To Celebrate Ms. Mehl's and Ms. VanTiem's last day, 

Monday, December 8, 2014 will be Pajama Day! 

Ms. Mehl’s Classroom Investigation!

As Ms. Fennessey had posted previously on the blog, the children have shown a great interest in the sand tray. They often bring over multiple types of materials to explore with, such as corks, shells and jewels. To figure out what the children are interested in about the sand, I introduced them to different consistencies. We have very fine, dry play sand in our classroom tray and outside there is a large sandbox with coarse, brown, damp sand. I gave the children an opportunity to explore a larger quantity of the material by adding bucketfuls of outdoor play sand into an unused sandbox. I invited the children to come explore the new material, and found they often compressed the sand into mounds and labeled them as “castles.” They even tried to sneak in a few random objects they had found next to the box, which gave inspiration for the next exploration.

 One of the materials they wanted to explore was a clear plastic cup we use for water during hot outdoor play. I offered them plastic cups in order to observe how they would use them in the sand. This time, however, I brought Ms. Hughes’ large container of dry play sand over from next door, and added the cups. Almost every child came to explore through the hour exploration time. Paisley filled two cups with sand while Ibrahim held two empty cups in the bottom of the container. Paisley lifted the full cups to eye level and watched the sand pour out as she tipped them down. Ibrahim tried to catch the falling sand with his empty cups. The other children often did the same thing, but tried to stop the sand’s movement with their arm. When I introduced the cups to the damp outdoor sand, they did not use the cups in the same way they had in the morning. Ivan and Diego filled their cups with damp sand, patted the sand further down into the cup, flipped it over and lifted it to reveal a mold. Vanessa, Paisley, Tyler and Lilly also continued this process, and would say, “Look! I am making a castle!” The children learned through these experiences how the water held the sand particles together, which aided in creating molds and mounds of sand that could continue to be added on to. Whereas the dry sand did not stick together, and would fall apart after the cup would flip over. They focused more so on the movement of the dry sand and how it fell from the cup rather than creating a sand castle.

At this point in our explorations, castles have taken over as a primary focus. When exploring the types of sand with sifters and funnels, they used them as molds in the damp sand to build castles. We used spray bottles to make the normally dry play sand a little damp, and the children once again made mounds of sand and labeled them castles. They noticed that even though the play sand when wet did not change color to brown, it still acted in the same way as the damp sand had by being moldable. I introduced the kinetic sand to the children on trays rather than in a large container, and even on their own they mentioned creating sand castles.  

The sand is not the only area in the classroom where we see castles being built. The children used magna-tiles and Legos to create structures and label them castles as well. I wanted to see what the children know about castles, so I introduced the castle blocks and asked them to build. I asked them questions such as, “Who lives in a castle?” Lilly told me princesses and princes live in castles. I asked her what castles need, and she said windows. Besides those few basic things, the children could not really verbalize to me what a castle is. It seems the only thing the children do know is they have towers. I have noticed the common denominator in all the “castles” is a single tower.

To gain a better understanding of what the children know about these structures, I am going to start a discussion during a group time to have the children explain to me what they know. We will take a look at multiple different castles, and talk about their different qualities. After the group time, we will use the pictures as inspiration to create different structures. To further the concept of castles, we will discuss the different parts of a castle, what they were used for, and how we can add those details into our castle explorations.

            To continue these types of explorations at home, ask your child or children about what they are doing at school with the sand. You could ask them about the different types of sand we use. The damp sand from outside is often referred to as the “brown” sand by the children or “afternoon” sand, and the dry sand from inside is the “white” sand, or “morning” sand. You could talk about past experiences creating sand castles in the sand on vacations, create castles at home with blocks, or talk about the castles they see in their favorite TV shows. Another inexpensive way to give your child a sand experience at home is to create moon sand out of flour and oil (recipe to follow). These ingredients mixed together to create a moldable sand which is great for sensory play and reinforcing those concepts talked about at school.  Remember! We would love to hear about anything your children are doing or saying at home about castles!

Moon Sand Recipe:

9 cups of flour

1 ¼ cups baby oil

Work with your child to mix these two ingredients together with your hands to create a moldable powder. (For other moon sand recipes with different consistencies, Pinterest is a great resource!)

If you are worried about your child or a sibling getting it into their mouth, the baby oil could be replaced with vegetable oil. Creating this in a large storage container with a lid allows for easy storage for another day. Add small cups to create structures or just encourage them to use their hands!

Ms. VanTiem’s Classroom Investigation

Through my observations so far this school year, I have noticed the children are developing an interest in balance. The last two weeks, I have implemented two different experiences that incorporated this idea. In the first exploration, the children had the opportunity to test their balance by walking across the balance beam. I noticed when they were walking across the balance beam they had their arms spread out to their sides. When I shared my observation with the children, Lilly recognized “It helps you keep your balance!”

After several attempts at walking across the beam, the children experimented different ways they could walk across the beam and tried to walk across it like their peers. The children worked together to help each other successfully walk across the beam. While Lilly was on the balance beam, Ibrahim said, “Walk like me!” As he demonstrated how he successfully made it across the beam earlier. Throughout this activity the children developed problem solving skills and cooperation.

The second exploration I implemented involved the balance beam as well.  I wanted to challenge the children with weighted buckets. The intention of this lesson was for the children to adjust their bodies with the additional weight, so they could remain balanced on the beam. Children were able to successfully walk across the beam when the buckets had the same amount of blocks inside. Then, I change the amount of blocks in each bucket; one had 30 blocks, the other had two. I noticed the children had to lift and tilt their bodies toward the lighter bucket to remain balanced on the beam. While he was trying to remain balanced on the beam, I asked Victor what the buckets were doing to his balance. He replied, “They’re taking it away.”

We will be continuing our investigation of balance. Next, we will be working on reflecting on our experiences so far, by drawing our ideas.  We will move into thinking about what helps us balance on the beam and what strategies help the children successfully walk across the beam.

When you are at home with your children encourage them to share their experiences on the balance beam with you.  

Week in Review September 22-26th

Week in Review 

September 22-26th 

Exploring the sand 

Over the past two weeks, the children have shown a great interest in the sand. The children have developed several different ideas about how they can manipulate the sand. Diego, Ivan, Victor, Rayan and Lauren started to develop strategies about how they can build with the sand. While Lilly, Jenna and Ibrahim were interested in creating pathways in the sand. 

Ms. Mehl provoked the children's thinking with clear plastic cups. As the children explored the plastic cups in the white sand many of them were focused on filling and dumping their cups. While in the wet outdoor sand the children enjoyed filling the cups up and turning them upside down. When they pulled their cups upwards they noticed a tall structure in the sand that resembled the shape of their cup. 

                       

We wanted to build on this idea of pathways so we placed a small amount of white sand on the blue art trays and offered the children combs, toothbrushes and paintbrushes. The children observed as the paintbrush and/or comb created positive and negative spaces on the blue trays. They noticed how the paint brush created large spaces, while the comb created small lines. 

Week in Review

September 15-19

Exploring Pathways

     Through our observations last week, we have noticed that the children are developing an interest in pathways.  We implemented two different experiences that incorporated this idea. In the first exploration, the children observed and discussed how the hermit crabs moved through the sand. They noticed that each hermit crab made a unique path that could  be followed through the sandbox. Vanessa noticed that "one crab moves kind of sideways." Paisley recognized that "the shell on that one leaves a mark, too."

As the children continued to watch the hermit crabs, they began to make their own paths in the sand with their fingers. "Look! I made my own marks." In the coming weeks, we will explore other ways that the children can create their own pathways.

The second exploration that we implemented this week used clear tubes and marbles. We were curious to see how the children would use the tubes as pathways for the marbles. Rayan, Diego and Ivan realized that they could connect the tubes by placing the end of one inside of another tube. This worked well to create a long path for the marbles; however, some of the larger marbles became stuck at the junction of the two tubes. The boys solved this problem by asking a teacher to hold the tubes for them. 

 We will continue to explore how to successfully connect the tubes together without "getting the marble stuck."

Week in Review March 10-14, 2014

 

The Week in Review

March 10-14, 2014

Throughout the semester, the children have been working on constructing an airplane. We began exploring the outside of the airplane such as the wings, engines, and windows. Then we worked on exploring the interior of the airplane. The children have been thinking about how to create the seats, windows, and walkway of the airplane. After exploring pictures of the inside of an airplane, Jenna noticed how the seat had a back for support, cushion for sitting and two arms. She replicated the seat she saw in the picture with a variety of different wooden blocks. 

Ms. Mused and the children have been talking a lot of about stories and the various elements you need in order to tell a story. Ms. Mused provoked the children’s thinking with story stones. The stones had a variety of different pictures on them. As the children grabbed a stone they incorporated that person, place or thing into the story. The children came up with a variety of different strategies for using the stones. Some would gather the stones that were most appealing into a pile and then begin to tell their stories. Another strategy was to grab a stone at random and incorporate that person, place, or thing into their story. 

Ms. Cicchelli and the children went on a shadow hunt around the ECEC. The children explored well lit areas like the gross motor room and dark places like the closet, to see if they could find shadows. The children were able to see their shadow in well-lit areas such as the gross motor room. However, they were unable to find their shadows in places with little to no light like the closet or bathroom. The children concluded that in order to see a shadow their needs to be light.