Week of August 23rd, 2010

One of our students used items from the block area to create a police car!  He was learning about community helpers at Head Start this week and was able to extend his learning to his preschool class here at United Services.  He shared what he had learned about police officers with his friends in the afternoon class.  They took turns "driving" the police car and keeping our classroom safe.

Ms. Carole Dawn found this awesome bug outside on the wall during outside play.  We got a bug catcher viewer and gently put him in.  We were able to observe him during the day.  We used magnifying glasses to inspect his body.  Some of our friends that were in our class last year remembered our unit on insects.  They were able to identify that he had wings, feelers, abdomen, thorax and head.  Some of our new friends wanted to know if the insect could fly.  We found out he could when we let our friend go at the end of the day.  We used our new computer to look up information about our insect.  We found out that this insect was called a praying mantis.  Here are some of the questions and comments our friends asked/made about the praying mantis.

• Is it a boy or a girl?
• Does it fly?
• Does it eat?
• He wants to play with me!
• He's an old one.
• One of those bit me.  Bugs bite.
• They have sharp teeth!

The children used their power of observation to study the insect in detail.  They used former knowledge (such as recalling earlier learning from the unit on insects and getting stung or bitten by bugs in the past) to form questions for future learning.  This is an increadibly important skill for life long learning!  Encourage your children to participate in this type of activity as often as possible.  We update this blog with pictures and learning objectives so you can view the postings with your child.  They can use the pictures to retrieve information from their brains and retell what they have learned.  This is how information goes from short term memory (remember learning facts for a test in high school just to forget the information as soon as you took the test?) to long term memory.  Long term memory is where the true "learning" happens.  Humans form 90% of their brains by the time they are five, so exposing them to problem solving, observation activities, formulating hypothosis and expanding on previous learning and forming questions for future learning is paramount to a child being a successful learner. 

Finger painting is so much fun!  Don't tell the children but they are really learning during this activity.  What are they learning?  They are learning about primary and secondary colors, shades and hues.  They are learning about shapes, lines and squiggles made by their hands, which is a fundamental part of writing process.  They are learning to work together with their peers in order to create art together.  They are learning about feels and textures.  They are learning to have fun and enjoy the moment.