org/sel-framework/ The ABC's of Reading
1/31/2021
One of the major tasks of early education is helping children begin to acquire the skills which will help them become readers. Teachers use a multitude of techniques, games and activities to help teach these skills, but the love of reading and the desire to learn to read are not always as easy to teach in a school setting. It is difficult to duplicate the warm and intimate moments between parent and child which begin a (hopefully) lifelong love of reading. The desire and motivation to learn how to read grows when a child has many positive and meaningful interactions with language, stories, and print with their parents, caregivers and other family members. Reading doesn’t happen just because a child learns the alphabet and has lots of books at home, although these things are both important. Because reading grows out of oral language, the foundation for reading is laid in a child’s life long before they can even speak. These experiences begin with those little “conversations” adults have with children beginning in infancy, and which continue and expand every day of a child’s life. These conversations involve every-day topics, but they should also include silly rhymes, poems, chants, jokes, and songs. Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between academic achievement and the amount and quality of oral language a child is exposed to between the ages of birth and three years. Additionally, the development of literacy skills cannot be separated from development of the other developmental domains. Language development, cognitive development, social development, emotional development, and even motor development are all intertwined and growth in each of these domains reflects that interdependence. Reading aloud to a child supports his cognitive development by building on his ever-expanding knowledge, abilities and interests. Quality stories have the ability to draw children in and hold their attention while their brains are experiencing the vocabulary, syntax, sensory images and rhythmic flow of the English language. Stories can introduce children to people whose lives and/or cultures are very different than their own. They help expand a child’s intellectual universe with new ideas, discoveries and concepts. And, excellent stories can even help children manage life experiences such as friendship, common fears, or even the death of a loved one. The stories children hear are often integrated into their independent and social play, thus providing opportunities for their social and emotional growth. And you thought you were "just reading a bedtime story"!! So, the next time you are snuggled up with your child and reading their favorite stories (yet again!), remember that you are doing much more than building a stronger relationship and helping them prepare for bed, you are giving your child’s brain the experiences and raw materials which will help them not only succeed at learning to read, but also loving it! Beluga Kids at Work and Play Beginning to Look Outward
1/16/2021
One of the things which is most wonderful about Anchorage is that it is such a culturally-rich place to live. Because our population is so diverse, it is certain that we and our children will have friends, classmates and co-workers of many different ethnicities and cultures. Early childhood is a perfect time to help children understand and practice the concepts of kindness, service and inclusion, regardless of race or ethnicity. The third Monday of each January is a federal holiday marking the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ordinarily PNA celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Day with such things as an all-school assembly, special art projects, and service opportunities. This year however, due to COVID restrictions, it was decided that each class would handle its own celebration. Last week in the Beluga class, we began talking about Dr. King’s life and messages about love, equal rights, and service for others. Both last week and next week we are focusing on one of Dr. King's important quotes (which can be found stenciled in one of PNA’s stairwells): Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?" At the age of four, children are still largely egocentric. Egocentrism occurs in Piaget’s preoperational stage of development, and indicates that the child interprets their world in terms of the self. Young children in this stage of development lack the ability to see situations from another person's viewpoint or infer what another person is thinking, feeling, or seeing. Because a child in this stage cannot infer accurately another person’s point of view, they instead apply their own perspective to situations. While they may appear selfish or spoiled, a child in the egocentric stage simply believes that everyone else sees (or feels or lives) exactly they do. While many 4-year-olds are beginning to move out of the stage, it is a gradual process, and there is still plenty of preoperational thinking even in 5-year-olds. In preschool there is a constant flow of statements such as “Don’t cut in line (or play with her hair, or touch his neck, or take her toy, etc.)” followed by “Would you like it if someone did that to you?” One of my most memorable was when I found myself saying, “Don’t lick your neighbor. You wouldn’t like it if he licked you.” Standard preschool directions! For our Beluga class, we hope to stimulate the children to begin to look outward from their egocentric perspectives, and invite them to think about children who are less fortunate than they are. To bring this down to a 4-year-old’s comprehension level, we talked about the fact that there are many children who do not have very many toys, or possibly even their own home. Then we talked about how many toys we have at our houses. We are hoping to provide a meaningful experience for the students by inviting them to choose one of their own toys to donate to children in need. We will be donating these toys to Clare House Women's Shelter. The goal is for these young children to feel and recognize that they are a part of a larger community, and that their actions can make a difference! Preschool at PNA is where we begin to “educate students to be exceptional learners and independent thinkers of vision, courage, and integrity”. A few highlights from our week! Holiday Fun
12/19/2020
This week in the Beluga classroom as we have been preparing for winter break, we have had LOTS of holiday fun! We have been painting and crafting every day, and made several holiday gifts. The children's excitement has grown each day! We began the month of December by decorating for the holidays. Miss Cassy made a giant paper Christmas tree in the hallway, and the children loved making decorations for it! She also made us a menorah to help us celebrate Hanukah. Our classroom window was decorated with lights and a garland of candy canes which the children had painted. We also had a garland of gingerbread boys hanging across the hallway! One of the benefits of all our crafting and some of our other activities is that they have provided opportunities to work on our fine motor skills. Good fine motor skills help children develop the hand and finger strength needed for a good pencil grasp and control of a writing instrument, and they help provide a strong foundation for handwriting. Lacing the edges of the gingerbread with white yarn to look like icing was a difficult task for many of the children. We also decorated a few projects with beads, sequins and jewels which could be challenging for little fingers to pick up. Managing glue bottles and trying to get small dots rather than puddles also was a bit of a challenge. They were all determined though and did a great job! They were so proud of their creations! In the play dough area, children used rollers and gingerbread cookie cutters of different sizes to cut gingerbread people out of play dough. We also added trays which became "cookie sheets" which the children used to pretend to bake their "cookies". The best part of the week by far, was when Ms. Anna came in and shared with us some of Sweden’s holiday traditions and helped us make pepparkakor, which are Swedish gingersnaps! This was a two-day project which involved mixing the dough one day and baking on another. It was hard to wait, but it was SO worth it! The Belugas wish you all the happiest of holidays! See you next year!!
The Science of Bread!
12/5/2020
This week in Early Kindergarten we have been having lots of fun as we have explored our theme “All About Bread”. We began our discussion by making a list of all the different kinds of breads we could think of. Also, since we had made bread in the bread maker the previous week, the children knew that flour is an important part of bread. So, we included in our discussion other kinds of foods we make with flour. The children were able to make quite an impressive list! We talked about how flour is made from grain, and we looked carefully at some kernels of wheat. A few brave souls even crunched a few to see what they tasted like! Together we watched a couple of short videos about how growing and harvesting wheat has changed over time. We also were able to see how much work it takes to thresh by hand using flails compared to using a combine harvester. We read two different versions of the Little Read Hen, and we decided it is important to share the work if you want to share the rewards! Early in the week we talked again about the ingredients were necessary to make bread, and we wondered if we could add other things to the dough to make it taste different. That day we made cinnamon raisin bread in the bread maker and ate it for our afternoon snack. Some children gave it two thumbs up, and some spent a lot of time picking out the raisins! All this led up to our science experiment for Fun Friday. After we made a list of what we thought could be the reasons for adding yeast, we wondered: Is there a way we could see what yeast does? What would happen if we added water, sugar and yeast to a bottle and then attached a balloon to the top? Would we be able to find out something about why we put yeast is in bread dough? The children were excited to find out, and even more so as we watched the yeast bubble up and fill the bottle and put “air” (carbon dioxide) in the balloon. This must be what happens in bread dough! It helps it puff up! So why relate this experience in such detail? Simple. All of these “wonderings” children have and the subsequent discussions, observations, and explorations we have in class are really how we utilize the Scientific Method in early learning. We listen to the children and help them formulate a question “What do you think will happen if…?”. The children are always eager to share their ideas (hypotheses)! Then we try out these ideas (experimentation) and see what happens (observation). Children are natural-born scientists, and by wondering with them and guiding their experimentation, parents and teachers can capitalize on their enthusiasm and help them explore and learn about their world. We can also have a lot of fun in the process! Other fun from this week! Gratitude and Gross Motor Skills
11/21/2020
For the past couple of weeks, we have played outdoors a lot and experienced one of the joys of winter weather: SNOW! We have extended several of our recess times to allow the children opportunities to play in the snow building snowmen. The children were astonished at how heavy big snowballs are, and how difficult it is to lift them up to make a snowman! We have also allowed the children to play on our hillside and snow pile, and we have also explored the giant field behind the playground and admired all the snowmen and other creations the big kids had made. It has been so much fun, and it has allowed us new opportunities for helping the children strengthen their gross motor skills. Gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the torso, arms and legs and include three categories of movements:
There are many reasons these skills are important. The first is the most probably the most obvious: we live in a largely sedentary society and gross motor skills will enable a child to reap the benefits of enjoyable exercise. Other benefits include the following:
Of course, with Thanksgiving so close, we have also talked a little bit this week about gratitude, and also about how challenging it was for the Pilgrims in the New World. With no stores to buy their food, they had to make everything they ate. On Friday afternoon we capped off our week of gratitude by making bread in a bread maker, and, since fresh bread is much better with butter, we let the children experience the hard work of making their own butter by shaking cream (using those gross motor movements again!) until it separated and formed grains of butter. It took a long time, and many of the children said it was too hard and that they just couldn’t do it. They needed a lot of encouragement to keep going, but the joy on their faces when they finally accomplished it was so worth all the effort! Hopefully they will remember that lesson the next time they go shopping to buy bread or butter!
November 07th, 2020
11/7/2020
Every year it is so much fun to do a pumpkin theme with the children. They love it because to them it means that Halloween is coming, but it also provides rich learning opportunities. We discuss the life cycle of a pumpkin, and then we use our senses to discuss what pumpkins are like, both on the outside and inside. This is a great literacy exercise as we use lots of fun descriptive words like slimy, strands, stringy, warty and lumpy! The theme always culminates with pumpkin science when we measure height and circumference, and then we wonder if pumpkins will float if we put them in a tub of water. Most children are usually convinced that big pumpkins are so heavy that they will sink, but they aren't so certain about the medium and small one. When they discover that all pumpkins will float, even when hollowed out and filled with water, it's pretty exciting and leads to a discussion of density and water displacement, all in preschool vocabulary, of course! This year, however, I chose not only a typical pumpkin for our class, but I also included an extra bumpy one and a small white one with orange stripes. I did this purposefully, knowing that our next theme would be friendship. I wanted to have a discussion with the children about different outward appearances vs. inner similarities, knowing that our next theme was friendship. We reviewed what pumpkins were generally like on the outside and on the inside, and we wondered if they would be the same on the inside even though they were very different on the outside (just like people can be!). As we cut them open and compared them, the children were surprised to see that all three pumpkins were practically the same! This led to a good conversation about how everyone has the same feelings. Most early childhood educators would agree that social and emotional growth in the preschool years is almost more important as academic achievement. One reason for this sentiment is that social-emotional growth has an impact on every aspect of a young child’s life. Self-esteem, personal relationships, and academic growth are all affected by a child’s ability to feel good about themselves and their ability to successfully interact with others. When children don’t have the language and communication skills they need or those needed to successfully resolve conflicts, it usually leads to problems such as hitting, fighting, unkind words, or even a dislike of school in general. This week we revisited the theme of friendship, with an emphasis on social skills needed to be a good friend and problem-solving strategies for resolving conflicts. For many young children, making friends is challenging. While it may seem straightforward, it is actually a complex process. First, we must explicitly teach the characteristics of good friends, then we take turns modelling and role playing different common situations, and finally we provide lots of opportunities for children to practice (play!), as we observe and help with good choices and also apologies, when mistakes are made. For instance, one of our activities this week was making “friendship bracelets”. I modelled my plain one-color bracelet and lamented how boring it was. Then Miss Cassy showed me her different colored bracelet and we modelled how to politely ask a friend for a bead, and then offer one to them. After the explicit instruction and modelling, each child was given fifteen beads of the same color, and a long chenille stem to put them on; then we PRACTICED politely asking for and offering beads to each other. The kids loved it! We will have many fun activities as we continue to weave these concepts into our themes and playtime throughout the year.
Pumpkin Fun and More!
10/24/2020
Wow! It seems impossible that October is almost over! In spite of the fact that we are rapidly moving into winter weather here in Anchorage, the calendar technically still says “fall”, and we are continuing our study of pumpkins and scarecrows. We have been studying the lifecycle of a pumpkin and the names of the different parts of the pumpkin. We are going to be continuing our study next week by doing some scientific exploration of size (weight, height, and circumference), finding out whether pumpkins will sink or float, and using interesting adjectives words to describe what we notice about our pumpkins (smooth, bumpy, rough, slimy, stringy, etc.). We are continuing our literacy focus on matching uppercase and lowercase letters with a variety of activities, and we are also continuing to focus on hearing and recognizing the sounds which come at the beginning of words. One skill we have introduced is putting the letters in what we call “ABC order”. This seems like it would be a very simple task, but when faced with a pile of 26 cards, it takes a child quite a set of skills to accomplish it. A child must remember the names of each letter, where it generally falls in the alphabet (beginning, middle or end), and finally which letters come directly before and after it. So, to begin with we have the children do it as a small group activity with a large pocket chart and the help of Miss Cassy. We will practice this all year until the children are able to do it on their own. Our math emphasis continues to be on one-to-one correspondence. That means that not only can a child count by rote, but they can carefully count items without rushing and skipping some. This is easier for some children than others because some are just so anxious to show you how fast they can count, and some are just more meticulous by nature! We are also practicing comparative words (big, bigger, biggest, etc.) This is one important reason we have a “question of the day”. In loose terms the chart becomes a graph, which we describe as a “math picture which tells us information”, and it gives us the opportunity every day to practice using words such as more, most, less, least, fewer, and fewest. And of course, we can’t forget how Mr. Alligator helps us know “greater than” and “less than”! Sensory play is also an important part of preschool. Young children learn best when they can use their senses to experience things, and sensory play provides opportunities for children to learn in meaningful ways. Another important aspect of sensory play is that it is completely open-ended – that is, there is no clearly defined or “right” way to play. Sensory play is an avenue for all children to have successful learning experiences, regardless of cognitive ability or language skills; and since it is open-ended, it allows every child the opportunity to use their creativity and imagination. Sensory play can also support academic skills such as oral language development, volume and capacity, critical thinking skills, measurement, and fine motor skills. Next week we have some great Halloween-themed sensory play planned which should be a lot of fun for everyone! Yes, sensory play is often messy, but that is part of the fun, and the benefits are most definitely worth the clean-up! Fall Fun and Fine Motor Skills
10/10/2020
We have been having so much fun in the Beluga class as we have been learning about fall this week! We began our study of leaves with a leaf hunt around the PNA parking lot and then through the woods. As we walked, we talked about the things we could notice with our senses: the sight of the different colors of leaves and grasses, the damp and slightly sour smells of the woods, hearing crunch of the dry leaves, and the feeling different textures of the leaves. The children loved being outdoors for an extra long recess, and so did the teachers! Our math focus this week has been “sorting by attribute”. We used acrylic leaves and other fall items to practice this important skill, as we talked about color, shape, size and other features. This quickly became a very popular center! There have been several literacy skills which we have been focusing on this week. The children have enjoyed clapping the number of syllables in different words (hippopotamus has 5!!). We have also spent a good deal of time matching uppercase and lowercase letter “buddies”, listening for the beginning sounds in words, and we have read MANY books about fall and leaves. In the Nursery Rhyme “Old Mother Hubbard” we learned what a cupboard was, and what it means when it says that it was “bare”? As teachers, we try to make all of our activities engaging and (hopefully) fun, however, the activities we choose are almost always carefully selected to accomplish underlying developmental or educational purposes. For example, there is an unbelievable number of fall activities which can be done in a preschool setting, but we specifically chose many of our activities this week with the goal of helping to strengthen the children’s fine motor skills. Fine motor skills aren’t specific learning skills like reading or math, but they are very important for many school-related tasks as well as many important life skills! These include:
Fine motor skills utilize the small muscles of the fingers and hands, and they involve strength, fine motor control, and dexterity. The strength and coordination of these muscles will significantly influence the ability of a child to properly grip a writing instrument in order to properly form letters. A child who uses a palmar (closed fist) grip rather than a tripod grip (or if their tripod grip isn’t well-formed), will end up moving the writing tool by moving his shoulder and entire arm. The improper fist grasp requires extra effort, which in turn creates fatigue in the arm and hand. A child who uses a closed fist grasp will tire easily and struggle with the task of writing. So in order to build strength in this area, these are some of fun things we did this week: Improving fine motor skills will help prepare children for an increasing amount of writing in their school career. The trick is to make it as fun as possible, so they don’t even know they’re doing something that’s good for them!
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Melissa SmithMs. Smith has a degree in Early Childhood Education and has taught kindergarten for many years. Alaska has been home to Ms. Smith for 28 years, and she can't imagine living anywhere else! She has four children, a dog and two cats. She loves reading, camping, gardening, and genealogy! Archives
April 2021
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