Preschool

I asked the children how they could make a snowflake with blocks.  Each child approached the problem differently.  I loved watching how they figured things out and quickly inspired  and taught one another  – the first snowflake had 6 arms and a circle, just like the photographs we looked at.  Someone decided to place a colored scarf on the ground and soon everyone had a colorful background and our carpet became a sky filled with huge and increasingly intricate snowflakes.

When the snowflakes on the floor became connected by round pieces of wood, someone said, “I’m making a pathway in the sky!” Another child said, “That’s a map.”  I thought this was an interesting idea and asked, “What is a map?” “It tells us where we shouldn’t go.” “It has lines.” “It could be in a book.” We decided to make our own map.  

Each child worked on the map over several days and connected their part to their friends’ parts:  “Mine has treasure.”  “This is the city.” “If you walk on the squares, you don’t get in the water.”  I so enjoy hearing the children describe their work and the way that multiple stories can coexist simultaneously on our map. Please come see it over our fireplace in the rice room!

Beginning our map

Measuring our map

We continue enacting plays, taking turns playing different roles.  Last week we explored “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.”  In the beginning of the year, we often told this story using blocks.  This time, the children were the characters.  Everyone wanted to be the troll!  This was different from the beginning of the year, too, when many children did not want to embody the villain.

We also spent time last week creating valentines for families and other special people at our school. The children were excited to give and receive mail from each other and celebrate love and sweetness during this cold and sometimes gray time of year.

On Thursday  February 21st,  from 1:00-2:45 we will celebrate Alaska Day! Please dress warmly for fun outdoor activities.

Sarah

We plan to try and save our experiments next time and make our very own library of self-designed colors.

We also continued thinking about Tookilkee and his igloo.  I like to open discussions with open-ended questions,”Who would like to share something they remember about this book?”

“He got built inside.”

“How would he get out?”

“He put a block on his head and then it got dark.”

“He had a knife!”

“He cut the door.”

“The window was from the sea.”

I asked the children if they wanted to make an igloo like Tookilkee.  “Yes!”  We went  into the rice room and imagined that our wooden blocks were snow. It was amazing to hear the children discuss how to create the igloo, problem solving as a team and becoming more and more excited and for some, frightened, as the walls grew taller. When our last block had been used, we had another problem – there was no roof!

We looked around the room and decided the rice table-top might work. We estimated measuring with our arms and then placed the “keystone” on top. “Tookilkee” used a long stick to carve out the door and everyone cheered when she crawled out safely!  The children each wanted a chance to be  inside their igloo and see what it felt like:

“It’s good.” “It’s not dark.” “Mrs. Cooke, there’s lots of windows in our igloo!”

We have left the igloo up  -please come see it with your child and ask them about the process of making it.  They were all very proud of this experiential learning and the accomplishment of making such an amazing structure.

After making our big igloo, each child attempted to create a small igloo with Model Magic.  It was very interesting to observe all the different ways the children tackled this prooblem of creating a hollow  shape where someone could “hide” and be protected from the cold.  Some pulled their lump of clay into many little bits, remembering the way Tookilkee had lined up lots of blocks before starting and emulating our approach in the rice room.  Other children simply made a depression in the clay and then attached small bits of “snow”on the surface. The children talked as they worked, giving one another suggestions on how to create this simple, but intricate structure and cheering eachother on! I am so proud of the warmth and encouragement they offer one another and realize that the collaborative work we do so often pays off in this kind of collegialty and group processing even during individual work. Learning is a social endeavor!

Please remember that we will celebrate Valentine’s Day this week with cards for all and a party on Thursday.

I hope you all enjoyed the snowy weekend!

All the best,

Sarah

Dear Families,

I asked the children:”What do you know about igloos?” “It’s when you glue and put an egg down.”  After more brainstorming, I showed everyone the cover of a book I had brought in, “It’s where Eskimos live!” 

We began our week looking at a photo essay of how Tookilkee and his son Jopee made a house for themselves in the Arctic landscape that would keep them warm and protected while they hunted for food. The children were amazed that Tookilkee built the house around himself and then cut a little doorway to crawl out of with his knife. The children were also very interested in the window that he made by cutting  a piece of frozen ocean that turned the light inside the igloo to greenish blue.

We revisited the book many times, wondering what it would be like to exist in such a frozen world. One day we explored frozen ice shapes in our water table. “It’s so so freezing cold!” “And it’s very slippery wet.”  “It’s coming into water.” “Splash, splash, splishy splash.”

I gave the children salt, paint and droppers.  They spent a long time sprinkling salt and dripping paint on the ice.  After awhile everyone noticed that where the salt lay, the ice was melting a lot.  We could see beautiful tiny tunnels forming through the ice. “It could be like a house!” “It’s a color house for ice skating.” “It’s where my snowman lives.” 

Later in the week we played with melted ice. Dripping drops of oil onto the surface, the children noticed that it was floating and, “It’s making rainbows!” We sprinkled colors on the surface and swirled them around.  Laying paper onto the oily, colorful water was exciting!  We saw the shape of the oil droplets seeping through the paper, but each work was so unique and surprising. “I want to do it again!”

It was interesting that as we explored the transformation of water in our class we also witnessed huge transformations in the world outside.  One day we were shoveling icy, slushy snow and tromping through huge puddles and the next day, the snow and ice had disappeared.

We have continued reading snow stories, watching a puppet show of “The Snow Child,” and watching the wordless video of “The Snowman,” about a young boy whose creation comes alive for one magical night before melting. I wanted to share some excerpts from the children’s snowman stories:

“He eats snow.

 He melts. 

He grows a tree in the spring.”

“A snowman see a treasure in the snow.”

“He had a dream and then he climbed up on his sparkly mountain.”

“Then he went swimming.

It was so cold, he didn’t melt.”

“He melted.

He was made out of snow on a train.

And then while they moved he came to a snowman again.

He came alive!”

With the snow melted, we were able to search for and finally find our pumpkin on the compost pile. It had lost almost all of its orange color and was very flat. “I see all the seeds!”  

We will continue to explore the outside world as an integral part of our curriculum and learning. The children love to tromp through puddles, stir mud with sticks and throw clumps of icy snow into the brook.  Please have warm layers and extra clothes available every day!

Happy winter and happy February!

Sarah