The Chicke Playground

The children have two loves recently. 
1.  The chickens. 
2.  The block area. 
They have managed to marry the two into a wonderful invention/creation called "The Chickie Playground".  These future architects plan out and build wonderful structures designed to entertain, exercise and delight the chickens (and the children!). 

This adventure started out by one child saying they wanted to build her chick a "home".  Like any good idea it grew from there.  After some discussion (including the teachers having to explain why the two story pretend firehouse was not a good idea to put the baby chicks into and use as a house) the group decided that building something where the chicks could stay close to the ground and couldn't get hurt would be safer.  After all, we do have to follow PAWS LAWS to be Safe, be Responsible and be Kind.  Thus, the idea of a playground was hatched!

The children use a variety of materials to build the playground.  The chick begins to explore!

The children have to use problem solving skills to figure out how to keep the chicks safe (so they cannot build the structure too high).  They also have to make the structure stable so nothing will fall on the chicks.  They also want to keep the chicks inside the structure and on the mat (the chicks do poop and we have to keep everything sanitized) so their previous lessons on perimeter and area came in handy and were put into practical use.

The children sit back and observe how the chick navigates through the playground and they talk about what is working and what they want to do differently when they build the next structure.

The children used a variety of mathematical concepts during this project such as figuring out hiegth and width so the chicks could climb up and walk across sections of the structure.  They had to know how long and how wide to build parts of the playground.  They also needed to estimate how many blocks they would need, what shapes the blocks would need to be and how tall each of the blocks were (measurement concepts) to create different levels.

The children worked on their social skills by working together as a group to create a single structure that would hold several chicks.  This required cooperation, teamwork and preplanning.  This also required them to work on negotiation skills and conflict management when different ideas were in opposition.  They worked together to mesh different ideas into one cohesive idea that all of the children agreed on and created.  Imagine what type of future employees, managers and innovators they will be when they grow up and begin their careers!

How To Make Duck Soup

This was the book we used for our Friendship Feast in late February.  The children loved this story and we highly recommend it!  It is all about a duck named Max and how his friends help save him from his own soup.  Have the children look at this cover and see how much of the story they can tell you.  This is a great activity for helping them build their long term memory, remembering story details, characters, setting, story sequencing, events, plot and increasing the general love of reading. It helps if you read the book first so you can help them recall the story and the sequence of events.  The following pictures show you how they made their own soup for their Friendship Feast. 

 No ducks were harmed in the making of this soup!





The children cut the potato's with plastic knives after the teachers cut the potato's into smaller pieces.  The children were closely supervised.  This was a great fine motor activity and helped them build the small muscles in their hands that they will need to grasp writing utensils properly so they can form letters and words.





We also did a science experiment with onions.  We cut them on the table and they made us cry!   We talked about the gas that was released into the air when we cut open the onion.  Then we cut the onion under water (we filled up a dish pan with water to do this) and we did not cry.  When you cut an onion under water it diffuses the gas and it does not reach your eyes and your eyes do not get irritated.

 




We took turn adding ingredients.





Everyone adds a little bit of love to the soup.

 

We asked what Max would add to his soup so the children would have to refer back to the book and take previous learning (from the book) and apply it to current learning (making the soup).  This is how long term neural pathways are formed in the brain.  Children need numerous opportunities to reapply previously gained knowledge to current activities for learning to be meaningful and relevant.



Oh-la-la!  The soup!  (They say Oh-la-la in the book so we said it too!)




Watch out MAX!  Don't eat the duck!

 

The children set the table for their friends in the afternoon class and added Ms. Beth's ducks to the soup.  Thank you Ms. Beth for letting us borrow your little ducks.  We thought they were funny.

 



We had children that normally would not even try a vegetable try the soup.  Some loved it, some did not like it, but they all tried it.  We think it was because they got to make it.  They were invested in the process.  The activity was more like an art activity than a cooking activity.   The more involved a child can become in an activity like cooking a new food, the more likely they are to try something new.  We all had a great time with this book, with this activity and with each other.  We hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures and talking with your children about this experience.  Feel free to write down their reflections on these pictures and send them to us in an email or in their backpack so we can add it to their portfolio and use their reflections to help us plan further lessons.



The blue tornado experiment and video

Ms. Sarah found a way to make a tornado by using milk (which we added a few drops of blue food coloring to for this video) and water.  You can recreate this experiment at home by following the steps illustrated by Ms. Sarah in this video.  She used one of the droppers you use to give medicine to an infant or toddler.  It is very easy and as you can tell by the children's reactions, very exciting.  This experiment causes the children to use the process of scientific reasoning to figure out how the tornado works.  Vocabulary used after this experiment was done included words like vortex, circular, uplift, swirling and spinning.  The children also expanded on the activity by trying to recreate the experiment by placing the milk at the top of the container to see if the results would be the same.  They made their hypothesis and tested them.  The children were also encouraged to do this experiment without the teachers help to see if they could recreate the results.  The act of squeezing the bulb, controlling the flow of milk and placing the milk carefully at the bottom of the container took a large amount of concentration and fine motor control.  The children also had to wait patiently for their turn and negotiate who would be first and if they would work together.  And they thought they were just playing in milk and water!  Enjoy the video and let us know how the experiment works at your home.  Take your own video and send it to us.  If you don't video your child's face we will post it on our classroom blog.



No Words Needed

snow and ice

We hope you all survived the snow and ice January has brought us!  Sorry I haven't posted since the Ronald McDonald House Event.  The snow and ice have put me a little behind to, not to mention the holidays!  Some of December and January will be mixed in together for the next couple of posts until I can get caught up so bear with me.  For this post I am posting about what we did today taking advantage of the snow and ice.  Here are a few pictures of the students doing some snow painting.  I am also including some pictures of the children doing some ice painting  last week before the snow days (who knew we would have the real thing happening?).  Enjoy!  Come back often.  I have a lot of catching up to do so I will be adding a lot of posts over the next few weeks.

In this picture dried tempra paint was put on paper and the children used frozen water to "paint" their pictures! 

The children learn how to blend colors and practice their pincer grip for writing.

This is a great snowy day activity to do at home.  Just freeze some ice cubes, add water color or regular paint (may I recommend the washable kind!) and let the children go crazy.  You may even want to join in the fun.

We had some water color paint left over from spray painting snow last week and wondered what we could do with it.  We brought some of the snow in from outside and placed it into the sensory table.  We placed large and small paint brushes in the table with the water color paint and waited to see what the children would create.

A blue snowman!



The children realized that this snow was different from the snow we played with last week.  This snow was "heavier" and "stuck together" better.  Some made snowballs.  Some of the students went and got their gloves and mittens out of their cubbies because their hands got cold but they didn't want to stop playing.  What great problem solvers!



Working together.  Playing collaboratively meaning to play interactively, not just side-by-side.  These two students are talking back and forth, working together to create a picture together, discussing what colors to use, how to take turns and who should paint where.  They were using lots of social and descriptive language.

Again, next time their is a snow day, fill up the bath tub or sink with snow, color some water with food coloring (watch out though, it will stain) or water down some paint, get out some paint brushes and let your child(ren) paint a masterpiece.  Better yet, paint with them.  Build sculptures inside or outside and paint them.  Don't forget to take a picture and send it into school with them so they can tell us all about it.  Believe it or not, this is where the real learning takes place.  It is not just play.  Size, shape, colors, number, language, sharing, taking turns, working together, problem solving and just plain having fun and making memories all are vital to your child's long term development.

In the afternoon class one of the other teachers gave them some ice cycles to examine.  Even though our lesson plans didn't have ice cycles in them the kids taught us a thing or two!  They put them in the sensory table and started painting them with the water color paint.  They turned into beautiful works of 3-D art!

One thing we have learned as teachers, always listen to the children.  They see the world in ways that we have forgotten as adults.  They saw the ice cycles as something different than just plain old frozen water dripping off the building.  They saw them as dazzling, magical and amazing objects to be painted, explored and manipulated into something new and even more beautiful than they were before.  I think that is why we love our jobs so much, we get to see the world fresh and new each day again, and not the way we are taught to see it as adults.  See the snow and ice as the children do.  Glittering.  Soft.  Fun.  Cold.  Yummy.  Not as we are taught to see it as adults.  Inconvenient.  Annoying.  Difficult.  Sometimes just changing your perspective can bring about joy in places you forgot it existed..

So, until next time, try to find a little fun in the snow.  It will be gone soon and before you know it the days will be long again and we will be in shorts and it will be 100 degrees outside and we will be wishing we would have enjoyed the snow while it was here.  With that said, drive safely.