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.

Ms. Mused and Ms. Cichelli's Classroom Investigations

WELCOME BACK!

We hope you have enjoyed your time off and are ready to get back into the swing of things!  We have met many of you already, but for those of you who don’t know us we are Ms. Cicchelli and Ms. Mused.  We are both interns in Ms. Finkelstein and Ms. Fennessey’s class this semester.  We have spent several weeks getting to know your children and have had so much fun working with them so far!  We have both been working constantly on two inquiry investigations. Inquiry lessons are semester long investigations.  These types of lessons are based on the children’s thinking and actions.  They start with the teacher asking questions and progress on from there.   Ms. Mused has been working on storytelling and Ms. Cicchelli has been working on light and shadows.  We will continue to work on these investigations for the remainder of the semester.  We hope to see all of you at curriculum night so we can show you all of our hard work!

Ms. Cicchelli’s Shadow Investigation:

   

The children have been exploring the idea of light and shadows.  We have been discussing where shadows come from and where/when we have them.  We started our investigation by exploring plastic shapes and their colored shadows.  Lea noticed when she moved, the color of the shadow was changing.  She noticed when she moved closer to the board the shadow got “more colorful!”  We used this investigation to explore the way shadows can change when objects are different distances away from the light source. 

The next lesson we did was exploring our shadows on the large white canvas in the gross motor room.  The children noticed when the light was off their shadows were not as bright.  These conversations lead us into thinking about what we need to have a shadow.  Many of the children mentioned we need sunlight or a flashlight in order to have a shadow. 

In this picture Seena and Sarah were experimenting with the flashlights and were trying to get their hands to show up on the canvas.    

After exploring with the canvas, the children worked on drawing their own shadows with a partner.  The children took turns tracing each other’s shadows produced from the light of the projector.  The children were exploring how the size of their shadow changed when they moved to different distances away from the projector.   

In this picture Jenna was working hard to trace Laila’s shadow as she held her arms up high.

In this picture Sara was taking her time drawing Sarah’s shadow. She paid close attention to the line she was tracing.  She even drew the detail of Sarah’s fingers and her hair.  The children worked on teamwork in this lesson.  

We will be continuing our investigation of shadows throughout the rest of the semester.   We will be working on reflecting on our experiences so far, by drawing our ideas.  We will move into thinking about what times of the days we have shadows and look into how we can make shadows.  I want the children to think about where shadows come from and what they need in order to have a shadow.  When you are at home with your children encourage them to look for their shadows and note where they are.  Ask your children where we have found shadows at school when we have gone on a shadow hunt.  

Ms. Mused’s Investigation:

The children have been very interested in creating and acting out stories. We started off by examining different ways we can tell stories. The first way we explored was through the use of gestures and body motions. The children acted out the story The Snowy Day by using their shadows projected onto a screen. The Snowy Day told the story of a young boy and his experiences playing out in the snow. Based on all the snow we have accumulated this winter, I thought that the children would enjoy acting out a snow themed tale. During this investigation the children added their own dialogue to the story and interacted with their environment as makeshift props. It was interesting to see how the children perceived a certain character would act in different situations.

“Oh no! AHHH!”, Calvin exclaims as his character slides down a hill. Calvin would regularly add his own dialogue for his character as he acted out the motions described in the story.

As the children grew more comfortable with taking ownership over the characters they were portraying, the focus shifted from how the characters are moving and interacting to why they are doing so. This deep understanding of how the setting can affect a story would help the children with their own storytelling by being able to justify their characters actions. We have started this exploration by focusing on the settings of our stories and how the environment can affect the story being told. The projector and variety of backgrounds got the children thinking about how the setting impacts the character in the story.

In this picture, Laila is demonstrating how the character of the wolf is hiding from the people in the house. The reason why the wolf is hiding is because, “He doesn’t want to be found yet because the wolf is scared of the people because they moved into the forest and they are new.”

While determining what characters there are in the story and how the story will progress, the children would talk to one another in order to get everyones input. This picture shows Calvin wondering if they could add a different element to their story. His idea was, “What if the king needs to be saved from the princesses?”  This was a different ending from the original of the king needing to be saved from the pirate.

The backgrounds inspired the children create a variety of different characters. With a fantasy background adorned with a pirate ship and a castle, Caden’s main character was “a half pirate half wizard Tyrannosaurus Rex”. Meanwhile with a background of a house in the woods Sara,

Seena, Laila, and Mahdi created a story of two sisters who live in the woods and a pesky wolf who tries to steal their cake.

To build on the children’s interest in the setting I will provoke their thinking by reading Where the Wild Things Are. This book was selected because the setting morphs from a room to forest, which is based on the imagination of the main character, Max. We will examine where Max and the Wild Things live and recreate the settings we see in the book.

We would like the families to help us in the making of class book, so when you have an opportunity to sit down with your child, please have them draw a picture(s) of what they think shadows look like. The children will make a classroom story using their shadows as their characters. We will have plenty of journal paper available for you to take home. When your child is done with their picture, bring it back to school so we can start to assemble our class book. Thank you for your participation! We again, look forward to seeing all of you at curriculum night!