Busy bodies filled Pod B today as we ended the month of October.
We introduced a new activity this week at the paint table ... *Marble Painting
The children enjoyed being in control of the patterns they made and seeing what colors made when they mixed.
We also explored the inside of a pumpkin to get out all the seeds! We're looking forward to cooking and planting them later on.
The Vet Clinic is still allowing the children to share their ideas and take care of each other and we enjoyed the beautiful weather so much today, we had our end of the day group outside! What great weather! Wish it would stay for awhile longer!! See you next time.
Today was a busy day to end the week in Pod A. Over the past two weeks the children have been discovering pumpkins on the inside and out. We have weighed and measured pumpkins, along with cleaned out the inside of one. Today some of the children took the seeds that we gathered throughout the week from the pumpkins and helped clean and cook the seeds for all of us to try. They made cinnamon and sugar seeds and salty ones too. After they came out of the oven, the teachers put them in individual bags and passed them out during our picnic lunch.
Cleaning the seeds with Ms. Mills
Getting ready to bake seeds with Ms. Payne
After we took the children for a walk around the EHS building, some of the children suggested that we have a picnic under the stairway. We gathered our sack lunches and pumpkin seeds and made our way under the stairs to eat our picnic lunch inside. After eating, Ms. Buckley, Ms. Mills, Ms. Szumila, and Ms. Payne acted out The Three Little Pigs for the children. The children seemed to enjoy it and were laughing. They even asked for us to do it again, so we acted it out twice. Today was a fun but busy day. Enjoy your weekends and we will see you all next week.
This week in Pod B we started making play-dough on Tuesday. Throughout the rest of the week children have been exploring with the play-dough, seeing what happens when they add water and starch to the play-dough. We have also been talking about sharing and friendship in Pod B. Today at the texture table with the play-dough some children were experimenting with what happens to the play-dough when they push down with their hands or roll it between their hands. Some children played around with the stencils and other tools that were available to them. There were three children playing with the play-dough and a fourth came and joined them. The child asked if she could have some play-dough and all three of the children that had play-dough gave her some. They repeated this process each time a new friend came and joined them and asked for some play-dough.
Experimenting with stencils.
"Look what happens when I push the play-dough with my hand." -Levi
This has been a fun-filled week for the children in Pod B! It all started with our trip to the museum. Children have been interested in animals and habitats so going to the museum was more than a great idea. Everyone got to see some of the different animals from around the state and other parts of the world as well as learn about their habitats.
"Quotations" - Tour guide
Italics - Children
"Where do bears live?"
They live way far away. They live outside in the forest - (Eric) They live in the woods. They eat berries and grass and meat.
"What animal is this?"
Bat.
"Where do you see bats?"
At night.
"What do they eat? What are the bugs in the summer that bite us?"
Mosquitoes! - Jonah
"How do they sleep?"
Upside down. They hang from trees.
-Ms. Jenkins
Michigan State Standards:
Early Learning in Science 2.1
Children show a beginning awareness of scientific knowledge demonstrating a growing ability to collect, talk about, and record information about living and non-living things.
Today was full of many different activities for the children to participate in. They had the opportunity to be in clay appointments where they have been learning to cut clay and sculpt it. They have also had chances this week to go to cooking appointments. Today they were able to make blueberry cobbler that was ready for them to eat at snack time. The kids really enjoy being able to make something on their own and then experience what it tastes like.
There has been a lot going on with pumpkins this week! Today children were interested in eating pumpkin so pumpkin slices were available for them to practice their knife safety on and cut into smaller pieces that will be cooked for them to taste. We also have a pumpkin they can use spoons, or their hands, to dig out the pumpkin seeds. These are also going to be cooked for them to eat!
Samantha digging seeds out of the pumpkin.
Gabby cutting up pumpkin slices. "It's easier if you push the knife down, look, like this!"
Pretend is a really popular area for the kids to play in, but lately they love to pretend they are teachers singing "come to group" and running a large group time. It's a lot of fun to watch them pick up on and remember our daily activities!
Oliver, Samantha, Maria, Bryanna, and Alex singing "Come to Group"
Today was Tuesday October 25th, and it was a very wet and cold day outside. In the morning we normally go outside around 11:00am, but today we got to go on a special trip around the EHS. Each child went with their small groups. While in the small group the teacher leading had a bag full of things to find around the building. There were things like green, yellow, and red color finders. The children went up and down the stairs to look for these three colors. There was also a letter and a number in each bag. The orange group tried to find as many "A and 2" as they could find. Maria said "i found 3 A's in on this page and a orange pumpkin." Samantha stated " I found an O." Jaedon found "1,2,3, 3 E's." After finding the letters and numbers the children got to listen to a story where ever the teacher felt was a good spot. Some choose the study rooms, and other groups went under the stairway. Alex asked "can we go up stairs." So the blue group headed up all four flights of stairs. Oliver mentioned "this is a lot of stairs." Overall the children were excited to do something new and see such a big building!
The children found professors on their walk and enjoyed saying "Hello"
The orange group was a little nervous looking down from the fourth floor.
Devin said "It is a long way down, yicks"
This group choose to read their book in the study room. Carson and Danielle
choose to sit in the comfy chairs while the rest of the group sat around Mrs Mills to listen.
The Orange group used their gross motor skills to climb all four flights of stairs.
Today brought the cold Fall weather. The children had fun today as they explored and learned with our Fall theme as the wind howled and the cold rain beat down outside the lab. We all embraced the true coming of Fall through our study of pumpkins inside along with bundling up and heading outside into the brisk air during outside time. The children hardly noticed the drastic weather change compared to our warm sunny day that existed only yesterday.
Right now at our light table we have leaf rubbings taking place, the children have also been sketching gourds and pumpkins in our art area. A new addition to our discovery area are lots of ways to explore with pumpkins! One of our sensory tables now contains a hollow pumpkin with the pumpkin's insides included on the side so the children are able to use their sense of touch to explore the inside of a pumpkin. Our biggest hit of the day was our pumpkin hammering area, where the children were able to hammer plastic nails into a pumpkin. Today the children also learned about measuring as they used a tape measure to measure the circumference and height of the pumpkins. Lots of learning took place as the children, felt, hammered, measured, sketched and held the pumpkins.
Today in Pod A was an exciting one! The weather outside was beautiful and the children were full of energy. We had a lot of new things happening to start this week it included the start of clay appointments and the cutting open of the pumpkin. This week we cut open the pumpkin and gave the children spoons to scoop out all the seeds and guts and a bowl for them to put the seeds in after last week letting them hammer tees into the pumpkin. Also today we had cooking appointments where the children got to make homemade pretzels in the lunch room and they were then able to eat them at snack time. Another new addition to the classroom was a barn and tractors in the construction area, the barn replaced the doll house.
Today Pod B went on a field trip to the Museum of Culture and Natural History. The children and teachers all walked together on the way there talking about what they were going to see at the museum. "I think we are going to see worms." "I think there might be a bear." We started out the morning asking the children what they thought they might see at the museum. They gave us a lot of different answers from bears to elephants. They also asked how long we were going to be there or if we were going to take a bus to get there. When we arrived and sat down for the tour guide to talk to us all the children were very interseted in when she had to say and listened very quietly. We saw many different things while in there. There was a big bear, several habitats for the children to look at, different animals that they could touch (fox, fish, turtle, opossum, and bat), and there was another small discussion with another tour guide. The children then were able to pet some more animals that they might see around here in Michigan.
On Thursday Pod A took a field trip to the Mt. Pleasant farmers market; the children were very excited to take the bus to Island Park. Once there the class was able to observe several different vegetables, fruit and other natural products such as honey and for many of the children these crops were a new experience. Each group was able to select a crop to purchase for the classroom; such as white pumpkins, different shaped gourds and apples. We are extending upon this trip by comparing, measuring and weighing the items that we brought back for classroom use.
Today was a calm day in Pod B. The rain brought a mellow atmosphere to the Pine and Maple rooms. The clay appointments have been finished, so the children were able to explore the clay table, with the tools provided, on their own. In the Pine room, there was a lot of nurturing and caring for babies in pretend as well as mailing letters in the writing center. In the Maple room, children were very into constructing and took on the table toy area as a place for their building.
At small group time, one group got to revisit the Farmer's Market and further experience a by cutting open some of the gourds they purchased on the field trip. The children were very excited to investigate the Hubbard's Squash that they had bought at the market and have spent quite some time discussing and inquiring about. As the Hubbard's Squash was being cut open the children made guesses as to what the contents would be.
"Seeds are inside." -Minni
"I think it will be red." -Katelin
"I think it has cheese in it." -Elliana
"I think it will look soggy." -Minni
After the squash was cut open, the children were able to explore through all their senses. They talk about what it looks like, what it smells like, and what it feels like. They dove in with their hands, scooping out the insides and exclaiming their discoveries.
"It's squishing out!" -Mya
"It does look like cheese!" -Elliana
"It's yellow and green!" -Brandon
"It looks soggy just like I thought." -Minni
Hundred Languages: Inquiry, Investigation
Developmental Skills: State Standards, Early Learning in Science: 1.2, 2.1, 2.2
Pod B will be going on another field trip to the museum on Monday. We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and tries to catch some sun after having such a rainy week!
Such a busy day in POD A today! It was rainy out side but that didn't stop us, we geared the children up in their rain gear and enjoyed some outside play time. We also had some time before lunch to do an obstacle course in the classrooms. The children hopped, jumped, swerved, crawled, and tumbled. They really enjoyed this!
This week we have had a pumpkin in the wet sensory table where the children have been able to hammer golf tees into it. We continued doing this today and it has been a blast for them!
We also added a huge pumpkin to the discovery area. We have a tape measure and the children can use that to guess how big the pumpkin is. They are also guessing how much the pumpkin weighs.
This has been a wonderful week so far for the children in Pod B! We have done lots of fun things including cooking and clay appointments. This week in cooking we made "Banana Sushi" and "Mini Pumpkin Pies." Children go to choose if they wanted to go or not and of course those who went LOVED it.
The first step of the process was getting a tortilla and spreading peanut butter all over it.
Then you get a banana, peel it and place it on the tortilla near the edge.
Next you roll the banana up in the tortilla.
To finish things off you slice it up and put it on a plate.
-Ms. Jenkins
Michigan State Standards:
Physical Development and Health 3.1
Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to develop and refine motor control and coordination, eye-hand coordination, finger/thumb and whole hand coordination and endurance using age-appropriate tools.
It was another exciting Tuesday in the Pine and Maple classrooms. The children had a day full of creating, cooking, appointments, building friendships, and exploring.
Clay was introduced into the classroom last week, and this week the children are learning how to use tools with the clay. They seem to really enjoy getting their hands in the clay and learning the proper way to use the tools. Some children also went down to the kitchen to help make yummy pear sauce.
The children also learned about camera usage in small groups, and were able to learn about the cameras available to them. They enjoyed taking pictures of each other, and then going back and looking at them.
Some children have also shown a great interest in the technology in the hallway, and spent a great deal of time typing and creating word documents on the computers. They explored with changing the font size, color, and style. Not only were fonts explored on the computers, but so were shapes and shape sizes.
The have also shown a great interest in animals and the habitats that they live in. With the materials provided in the construction area there has been a lot of building of animals homes and habitats.
The day ended with fun movement activities at both the pine and maple group meetings, and a safety lesson on tornado and fire drills so our children will always be safe!
It was a fun Tuesday and we look forward to the rest of the week!
Today some children were exploring on the computers. The children are welcome to type, paint and do research. Carson began typing his name and then asked me if I knew what it said.
Ivy was also exploring on the computer and found different shapes to insert in Microsoft Word. She clicked the shape she wanted and then dragged it onto the document where she wanted it to go.
We have added a daycare center into the pretend area and the children were enjoying on preteding to have thier own daycare centers. In order to go to the daycare you had to sign in and then pay money to enter. Once you entered there are babies that the children can play with. There is a changing station and cribs that can be used for the babies. We also have books and chewing toys that you can use for the babies.
In the art area the children were using dobbers at the light table. The children were pressing down and making dots with the dobbers and then also making lines with the dobbers. Over at the craft table we put black piece of paper on the bottom of the table and let the children draw on the paper with oil pastel crayons. The children were able to just draw with the crayons.
