Pod A: Picnic Lunch

Today, is Thursday September 15th it is the last day of week four for the children and many friendships are developing between the two classrooms. We had a special lunch today where we got to go outside to Zen Gardens and had a picnic. This picnic consisted of peanut butter and jelly, baked potato chips, celery, and cherry tomatoes. The children really enjoyed the fresh air and the insects that were flying around. After our picnic lunch we had the children take care of all their garbage. Then, we had open stations that the children could move between. These stations were scarf throwing, sac races, parachute, and reading stories about outside.




The children worked together to pass the sack lunches around to decide what they would like to eat.
Pierce states: "I love peanut butter YUM!"

Sydney and Oliver laughed at the bees that landed on their sandwiches then flew away. Sydney also pointed out the butterfly flying around.






                                                                                





Devin passed the bag of potato chips to Bryanna so everyone could have some.

The sack races were fun and challenging. The children built gross motor skills and friendship. when Rose fell Jordyn offered to help her up.










Danielle, Alexis and Kyla worked on getting the parachute high enough to get under it as well as work together as a team to get it up high.

Becca Payne

September 15th, End of Week 3

Today wrapped up the end of another wonderful week. We are seeing great progress as the children are becoming noticeably more comfortable with the routine and being away from their parents (especially for those students who have been experiencing school for the very first time). We had a beautiful day to end our week with a walk in the sunshine and a picnic on a grassy hill on campus. The children enjoyed their sac lunch as they observed the commotion of a busy campus along with the insects, birds and squirrels. The children basked in the sun on this flawless day while taking in their surroundings and the fresh brisk air of the fall season on the horizon. We finished lunch with a story under a tree and had an eventful walk back to the CDLL, sticking with our groups and singing songs all the way back to our destination. Our adventure was exciting but there is no place like home. Everyone was glad to be back with time left to play outside!  The children were very mindful of their surroundings and handled the walk very well. Our picnic lunch was indeed a success! 

"You guys make an excellent caboose", Mason shouts back to the last group! 

Some of the children were fearful of some of the insects flying and crawling around, but were reassured that they were harmless as long as they didn't hit or swat at them. "I'm going to leave a little piece of my sandwich out for the bee to eat, he's probably hungry too"! -Armony

The children were somewhat distracted by the hustle and bustle of life on campus, but were still able to draw attention to Mrs. Nims for a short story. "This is my favorite part of the day" Aiden M. says energetically! 

-Ms. Roemer

Watching Corn "Fall"

      This update is from Tuesday Sept. 13th, but I had some technical difficulties with my computer.  There we're still appointments going on Tuesday, but i was drawn to the discovery area by a few children playing with the corn in the sensory area.

     We decided to add corn to the sensory tables in the discovery area, because Fall is just arond the corner and early this week the children got to harvest corn from the garden.  We also added funnels and cups that the children have been using to pour the corn back into the tub holding the corn.

     

      Some children used their hands to pick up the corn and see how much they can hold and then drop them, Racheal let a few slip out, then a lot, then a few again.  She kept opening and closing her hands seeing how doing that affected how much corn fell.  "Look how many fall when I move my hands." -Racheal  Kelly used the scoop to pour corn into the funnel, but due to all the corn in the funnel none was coming out.  So she dumped it out and poured in more corn, but this time she poured it slower and had a big smile as the corn fell through the hole.  She looked at me and did several more times, smiling each time corn fell out.

POD A: Washing Dishes

Bryanna: " I can wash dishes like my mommy"

     Today we started the day out in large group learning what strangers are and how not to talk to strangers. Since last week when we noticed the children's interest in cleaning we added soap to the water at the discovery table and gave them wash rags and dishes to wash and a drying rack.Once large group broke the children continued their exploration and intrest in learning to wash dishes. Many of the them spent almost the whole free time washing and drying dishes and once all the dishes had all been washed they would put them all back in the water and start over again.



Summer: "once they are all clean and dry we can eat off them"

        Along with the addition of dish washing this week, we added materials for the children to dress up and pretend to be doctors and treat patients where they have been fascinated with giving the teachers and other classmates shots, checking their heart beat, giving them medicine, and putting band-aids on them. Another new addition to the classroom in the library is a puppet stage and puppets where the children can put on hand puppets and act out whatever they want a sing songs.  

Maria putthing a band-aid on one of the 402 students



Pod B: Cornstarch and Color

As we continue with appointments this week, I was able to assist with cornstarch and color appointments today. Since the beginning of the semester we have been exploring colors and now we’re starting to mix them. The kids were really excited about this new exploration. They had the option to choose two colors out of three (red, blue, yellow) to explore and we experimented to see what happens when we mix them with and without cornstarch. 

Before we started we talked about Scientists and what they do. Some children said they paint and others said they didn't know. 

Then we talked about cornstarch and what it looks and feels like. 

"It feels like snow" - Landen & Marc

"It looks like sand" - Sydney G. & Daysha

Jonah adds cornstarch to his colors

Daysha is mixing cornstarch in to her mixture of orange color.

We talked about what happens when we mix colors and Marc said we make new colors. After asking what happens to the colors after we add cornstarch he said it makes different colors.

Marc made a lavender, light blue, dark blue and purple mixture.

-Ms. Jenkins

Michigan State Standard:

Early Learning in Science 1.5

Children develop positive attitudes, gain knowledge about science,  and begin to participate in simple investigations. 

Pod A: New Materials

       This week in Pod A the children had the opportunity to see some changes in the classroom areas.  Along with starting appointments, many new materials and supplies were added in different areas.  New puzzles were added and doctor supplies were placed in the pretend area.  Another change that was made was in the discovery area.  In the water table we added dish soap along with plates, silverware, and cups.  Dish clothes were also provided for them to use in the water to “wash dishes”.  Many of the children were interested in exploring the new materials and excited to use them.  
       After each week the student and lead teachers assess what materials the children are using and discuss changes they would like to make.  New materials will be placed in the Pod periodically throughout the year to accompany the interests and needs of the children.  The variety of materials provide children with a variety of developmental tasks to work on while in the classroom.     

-Ms. Szumila

Kyassie and Neva work together to put together one of the new puzzles in the classroom.

Carson H: "I need gloves to be a doctor."

Tyler: "Scrub, Scrub, Scrub."

Pod A: Full Body Clay Appointment

Today we started doing appointments in Pod A. The children will be able to do full body clay, corn starch and water, and cooking activities that we call appointments.Today some of the children got to experience the full body clay. We asked the children where clay comes from and some of them said shopping. We told the children that they can jump, pick it up, drop it and so much more with this clay.

Some of the children got right into the clay where others took awhile as they watched the other children play with the clay and then eventually got right into it. The children started off with just putting their feet in the clay and when they did this they noticed that they left footprints in the clay.
 One, two, three, four- Henry

When some of the children noticed the footprints they realized that they could do the same with their hands so they started using their hands to play with the clay. As they were playing they were making their own hand prints in the clay.


Other children started to move the clay around and pick it up to see how heavy it was.

This is heavy- Aiden