Thursday, April 8, 2021

4/8/2021

Pod A

Mystery Reader..... In Person!!

Many thanks to Sarah for being our first, in-person mystery reader! Sarah read "The Secret Tree Fort," "The Big Bed," and short, non-fiction selections about Amelia Earhart and King Tut! As we walked to the front lawn for this big event, Palmer exclaimed, "This is the best day ever!" Several children agreed with him. We are excited to continue mystery reader all spring!

Kindergarten Thoughts

Pod A had their second conversation about kindergarten. Today we focused on the positive and exciting things about the next school experience. Afterwards, children worked on drawings of kindergarten. We're looking forward to sharing all of these ideas and images during our upcoming classroom stories evening!

Construction

This is a group that loves to build together! Today they used criss-cross building to make their buildings stable. Many times, the construction process becomes similar to dramatic play, as child tell stories about what is happening. Here's some of the ideas that were shared today:
   Fletcher - Here's the door to the top level. On the roof, there's a little slide. They go clang, clang, clang! They're tumbling down the stairs.
   Palmer - I'm going to make a not-so-tall house. And Otterton owns the house. Deer and otter live in the house.
   Cannon - The animals only can eat bad vitamins.
   Palmer - This is where I store my bad vitamins and my good vitamins. It's goo for their teeth.
Cannon - Mine will never fall over.
Fletcher - Wow! That's a huge tower!
   Gigi - (Building an animal structure) He has a tree by his house. And a bed inside.
Fletcher - It's upside down! Look at this -- this is the silly part. Don't worry, it's made of strong steel. I made a little house. It has everything they need. It has tons of shops.
   Palmer - (Referring to the tower) Don't worry.... they made it stable!
   Fletcher - Criss-cross applesauce will make it stable!

This and that.....

Breaking News! Fletcher has lost another tooth. His classmates enjoy seeing the spaces, or "tunnels," in his smile when we have snack. Fletcher was pleased to report that the tooth fairy brought him a dollar!
Other classroom highlights included screen painting, watercolors, the dollhouse, multiple messages, and a dance party!
A big thank-you goes out to all the families who sent in flowers and helped prepare messages for Jill's birthday! Pod B also deserves credit for preparing delicious cupcakes for our snack! It was a great day!

Pod B

Backwards Day
To start Backwards Day, the children explored texture on the playground. They also had lots of fun playing games like What Time Is It Mr. Fox? and hide-and-seek.

Splatter Painting
Last Thursday we did ‘small scale’ splatter painting in the classroom. While we were doing it, Maren mentioned that it’s much more fun to do large scale splatter painting. So we used Backwards Day as an opportunity to take individual children to the front lawn to create large scale splatter paintings. Here are some of the comments the children made while working:
Dakota: That sounds like it’s raining. (the paint drops hitting the paper)
Aida: (looking at the color choices) Those colors look beautiful. (of the sound) It’s like it’s raining. (later) You can never have too much paint, right? It’s up to the artist.
Nora: (of the sound) It’s like it’s raining. (The wind blew her paper away.) This wind is crazy!
Andy: Dots everywhere!
Maren: I got paint in my hair.

Texture in the Neighborhood
After snack we went on a short walk to look for texture in the neighborhood. The children loved spying texture and trying to capture it with rubbings. Not all textured items make great rubbings, so some of the process was learning by trying and evaluating the outcome. They noticed that some items make “train tracks” and that it is possible to find a raised word that can be captured. Additionally, there were comments about nature and signs of spring because the weather has been so lovely.