What an amazing time we have had these past two weeks. The children are so engaged in their hands on learning. We have spent time daily working individually with the students. We are gaining insight into their strengths so we can personalize the classroom and maximize their learning potential. We enjoyed taking care of the animals both in the classroom and on the farm. We explored the garden this past week and discovered the many ways our fruits and vegetables grow. Each child harvested a fruit or vegetable and then documented where they found it growing. We are now also enjoying eating all the fruits and vegetables our garden is producing. When children participate in gardening, they are more likely to choose to eat nutritious snacks. Our second-year children helped plant the garden last spring so they can now enjoy the fruits of their labor. We also tasted different types of bread this past week and graphed our favorite type of bread. This led to a rich discussion of all the ways you can enjoy bread.
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What an amazing time the children had in the garden last week. They worked cooperatively to make a deep hole and then filled it with water. The ensuing mud play was magical to watch. The children discussed the way the mud was “sucking” their boots off.
They then had to work cooperatively to figure out a way to get their peers boots and sometimes feet pried loose from the mud. They worked together to decide who was digging, who was gathering water from the pump and who was stirring. I am also so proud of our amazing parents who simply hosed off their children and engaged in discussions about what they witnessed. This was emergent curriculum at it’s best! As I begin to set up our ”Mud Kitchen” I thought it would be a good time to help you understand the value of children playing in this amazing area. Here are a few things the children are learning as they play:
Social/Emotional Co-Operative skills as they work together Pretend play as they decide what to create Problem solving and strategy building skills Math Counting as they gather their ingredients and measure them out Serration as they clean up their bowls and have to make them fit together 1 to 1 Correspondence as they set their table Science Investigation skills as they mix ingredients How substances change when liquid is added/ Items turned to powder in the mortar and pestle Floating and sinking Wandering the property to find just the right Ingredients for their creation Language Letter recognition when they develop their menu Writing skills as they make lists of what they will need Fine Motor skills Crushing ingredients in the mortar and pestles Pouring Stirring Pumping and carrying water These are just a few of the many areas of learning that are taking place when your children play in a mud kitchen showing just how fun learning can be! What fun we had this week working with the line of symmetry. Last month we introduced the line of symmetry when working with our bodies and skeletons. This past week we cut leaves along their line of symmetry, matched leaves along their line of symmetry and made our own symmetrical designs along a line of symmetry using natural items. Many children made their designs resemble a “Leaf Man” which was a story we read with the activity. We were able to connect the idea of linear and circular patterns to the line of symmetry thus extending our understanding of the terms linear and circular. We look forward to observing the children during free time this week as they explore the table with the line of symmetry papers and so many more natural items to “play” with as they make designs.
These past two weeks have seen us enjoying unusually warm weather. This means our organic garden is thriving. The children are still seen daily picking and eating fruits and vegetables as they enjoy their outdoor time. They are also enjoying sharing their bounty with the many animals on the farm. We continue to enjoy cooking. After climbing the ladder and picking the apples from our trees the children made apple sauce and apple pies. They enjoyed eating their pie outdoors in the garden. They even enjoyed sharing some of their pie with our beloved pig Wilbur which made him quite happy! We used pumpkins, apples, squash and beans to work on linear and circular measurement. We also explored the property for natural patterns. We then made and documented both linear and circular patterns. We are blessed to have a facility where we can extend the concepts we are working on to the great outdoors where a child’s brain fires more efficiently.What fun we had this past week working with Fruits, vegetables and nuts we harvested from our garden. We made Roasted tomatillo salsa and some rather delicious Stone Soup. We used our harvest during our language group time by group time by graphing fruits and vegetables by their first letter sound. We used some of beans during math. Each child estimated how many seeds were in their bean. Then they opened their beans and documented the amount. For science using mortars and pestles we ground up different parts of a plant (spices) and tasted them. We then tasted different candy and matched the taste to the spice (part of the plant) it got it’s flavor from. We are enjoying many culinary adventures in our garden tasing all the plants as they continue to thrive in this beautiful fall weather we are experiencing.
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Suzie RockeyPassionate owner of this wonderful pre-school Archives
September 2024
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