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Today we continued using drawing as a way to reflect on our visit from Officer Atkins. Here are the finished products: There was also more sewing! The children are loving the sewing machine! Here are the finished pieces. Clockwise from the top left: Fletcher, Gigi, Wolf and Lane. The updated dollhouse (fresh paint does wonders) has renewed interest in playing there. Olivia: Maybe the kids can jump on the bed. Babies... come here. Evelyn: WAAAAA Olivia: Come on. The hospital. Lay in the chair. Mama's gonna sit in the chair. You guys play. Cannon (arrives on the scene with dinosaurs): RRROAR!!!! Olivia: Everybody run! Evelyn: You're wrecking our house. Cannon: No, we're trying to fix it. Olivia: Uh oh!...Everybody run! Cannon (dinos on the roof): RROAR! We can run faster than you! Pretend those are nice dinosaurs, okay? We're nice. We're nice. Guys we're just being your pets. Olivia: Get in the house! Evelyn: Ahh! There was another special guest at school today, Isaiah the dog! He lives at Brooke's house and enjoyed meeting the children and getting some loving pets.
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Police Officer Atkins visits! Here is a small portion of the dialogue we shared with him. Other discussion points were: calling 911 in emergencies; men and woman can both be police officers; the food in jail is bologna sandwiches; be kind to others on the playground. Officer Atkins: Do you know who a stranger is? Grace: People you don’t know. Officer Atkins: She said it right - people that you don’t know. I’m a police officer, I’m friendly. Let’s say for instance you get lost. If you see me, you can come to me, I’m not considered a stranger because I’m a public servant and I will help you find your parents. You can look at this things to determine if I’m a police officer. Do you what this is? (All): A badge!! Officer Atkins: That’s correct. Each badge has a number on it, and this is my number assigned to me, 3390. Also look for the word - what do you see on the back of my uniform? Oliver: Letters. Officer Atkins: How about the “P” word? Oliver: It says Police! Officer: We got some cool equipment here. Every police officer is assigned a flashlight. Oliver: Yes, like Fire Steve has a fire flashlight. Officer: Yes, so for instance if you’re in a dark room and we need to find you, we can say “ah we see you, come on out!” Also we use this to find bad guys. Oliver: If bad guys run away super fast you gotta catch ‘em in your big police car. Palmer: And throw them in jail. Officer: That’s right. And we also carry an ink pen, so we can write your name down. We carry a pen and a notebook. Another thing we carry is a business card. (He hands the business cards out to each child!) You can put it in your scrapbook. Emilia: My dad should’ve seen this! (smiling) I’m starting a scrapbook. (He shows us his body camera, then his radio) Officer: If I want to talk to my friends, I’ll call them using my call sign. My number is “Foot Beat 206” Lane: Did you just say foot?! Officer: Foot beat! So, I walk the beat most of the time. My dispatcher would hear my call sign and she would answer. Watch this. (He radios in, saying “Radio check") Dispatcher’s voice over radio: “Loud and clear” Officer Atkins made each child a "junior police officer." We got to go see the police car and motorcycle. We asked Officer Atkins if he ever got scared, and if he ever had to be brave. He said it takes courage to be a police officer, but he would "put his life on the line to protect citizens". His visit left a huge impression! 
Some exciting elements of this machine are all the different devices and gadgets that make it work, including...
Police Ideas in Dramatic Play In the conversation below the pictures, you can see that children were synthesizing some new information from Officer Atkins in their play. Wolf even made his own badge! Lane: We need tickets for the bad guys.
Wolf M: We’re police, we take the bad guys to jail. Lane: These are both safety rules for us. Let me put the safety rules in our police book. Wolf: But where are the police badges? Lace: Here are our police cameras. Emilia: (to Brooke) Good luck, I see 100 (bad guys) in the ocean. I’m going to get them. Lane: Officer Emilia, there’s an emergency. It’s west. (using map) Guys I’m packing up for the emergency. Cannon: Officer Emilia, I saved the humans! Emilia: Great! Wolf: Police officer Cannon… Emilia: Officer Brooke there’s an emergency. Lane is in the car but she’s not answering. Wolf: You gotta be brave. Emilia: Officer Brooke there’s an emergency. There’s fire and sharks behind you! Lane: There’s fire at 911 station. Cannon: Put perfume so the sharks can’t follow us. Lane: I got my work stuff in my car. I got a police badge in my bag. Emilia: A map in case we get lost. Cannon: We need to get the police boat now. We need a T-rex. Wolf: This is 911-324. Cannon: I’m gonna roar at the bad guys and stomp and take the bad guys to jail. Emilia: Brooke I’m on my way to all the bad guys and put them in jail with handcuffs. In the night, I was catching a lot of bad guys. And guess what… they got out of jail and I was watching them the whole time. Cannon: I caught a lot of bad guys and they got out of jail too. Emilia: I’ll catch them. Should I take notes? (it’s nighttime, so Wolf and Cannon go to sleep) Emilia: Brooke, good morning, good news. I catched all the bad guys. Cannon: What?! I don’t see them. They unlocked their cages and got out. Emilia: Let me take some notes. Cannon: I’m going back to sleep. Emilia: Something very strange has happened. It says on my walkie talkie there’s a stranger right next to me. But there’s no strangers. Everybody … get to work! Wolf: Get the strangers! Two detail-oriented projects were underway in the classroom today. Melanie and Jen were working with the children on the sewing machines. When Gigi's recent birthday committee used this technique it was a big success and the children truly enjoyed it. So today, many children had a go creating at the sewing machines.   Meanwhile... in the Middle Room, pairs of children edited the video we are creating for Alexandra. Working together the children learned the shortcut to split the clip (command + B). One child would press and hold the command key while the other pressed the B key. Afterward they took turns practicing how to move the mouse onto the content they wished to delete, clicking on it and finally pressing the delete key. The project advanced quite well today should be ready to send soon! We also had a lovely morning outside:
Gigi: He’s gonna bring his motorcycle and his car. Lane: Is he gonna bring his badge? Oliver: He drives the police car! And sometimes he drives the ambulance too. Palmer: No, only police guys drive police stuff. Lane: Is he gonna grab his K9?... it’s a police dog. I hope he’s gonna bring the walkie talkie, or more than one. Melanie: You had mentioned a badge too. What is a badge? Palmer: It’s something silver. Lane: He puts it on his arm. He looks at it every day. Gigi: So that everyone knows he’s a police officer! It’s a star. Question 1: What does a police officer do? Emilia: It gives out tickets if people go speeding or slow. Cannon: And he takes people to jail. Palmer: If they do something bad. Grace: We have to ask him why he takes people to jail. Palmer: Only if they break the law and steal something. Cannon: Cause remember, I said if you ask him a bad word he will take you to jail. Emilia: No, he won’t. Question 2: How does the police catch a bad guy? Palmer: He just drives in a police car. Olivia: Yeah he goes really fast and catch… Emilia: Yeah. Palmer: Like WEE-OO WEE-OO… Oliver: On the racing pad, he can go super fast. Evelyn: I never did go in the police car. (Many say “me neither”) Question 3: Why do bad guys have to go to jail? Cannon: Because they’re bad. Palmer: They try to rob stuff and break it. Cannon: They try to break police cars. But I can roar at bad people. Gigi: If they be bad, not all the people go away, just some, when they’re being bad. And the police take them to the chief so the chief can decide what happens to them. Palmer: The chief of police. Grace: That means they decide who goes to jail or prison and who can just walk away. Question 4: If you go to jail, what happens? Grace: You have to stay there forever and drink jail water and it’s not good for you. And they’re kind of being bad, but they’re putting bad people in jail. Olivia: But we never go to jail. Lane: When you’re in jail you have handcuffs which makes your hands don’t touch anything, and you can’t do anything. And you can’t move out, and the handcuffs are sticked to the jail and you can’t get out. Emilia: When they put you in jail, they feed you very bad stuff and very bad milk and water. Oliver: Some people get out of jail. Grace: No, they don’t get out. Question 5: When Steve the firefighter visited us, he said he sometimes gets scared when he crawls through the fire. Do you think police officers get scared too? Palmer: They just take care of people. Before the ambulance or helicopter gets there. Lane: They take care of people, so if a burglar knocked down someone’s house, so the bricks don’t fall on you. Melanie: Do you think that the police have to be brave to catch the bad guys? Or scared? Or both? Emilia: Both. Palmer: Just brave, not scared. Question 6: How does a police officer stay safe? Palmer: By following the law. Melanie: How do they do that? Could you explain that a bit more? Palmer: If someone does something bad, they just always say, be safe and follow the law. It’s like a special rule. (for) Everybody. In the whole globe. Grace: Yes. Melanie: Even in Kenya and Germany? Palmer: Yes. Everywhere has police cars. Question 7: Does anyone know what the numbers “911” mean? Maren: If there’s a fire, then do that number! Emilia: On your phone, very quick if it’s a real emergency. Brooke: What else could be an emergency? Emilia: If somebody got really really really hurt. Cannon: Or hot lava. Brooke: What about if there’s a bad guy, could you call 911? Palmer: And the K9 unit. Drawing Practice: Beginning to move past the "stick figure" and toward a 3D looking body using long thin oval shapes ("hot dogs" as we have been calling them) and circle shapes for the head and torso. Travel Area: Off to Germany and Kenya! Using digital projection, we created a landscape looking like the German countryside. Children could pretend that we were leisurely driving around and looking out the windows of the car. However, the craziest thing happened. We found dinosaurs. Wolf M: There's T-Rexes coming into view. Cannon: Yes. I see a long neck. When we're at Germany, there will be a lot of long necks. Wolf: It's up ahead. They're up the hill. Palmer: Look, I see a railroad crossing. (Jessica suggests finding out which dinosaurs live in Germany) Lane: I could give you my phone because Alexandra is on my phone and you could ask her. Emilia: I'm calling Alexandra. Later, we switched to a Kenyan "safari" type trip, in a fast-moving Jeep across the savanna. Maren saw the Kenyan landscape and said, "It's the desert. Because in the desert there's sand ALL over. And there's buildings made out of sand! People are living in them. There's nothing else to make it out of. No trees, only sand. It's yellow sand. It's so hot. And when you do this (hand gesture of sprinkling), it sprinkles down. It's not like the kinetic sand." 2 mini stories from the playground
Happy Birthday Gigi!!! Today we celebrated Gigi's school birthday!!! (Her actual birthday was December 30th.) Gigi and Lindsey read a book about a young girl scientist to the class: Georgia's Terrific, Colorific Experiment. Afterward, Gigi opened her gift and we sang to her before she walked around the candle 4 times. And for snack we enjoyed cookies, strawberries, bananas and milk. Happy birthday Gigi! We are so happy that you are part of the Rainey Room!
Another Family Tradition Today we learned about how Fletcher's family dresses-up along a theme for Halloween. One year they were the characters on the Candyland board, and another year they were friends from Sesame Street. The Rainey Room children enjoyed trying on the different costume pieces and seeing photos of the family dressed up throughout the years. In the Kinetic Sand area, often two people will play collaboratively. This area gives children the chance to negotiate and make decisions together. They must discuss what they want to do, and why. Watch here as Oliver and Wolf M listen closely to each other and bring new ideas to the collaboration, working side by side.
The Snake Game!
A little bit of frosty weather didn't prevent the Rainey Room from having a fun backwards day! There was ice tasting, climbing, swinging, digging and much more! After snack the class divided into 2 groups: Lane, Maren, Wolf B, Grace, Emilia and Evelyn worked in the all-school atelier on Gigi's birthday gift as well as some clay and painting. In the classroom, Fletcher, Wolf M, Cannon, Gigi, Oliver and Palmer worked on construction projects and incorporated animals into their play. Ellie and Olivia enjoyed painting together:  And thanks to Addison who did an excellent job as the Mystery Reader! Welcome back to school everyone! Happy New Year!
Then, after meeting, we got to work. Grace was mixing pink, adding small quantities of white and red gradually. She said, "If you add more red, it makes darker pink." I asked Olivia what color she was mixing. She had added lots of red and a small amount of yellow. As she watched the colors mix she said, "I don't know what it's called. Ellie, what's this mix called?" Maren said, "I'm trying to make rainbow." The end result was dark purple, which she liked. Fletcher said, "I mixed all the colors of the rainbow and it made green!"
More moments from around the classroom today... Soccer For a few weeks, Emilia has really pioneered a new soccer trend in the outdoor classroom. Gigi loves to kick the ball, so she joined second. Wolfie M came soon after - he's got excellent aim. Soon, Wolfie B, Palmer, Cannon, Grace, and Lane came over. They discussed what their team names could be. Emilia: We’re both on the same team, Gigi, so we got a lot of points! Cannon: All the boys be T-Rexes. And all the girls be mammals. Emilia: Boys are going to be sharks... Girls are going to be Kit Kats… Grace: No, Skittles. Eventually they settled on the T-rex Team and the Candy Team! Our version of soccer has about 9 balls. We have two goals, but often no goalie. We like to pretend we are "referees" and shout "GO WOLFIE" from the sidelines. Hopefully as we keep practicing we can start playing with just 1 ball, and research some of the rules of traditional soccer. If any older siblings would like to come in and explain the real rules... we would be grateful! For now, we are just having a blast. Get Well Soon Brooke! Brooke is unfortunately not is good shape at the moment - she hurt her wrist and had to go to the doctor. The children were very concerned to hear this. They left a message for her at morning meeting on the phone. Emilia: Hi Brooke we really love you. Lane: I hope your hand is feeling better soon. Wolfie B: How you feeling? Palmer: Hope you're feeling better soon. Grace: I hope you feel better. Evelyn: I love you. In the studio, we made beautiful messages for Brooke with collage and drawing materials. While Oliver made his message, he said, "I made a wrist because Brooke's wrist is hurting. Sounds like it hurts." I showed him the picture of her arm in a sling and he said, "Why is she lying down? When I was hurt, they didn't give me any sugar. I think she's really sick. I think I have a message. Why's that black thing on her sleeve? Is it healing her wrist?" Wrapping a gift to Kurt (who works in the church office). Images of clay are from before we glazed. We gifted him candles and a vase too. He loved it! Thank you SO much to Joe and Lizanne for kicking off Family Traditions by sharing about their vacation times in beautiful Montana! We got to learn about so many special activities that the Reger family has out in Montana, where Joe grew up....
****We invite all families to share something special about their family sometime over the months of Jan and Feb. Use the Sign-up Genius and/or send us an email.*****
Flying to Florida We love this dialogue between the travelers that Jessica annotated. Read below to find out more about how Rainey Roomers perceive air travel. So fascinating!
Lane: We’re going to the beach. Jessica McMillan: I forgot to pack my swimsuit. Maybe I can buy one when we get there. Lane: Well, there’s no store at the beach, but you can use mine. Wolf B: The pilots know where we’re going. (He is looking at the airplane projection on the shadow screen) Wolf B: We’re going to Florida. Wolf M: We’re going to Montana. Lane: You need a passport. We need our passports, kids. Wolf B: We’re coming in to land. Put your seat belt on. Lane: Daughters don’t talk in the airplane. (Possibly trying to shush the baby) I need my passport and camera. Wolf B: We’re going to a different airport, down here to the London airport. Lane: Who’s the pilot? Oliver: Wolfie, you can be the pilot. Wolf B: I am the pilot. Oliver: Great! Lane: Pilot, we need to go back home now because my baby needs to sleep and I forgot the crib. Wolf M: We’re flying to Florida. Wolf B: The sun’s going down. Go to sleep… it’s rest time. Oliver: My baby is crying, it’s time for baby to sleep. Lane: Baby needs to go potty training. Wolf M: (on the phone) We’re coming into airport. Wolf B: We’re coming into landing. (On the projection, the airplane is also landing) Lane… you need to put your seatbelt on or you’ll be in trouble. It's dangerous. (few minutes later, the projection shows the airplane going through clouds) Wolf B: We’re bumping, we’re bumping, we’re going through the clouds and we’re bumping! The sun is going down. Do you see it? Lane: The sunset is beautiful. Wolf B: Yes, it is. Jessica McMillan: Oh, look at that light! (seeing sunlight on projection) Lane: That’s from heaven. It’s God. God was coming down from heaven when we were flying. God comes down from heaven in the sunset. (Oliver and Lane tell Jessica they are both her mom. She asks the Wolfs if they are moms too.) Wolf B: No I’m the pilot. Wolf M: I’m the Papa. Oliver: I’m making drinks. (He uses nearby pencil sharpeners) Drinks for everyone. I’m the snack girl. I have cookies. Would you like a cookie? (Hands out erasers) I have juice, drinks, and more cookies. |
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