A preschool space is a learning community where mind and sensibility are shared. It is a place to learn together about the real world, and about possible worlds of the imagination. It must be a place where the young discover the uses of mind, of imagination, of materials, and learn the power of doing these things together.
Jerome Bruner
Apples and worms and graphs, Oh my! We have indeed been learning about our world and are becoming a wonderful community of collaborators. One day we made applesauce. (Thank you for sending in apples!) We invited your children to wash their hands, choose an apple, peel and cut it.
The Skin looks like a weed-Aidan
It is mushy!
The children quickly became specialists – peelers, and cutters – and all enjoyed the aroma as the apples cooked in the slow cooker. We had a healthy snack while we practiced following directions, helping one another, collaboration and fine motor skills.
We continue to investigate the world of worms – both with guided discovery and individual exploration. We have put our various foods to see what they like to eat and are practicing hypothesizing and data collection. We made a chart of what worms eat and found out that carrot pieces seem to disappear quicker than apple slices.
Almost every day we have graphed something – who is going to PM/who is being picked up; what is our favorite thing to do in the snow (make a snowman, snow angel, or sled;) what is our favorite fruit and so forth. This helps your children learn to sort and classify meaningful parts of their world and to see themselves as part of a broader world. It helps them to practice other important math skills, too, such as more than, less than and equal to.
Our snowy outdoors gave us many opportunities for play and investigation! We built snowmen and sledded. We took walks to look for animal tracts. We visited the bird feeders and began identifying the birds. Inside we listened to some bird songs and matched them with their names. We are also bringing the outside in by making snowflakes for our classroom.
Our community building takes many forms and is integrated across the program. In morning meeting, we are using photo cards of classmates to greet one another. One day our greeting incorporated what animal we felt like! We are talking about, practicing and reinforcing routines and appropriate behaviors, too. One of the ways we are being mindful of our actions and interactions is by making links for a chain. Each link represents positive, helpful behaviors during transitions, circle, centers and clean up. The goal is to get enough links for the chain to touch the floor. If we can get there, we will acknowledge our accomplishment with something like hot chocolate or popcorn or a movie!
A great community-building experience was figuring out how to assemble and then enjoy our new marble run! Collaboration, working together and team-building are all lifetime skills that are essential components of a good preschool program.
What fun we had with our counting bears, rolling dice and matching the dots by counting the same number of bears! The 4’s continue working on their dictionary pages and began with short, leveled readers from Enchanted Learning. This is available to children who may be ready. We are ready to provide the opportunity and guidance but want to be sure not to make the preschool experience a kindergarten or first grade program.
Please continue to send in appropriate clothing for the weather, and make sure that your children have extra dry clothes should they need to change.
For those of you viewing this blog on your iphone or ipad, you can view the pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcdtech/sets/72157647254977052/