Happy Friday!

1/15/2021

Pajama Day

Having a pajama day at school is always fun. Today we had 2 pairs of friends matching in their pj's. Lucas and Finlay both wore dinosaur shirts and pants that had "monster pockets". Hugh and Daniel also wore a matching pj set. Everyone was extra cozy!

Finlay teases Daniel with his monster tongue pocket.

We hosted today's Sing Along

Saying goodbye to family members.

Lucas decides it would be a good idea to bring the polar bear to sing along for our polar bear verse in Row, Row, Row Your Boat ... "If you see a polar bear, don't forget to shiver!"

It started with a barn ...

and turned into a Brown Room farm!

On Thursday, our friend Cape had a great idea. He decided that he was going to build a barn based on a puzzle in the classroom that has both different images of farm animals as well as a barn on it. Cape loves anything to do with farm life and farm machinery!

These type of puzzle pieces work great for using as figurines in an imaginative play setting which is how Cape initially became interested in using the puzzle.

Soon after formulating his initial idea for building a barn, Cape had a few friends join him to help with the construction phase.

There were many conversations being had throughout the process. Both planning and building seemed to take place simultaneously as children observed each others contributions and made suggestions to one another about important additions to the barn. Soon the idea for the barn was extending into an entire farm project.

I need the barn book to look at. - Cape
(retrieving Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown to use as reference throughout his planning process)
We need animals and we need trees around. And we need a fence.
And the roof of the barn is made of shingles. - Cape
(observing pictures in the story book)
Lucas can do the trees! - Cape
(handing Lucas a box of trees to place around the barn)

And this ... I do this. - Lucas
(pointing to a weathervane he noticed on the barn puzzle piece)
I put the trees in here. - Lucas
(placing trees inside of the blocks being used as the walls of the barn)

I can do the bricks! - Finlay
Yeah. And the bricks can make it stronger. I can do the bricks. - Daniel

These can be hay rolls for the animals to eat. - Cape
(adding wood cylinder and round blocks to the interior of the barn)

Michael also joined the construction team and continued to add additional blocks to the "side walls" of the barn.

As the planning and construction of the farm continued, Cape announced to all of his friends that the farm was missing a tractor! He showed friends photos of a tractor that he has experience riding and used his family photo album as a visual aide to show his peers what a tractor should look like.

How could they include a tractor at the BR farm? We don't have any tractors in the classroom ...

Cape suggested that maybe we could paint a tractor because it needs to be green.
Wilder offered to draw a tractor for the farm using a photo from Cape's family album as his guide (with some additional guidance from Cape as well).

Wilder draws a tractor to add to the farm. He makes sure to include lots of wheels per Cape's guidance.

Cape and Wilder choose the perfect green shade for the tractor after matching the marker color to the color of the tractor in the photo. Cape gives Wilder a yellow marker as well to use to color in the signature yellow wheels.

Cape speaking to Wilder :
"It has to say John Deere Tractor"

Friday's continuation of the farm project -

Today, the children were pleasantly surprised when they found a new addition to the construction area.
There were some new farm animals toys to add to their farm!

Can I touch it? It wants to jump into the barn! - Wilder
(excited to begin playing with the newly found farm animals)

Construction, additions, and alternations to the farm continued today.
Children who worked on the project yesterday were eagerly ready to continue their process!

It's both fascinating and impressive to observe the children's increased ability to expand on their work and continue to develop their ideas over lengthened periods of time. The collaboration on larger scale projects (such as creating this farm) strengthens their investment in and respect of the overall process.
This was definitely a team effort that produced some incredible results!

At the end of the day, Cape requested to save the project so that the farm would be available to use next week. Since he took on the role as lead foreman of the project, he was asked to describe the layout of the farm before departing for the day.

Measuring in the Outdoors

Here is a quick recap of Daniel's new found interest in measuring today. He spent his morning using a very long PVC pipe for measuring different objects in the outdoor classroom. So interesting!
Maybe this will inspire a deeper look into the concept of measurement in the future ...