It's All About Kittens!

In the Pine Room, which is designated for our pretend room, the children all wanted to be kittens. They asked one of the teachers if she could be their owner and she was excited to have the opportunity to interact with the children. The children moved around the room, going to different areas and they talked about the importance of them having to eat, bathe, and sleep. 

"It's time for our nap." The children said.

Michigan State Standard

Creative Arts: 4. Early Learning Expectation: Dramatic Play. Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through dramatic play.

Tiara Lawrence

HDF 409

Ice Cream Store!

Today in the Hallway, an Ice Cream Store was in action! Rohan, Macrae, and John were putting their own flavors together and making sure there was enough ice cream for everyone.

"The whole table is melted in ice cream!"-Rohan

"I can hold this one!"-John 

Macrae set up the shop for people to take ice cream tops and cones.

"I'm making music for the ice cream truck."-John 

Teaching Strategies:

14b. Engages in sociodramatic play 

Rachel Dombrowski, 409 

Indoor Ice-Skating and Hockey

Indoor Hockey

The Indoor Movement Room offered the students a chance to simulate ice-skating indoors today using paper plates on their feet or shoes. After the students were given time to get used to how to move on their skate-plates, some decided it was easier to use bare-feet on the plates to move easier. The students were then introduced to swimming noodles to serve as hockey sticks and a ball to simulate the hockey puck. After the children were able learn how to control their swings and contact with the ball, another ball was introduced and passing was encouraged.

            

            "Pass it to me!" -Muadh              Above, Lily P.J. prepares
                                                                  to hit the red ball

Michigan Standard of Quality: Physical Development and Health
4. Children participate in activities that encourage self-motivation, emphasize cooperation, and minimize competition.

HDF 409, Scudder

Exploring Kidfetti!

In the Walnut Room, Kidefetti is located in one of the dry water tables. Inside of the Kidfetti are various fish, starfish, and shells for the children to search for. The tools that are available to the children while they engage at this table are tongs for looking for the plastic toys, a searching sheet to see what is hiding in the Kidfetti or may be already found, and plastic cups. Ever since it was added, there have been many different ways children have gone about exploring this discovery area in the Walnut room.

"This is a yellow fish swimming in the water. Look at how it's tail is above the water" -Pemisire

Graeme had a cup in one hand and tongs in the other. He used them to pick each fish up and place them into the cup he was holding. "I found all the fish in here!" -Graeme

"This stuff feels cool. Its hard and small and colorful." -James

Lily was pouring the Kidfetti from one cup to the next and missed part of the cup and spilled some on the floor. She saw the teacher grab the broom, asked if she can help, and then said, "I like picking this up. A lot spilled from my cup." - Lily P. J. 

"Can I help clean up too? I spilled some on accident" -Graeme

Berinti 409

Objective 7: Demonstrates fine-motor strength and coordination 

 Objective 26: Demonstrates knowledge of the physical properties of objects and materials

Black light Studio

This afternoon in the Walnut Room the children had the opportunity to explore the light study. In the light studio there are black lights and tinker towns that glow. The black light allows the children to see what objects glow when under black light. So far there has been glow beads, glow play dough, now glow tinker toys. The children are able to manipulate and use find motor skills with the tinker toys inside the light studio.

"Look my shirt glows." Graeme

Michigan Quality of  standard:

Early Learning Expectation: Curiosity–Inquiry-Questioning Tinkering-Risk Taking. Children demonstrate an interest and eagerness in seeking information (e.g., be able to see things from a different perspective, fiddling with something to figure it out or attempting a reasonable solution).Express a ‘sense of wonder.

Buck,409

Let's Get Moving! 

To finish off the day, many students learned how to jump rope while outside. The jump ropes were out and then two teachers volunteered to hold the rope while instructing the children when to jump. Many children tried this multiple times and were able to successfully jump rope.

 

"I wanna jump with Jace." - James

"Can I try?" - Stephen 

  

Teaching Strategies: Balances needs and right of self and others 

Aguilar, 409 

The Walnut Room

In the morning children have the opportunity to sign up for which classroom they would like to play in during the morning center time. Many children signed up for the Walnut Room also known as the discovery room. Today in the Walnut Room many children were engaged in playing with Magna-Tiles. Magna-Tiles are magnetic blocks that children can manipulate with.

"I'm going to build the lions home."  said Braeden. Soon Jonathan came over and joined him.

"I think I am going to need some more square ones, can you help me get more?" asked Braeden. "I need some more animals." he continued.

"Look, there are two huge ones!" Jonathan said excitedly after they worked together to create each animal a home. "There is a home for a turtle, porcupine, snake, lion, elephant and jaguar!" Braden explained.

Michigan Standard of Quality: Relationships with Others. Children develop healthy relationships with other children and adults. 

Ritter, 409

Kickball Fun!

Today during PM group, children were playing capture the flag in the Zen Garden. The children were instructed to kick the ball when it was their respective turn, and to then run as fast as they could to the cones. Each child was given the opportunity to either kick the ball, pitch the ball, or guard one of the cones that served as bases. PM group is a way to encourage and engage the children through a variety of different activities at the end of the day during their time on the playground. 

                                   Above, Asher pitches the ball to another child.

Above, Anaya stands in front of the cone."I have to make sure I tag anyone!"

Michigan Standard of Quality: Physical Development and Health

Early Learning Expectation: Children experience growth in gross motor development and use large muscles to improve a variety of gross motor skills in both structured and unstructured settings.
Children typically: Show increasing abilities to coordinate movements (throwing, catching, kicking) in order to build strength, flexibility, balance, and stamina.
HDF 409: Kristen Nagl  

A Place for Peace!

Children need a place they can retreat to when they need to think, rest or just decompress. Quiet corners give children a place to calm down and recover from the sensory overload of the classroom. The Child Development & Learning Laboratory provides quiet cubes in each one of the classrooms. These cubes are equipped with the a light sheet to go over the cube, a cushion and a emotion poster inside of the cubes.

Below is a picture of the general layout of what a quiet cube looks like in the CDLL.

Today in the Pine Room (Pretend Play Room), a lot of the children were expressing themselves with singing. The volume of the room was a bit louder than usually because of all the children that participated with singing. The quiet cube is a great way for the children to escape the noise from the classroom.

Below, Aubree and Ryan decided to adventure to the quiet cube. They both grabbed a book and started to read the book that they picked.

Not every child needs to use the quiet cubes but they are always available to the children when they need it. These small cubes serve as a protected place where children are taught to go to in order to relax, calm down, or take a break. 

Michigan Standard of Quality: Health, Safety, and Nutrition: 

5. Early Learning Expectation: Children begin to have knowledge about and make age-appropriate healthy choices in daily life. 

HDF 409: Palenske 

Wire Beading

In the Maple Room, the children are working on a community project in the CDLL. They can bead wire with many different kinds of beads and hang it up. The children can make patterns with the beads. Working with wire and beads helps the children with their fine motor skills. Jace and Stephen added beaded wire to the community wire project. 

 

"I made it curly." - Jace

"Watch this, I can bend it." - Stephen

1. Early Learning Expectation: Visual Arts. Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.

Jelonek, 409

Black Light Art

Last week the CDLL hosted a glow night and many families showed up to see the different glowing objects and activities set up around the playground outside. Many of the children had a lot to say about the glowing objects, so we decided to put black lights in our light studio in the Walnut Room. There are glow sticks hanging on the walls, glowing glasses for the children to wear, and highlighters and paper to draw on. Once some of the children went inside they noticed that some of their clothes glowed under the black lights.

 

Kayden- "That needs to be closed. It needs to be dark so it glows!"

Audrey- "I never used a highlighter before. Is this a highlighter? My sister has a pink highlighter."

Audrey- "These are really cool highlighters! This one is my favorite."

Audrey- "Look Bella, your shirt glows pink! Your sock is glowing orange. And the other one is pink!"

Graeme- "My ties glow!"

Audrey- "I'm gonna color this part."

Kehoe 409
Teaching Strategies Gold Objective 33: Explores the visual arts

Splish, Splash, Spin!

This week in the Discovery (Walnut) Room, new objects were added to the water table for children to explore. Clips were added to help hold hoses and water spinners allowed the children to see how water can move objects.

"It spins fast!" --Muadh

"I want to play. It's a machine!" --Michael

"You just have to pour it!" --Livy 

Working with these tools gives the children opportunities to grow their fine motor skills and other inquiry skills as well. We look forward to adding more tools and activities to the water table as the year goes on!

Hansen, 409

Teaching Strategies. Physical Development Objective 7: Demonstrates fine-motor strength and coordination; Uses fingers and hands.

Cool Down and Work Through Anger

At the CDLL today during large group in the Walnut Room Mrs. Potter read "Cool Down and Work Through Anger." While reading the book the children talked about what it meant to be kind to each other and how to deal with anger. Mrs. Potter asked many questions such as what to do if you are angry, James responded "Tell a teacher or your mom and dad."



"Kicking is mean!" - Graham 



"If you don't want to play with someone just tell them" - Ryan

Early Childhood Standard, Social and Emotional Development, Early Learning Expectation Number 3: Children show increasing ability to regulate how they express their emotions. 

Cramer

Playing Together

Today outside, the children were playing games together in large groups and smaller groups. This week, we learned about being kind to each other, using our words to talk to people, and problem solving. After these conversations, a lot of children started working and playing in big groups.

In the morning, many children gathered on the hill to play a game of Duck, Duck Goose! They all took turns being the person who called goose on people and made a rule for several people at a time to be involved too.

"I haven't been called yet! I'm lucky," said Stephen. 

"I'm waiting nicely," said Annika.

Jace said, "I'm going to get you Graham!"

Katherine, Sovie, and Lila Beau were playing together with a wagon.

 Katherine said, "I'll pull now. You can sit in here Sovie!" 

"Thanks for letting me sit down," said Sovie 

Teaching Strategies:

Establishes and sustains positive relationships

Rachel Dombrowski, 409 

Puppet Show

Today, Mrs. Weller and Ms. Goodman performed a puppet show for the class. The skit focused on hitting and biting. The children were able to see how the puppets were acting to one another. After the skit was over the teachers had a conversation with the class. Mrs. Weller asked, "What could have Raphael said or done instead of biting Tatiana?" The children said he could have asked her to play. By doing this, the teachers were able to address an issue happening in the school. Afterwards, a short discussion took place on using nice words and letting someone know how you are feeling.

Walsh 409

Teaching Strategies Gold: Social Emotional #1 Regulates Own Emotions and Behaviors

Music Makes My Heart Happy!

Today in the hallway, the children were engaging in musical fun. While exploring the instruments in the hallway the children were connecting musical sounds to books that were placed in the hallway for them to read. They were also learning how to find what instrument was in the hallway by looking it up in the book. Children were taking turns and helping one another on how to use the instruments correctly.

 "I'm going to play the ABC song for you to hear, I am real good at that song." - Lilly F.

 "See this book? It's about the lollipop drums we have in this hallway." - Lilly F.

 "These are finger cymbals, see they are right here." -Alijah

 "What is this? I like this sound it makes!"- Michael

 "Hey, do you think we can switch the drums? I want to try that one." - Stephen 

"Sure you can have it." - Michael

"The music these make really make my heart happy, it makes me want to dance." - Victoria

Teaching Strategies #34 Explores Musical Concepts and Expression

Kaitlyn King 

409

Sandy Fun!

With the warm sunny days that we have left the children have been very busy exploring the sand box while outside. Children used the sand to create ice cream stands, dig holes to new and exciting places as well as using the babies. Children have been working together as well as working independently to use their imagination in the sand box.

                     "I am making soup sand"- Sage

                 "Ms. Babbitt, we are selling ice cream what kind do you                                                        want?"-Audrey

                 "I am making a big hole, to find water"- Livy 

         "Our baby is so dirty so we need to wash her all up!"- Victoria

Teaching Strategy:  Social- Emotional: #2 Establishes and Sustains Positive Relationships

Ms. Babbitt