Volcanos and more!

Hello Families, I can't believe we've cruised through the first week of April already! The children seemed happy to be back after Spring Break, and it was wonderful to see everyone at school on Tuesday.

We had some exciting science this week. Tuesday the children "exploded" a papier-mache volcano by mixing baking soda, vinegar, food coloring and dish soap to make action-packed lava. This is basic kitchen science at it's best. The excitement was palpable! Thank you to Krista for facilitating and dumping out the lava time after time. The children each had a turn to participate by scooping, funneling, and pouring the various ingredients to make the lava eruptions, and most children watched and cheered over and over as friends took turns. They compared the height of the eruptions, the color of the lava. It was so exciting for the children, I will probably bring the volcano back one more time before we're done with school this year.


We've been talking about Spring, growing, jungles and the animals who live there. Tuesday we checked our seedlings to see if they had sprouted and grown over Spring Break (and they had!). Children all watered their seeds. We talked about children growing too (I marked the height of each child before break on a chart). We'll measure again before school is finished this year. It was Annabelle's birthday, which gave us another opportunity to talk about growth -- looking at her baby picture and how she looks now, how much she has grown. Tricia helped the children make paper monkeys, which turned out so cute and the children were happy to play with them. One of the fine motor skills involved was accordion-folding, and that is a great activity to practice with your kids when you've got extra time on your hands(waiting for a doctor's appointment, waiting for a meal at a restaurant,etc.). Folding and creasing are good skills to play with at this age; accordion folding is a series of folds/creases, back and forth. You and your child can always make paper fans for fun.

All of the children worked together to paint rainbows, which became full-coverage Spring color canvases. The children used textured rollers to paint, making some very interesting patterns on the paper. Eventually some children switched to finger painting, filling in any remaining white spots of paper that peeked through. The murals are quite beautiful, stop and take a look at them next time you're at school! One is hung in the entry way, the other is above the texture table. We sang the Rainbow Song a number of times, helping children to learn the color sequence of the rainbow, red/orange/yellow/ green/blue/ purple. Paulo likes to add "and pink!" at the end!

We had indoor large motor play in the big room, that was an exciting experience. Henry came up with "dunk tank" - he would sit on a stack of chairs behind the standing target board (it has holes to throw a ball through). Whenever a child got a ball through, he would fall into the imaginary water of the dunk tank and make a big splash! Ciaran ran enough fast circles around the room to make anyone's head spin. Claire and Cotter practiced walking on the balance boards. Timothy and Annabelle rode hoppity hops. Kiera and Mateo chased, threw balls and laughed. Paulo played "Officer Paulo" in a high speed pursuit. As a wrap up, the children took turns somersaulting on the big red floor matt.

Dragon chase and ice cream shop are still very popular on the playground. Today we had big puddles under the tire swing, so we got the little boats out. Quite a few of the children needed to change into dry pants when we came back inside; a good occasion to spark a reminder --please make sure your child has a dry and well-fitting set of clothes at school!

In the short amount of time I've been teaching your children, I am already seeing development in writing letters as the children sign in each day. Children who used to prefer to "partner" write are now confident enough to do the writing on their own. They are so proud of themselves -- I notice that they frequently like to show all of you patiently waiting parents their writing with a happy "Look, see?!" Having moved the books and reading couch is encouraging more exploration with books. Today I read "Diary of a Worm" to Timothy and asked him "What do you think it would be like to be a worm?" He said "I wouldn't want to be a worm, because then I couldn't eat yogurt! And I love yogurt!" Mateo read The Red Ripe Strawberry And The Big Hungry Bear to me; he has this one memorized almost to the letter.

It has been a pleasure getting to know all of you and your special little people this past 6 weeks. I'm enjoying becoming a part of your community.

Warm regards,
Julianna

A day in the life

Sometimes you may watch your child involved in a game and wonder what he or she is learning. Children may come home from school sharing part of an experience or story, and you wonder what the full activity was like. Or, you may be helping at school and not have a chance to observe what the children are doing in other activities, as you are focused in one area. I wanted to pass on a description of what we shared today at school as an example of what they're learning.

At check in, 7 children traced all the letters of their names! They did this either on their own or as partners with me guiding their hand. When we work as partners, I often describe the movement of making the letter -- "A short line down, then up and over the mountain! Then down, and up and over the mountain again!" for letter m. Or I'll say the name of the letter -- "Next is letter m."These varying techniques address different types of learners, and remind children the name of the letter and also memorable descriptions that can help them remember how to write the letters. At check in I also worked with each child do two pre-math activities, identifying relationships between objects or between concepts. The first activity showed a series of paired pictures (a baby and a horse, a rabbit and a turtle) and I asked children to identify who is faster, who is slower. The second was a cartoon drawing with associated questions about relative position;"Is the man outside or inside the room? Is the cat above or below the table?"These activities support development of skills that will later be applied to math and logic; which number is greater, which is less; what number comes before, what comes after; is this shape a square or a cube; etc.

Morning circle included introducing the parent teachers, sharing the agenda for the day so the children know what to expect, a song and a game. When we sing the"Day Song" I ask children to name the day (Thursday); when we come to Thursday in the song, everyone claps. This promotes vocabulary for days of the week, exposure to time and calendar, sequencing, listening and participation skills. Singing in general is good for language development, understanding and hearing vocal tone, and later supports verbal fluency and cadence that helps with reading out loud. The "Rock Game" is also musical, and involves one friend closing his/her eyes and the rest of the friends passing the rock hand-to-hand in a circle. When we come to the key word "Deedledum" everyone puts hands behind their backs. The initiator opens his/her eyes and guesses who has the rock. This supports estimating (how far could the rock have traveled?), trust (keeping eyes closed), working as a group, and physical hand-eye coordination in passing, as well as timing of placing hands behind backs and then sharing open hands. It also supports taking turns and practicing patience.

The art activity was drizzling glue onto a white paper, making overlapping designs with the glue. Then sprinkling salt onto the glue. Large motor skills and "staying on the paper" practice. Then the children used fine motor skills with pipettes to drip water colors onto the salt crystals, and watched the color travel along the crystal pathways. The colors mixed, creating new colors, so a bit of science, cause/effect, and transformation. They seemed to really enjoy this.

During choice time I worked one-on-one with children to add to their Hero books(if they wanted), and to make a Thank You card for Belmont Firehouse. These are literacy activities and also reinforce good manners. It is also beneficial for each child and I to have one on one time in balance with group time, to build our friendships and trust. During choice time I also saw small groups playing with the marble track, playing beauty salon (thank you Roselyn for being the customer!), block building, work with magnetic panels, and a strong interest in the Viewmasters. Lots of learning about friendship, working together, working alone, exercising imagination, solving problems, creating, and resolving conflicts.

During lunch, the children listened to music, and talked about airplanes and siblings. We had outside time for large motor fun today. The outdoor imaginative themes included "Ice Cream store" and "dragon chase." The children have been having fun playing in the water and mud, and driving trucks through the mud. The tricycles are always popular.

After outside time, we toweled off, shed boots, hung up coats and washed hands. With some effort the children gathered on the carpet and when we were ready with listening ears, we went stocking-foot to see the big carpet cleaning machine in Fellowship Hall. We asked the carpet man for permission to look at the equipment. We guessed how long the blue hose might be -- 45 feet? 100 feet? The carpet man told us it is a whopping 600 feet long! Wow!

Our afternoon group project was a mural. Children participated together, working side by side to paint a large piece of paper covering a table top. It was delightful for me to watch and listen to the children's comments, laughter, and excitement. They were very interested in the feeling of the paint, and painted both sides of their hands and wrists, even one nose! They rubbed their hands on the paper, and whooshed and swirled hand and finger in the paint. Sometimes they used paint brushes. They added feathers and pom poms. Some children finished relatively quickly, others worked on the mural for a long time. This project was all about the process -- feeling the paint, watching what it does, mixing colors, using different tools, using arms and hands and really getting into the feeling of painting, being together and working side by side. The resulting mural is a reflection of the children's experience. We read two stories, and then had closing circle. I talked about the work they had done on their books and the fire station thank you note. We sang the Love Grows song, which has fingerplay and movement. I asked the children to estimate how many days it is until Spring, and wrote their responses on yellow papers(some of the children brought these home to have parents help look on the calendar and count the actual number of days until Spring). This activity revisited the concept of estimating, which they explored earlier this year with the estimating box, and gave us an opportunity to talk about numbers and bring number names into our vocabulary. On Tuesday we will share how many days it really is until the first day of Spring. To finish our day, we went outside for play time. Undoubtedly the children came home with mud and paint on their clothes today. Playing in the mud and reveling in paint means they are exploring the natural world and participating in sensory experiences. These activities are integral to children's natural developmental processes. This is the time and place for such exploration and experience. They will get dirty, the classroom will get dirty, but it is all washable; what does not wash away is your child's learning, growing sense of confidence and fun!

Warm regards,
Teacher Julianna