A Field Trip And So Much More.....

Lots of fun times shared with classmates at the Museum.

We have a few new ways to sign in.  Sometimes we pose a question and the children answer it, using inventive spelling.  We love seeing them use recently acquired phonics skills each day.  What's even better is the conversations generated when children observe what their friends have written.  The prompt was, "Name something in your house."  Amelia said: pillow and Zoey said: rabbit.  When they looked at the words, they both noticed each of their words contained a double letter.  Great observation!

Charlotte's prompt on this day was to name a vegetable.  Long word and wonderful "sounding out" of all those letters!

On other days the sign in question may involve a numerical answer.  The children can use the number chart if they want to check on the correct formation of a number.  How many people are in your family?  Jake is finding the 4.

Patrick wrote a 5...and he is also showing us how he can roll the masking tape so he can hang up his  number.

Briana  is happy to hang up her answer too.

One afternoon we did a math/teamwork challenge. This gives the children a chance to practice "compromising" and to learn from each other.   We gave each child a card with a number between  11 - 16.  

The children found their "match".

Then each pair of children had to decide together what object they were going to use to complete the task.  What can you use so that (in this case) 16of them will fit on the white paper?  It did take some discussion and trial and error.

Saul and Charlotte were very intent on using straws.  Each time they put the straws on haphazardly, they rolled around and they could never get an accurate count.  Finally, they realized they had to count first and then move the straws around to fit on the paper.

Jake had his eyes on that box of cubes the whole time....he and Briana made quick work of  counting out 13.  Can you see they also made a pattern!

At the end of the time, the children had free play with the materials that had been chosen.  Who would have thought nails and those plastic manipulatives could combine to be so much fine motor fun!

Did you see ALL the soap that was for sale at the shuk?  We helped Heidi make the fortune cookie shaped soap.  It was definitely soap making 101 in our room!

But fun to add the coloring and the scent and to watch the soap harden from liquid to solid.

Good bye to our 3 butterflies.

Sand and snakes and buckets in the sensory table.  

Making mandalas in art class.

The children are using a variety of differently sized circles to trace and cut.  Each child easily made 4 or more circles in a very short period of time.  We just laughed.....we had tried the same thing in September.  It took us DAYS to get each child to choose 2 circles and to trace and cut.  This was such obvious progress--yeah!

Take a look at the bulletin board outside the room.  Patrick is painting his Texas sky.  Each time he makes a stripe he crosses his midline, creating a beautiful picture in the process.

We  read a book about different animals in Texas and the children were fascinated by rattlesnakes.  Here you can see Alex has drawn a snake and is now making his pattern.

Look at all those little curves on the snake....good cutting!

Saul and Briana are ready to place their rattlesnake on their picture,

There were pictures of so many cool rock formations in all the books we read.  Govind is using real stones to add to his picture.

Zoey took playdough and tools and made her own sculpture!