March 4th, 2010

Today we learned about exoskeletons. We already explored how insects have six legs, and now we know about how insects have "bones" on the outside of their bodies. We felt our own arms and they felt squishy and spongy. We could feel hard bone through our arms. Then we felt a "model" of an insect. The outside was hard but when we opened the "insect" it was soft and squishy inside!





We decided that an exoskeleton was important for an insect because if a human stepped on an insect, the exoskeleton would protect it. Here is a video of our observations.

We also made a poster called "Insects have exoskeletons!" We used our fine motor skills to cut our pictures of exoskeletons and paste them on our poster. Some artists added their own pictures of exoskeletons to our poster.





Our big buddies came today! We illustrated the stories that we co-wrote during their last visit. We are real authors with important stories to tell!





We built obstacle courses with our big buddies again! We loved exercising our bodies and honing our gross motor skills to maneuver through the obstacle course.




We also ate lunch in our outdoor classroom! It was so fun visiting with our friends while enjoying the sun.



We also found a worm under a log during lunch. We observed that he had no legs, so he couldn't be an insect. He also was soft and had no exoskeleton. We were worried that he would get splinters in the log so we moved him to a safe place in the garden.

February 18th, 2010

We are making the morning math graph part of our daily routine. Today, Sam ran the math center in the morning and helped kids put up their math babies. Here is a video of Sam running the math center (again, sorry for the sideways!)

Our mathematical observations are getting stronger every day. First, we all think in our heads about what we notice about the math graph. Then, we share with a buddy our observations. Finally, mathematicians that choose to come up and teach the class about what they have noticed. The teacher then calls on another mathematician friend to share his or her thoughts!

Teacher Justin.

Teacher James.

Here is a video of Teacher Justin's mathematical observations.

At centers, we used our animals in winter vocabulary words and sorted them on our word wall by the first letter of each word. For example, hibernation went in the "H" category. This helps us not only expand our vocabularies, but also helped us with letter recognition and making the connection between letters and their sounds.

Today we read a story called Listen to the Wind. It is about children in Pakistan with no school and no school materials. We thought it would feel "bad" and "sad" to have no school and no materials. We also thought it would be very difficult to learn under those conditions. We brainstormed solutions to help children in disadvantaged areas. Some of us wanted to buy a window, some of us thought we could buy markers. We finally decided to work together with our friends to collect pennies all next week. We will give all the money we collect to Pennies for Peace, a group that works to help children with no schools or supplies. Together, we can make a big difference!

We looked up Pakistan on the globe. We estimated that it would be 40 hours away by plane.

We were very excited to work together to help the children in Pakistan.

Our big buddies from the community school came today. We worked together to write stories. Our buddies wrote down our words. Next time we have big buddies, they are going to bring our typed stories back for us to illustrate!

After we were done with our stories, we enjoyed the sunshine, got some exercise and honed our motor skills by playing outside with our big buddies!

We built a road and buildings in the sand...

We created music in the music garden...

We painted with water all over the walls and concrete...

And we worked together to build an obstacle course for all of us to enjoy!

January 19th, 2010

Today our big buddies came for a visit! Our big buddies are learning about chemical and physical changes, so we taught them how to make butter (we remembered this from before the break)!

We talked about how substances can change from a liquid to a solid and then back again.
We wondered how butter could change back to liquid, and we realized that adding heat could change butter back to a liquid.



We each negotiated with our big buddies to take turns shaking the cream to butter.


We ate the butter on bread our big buddies made earlier!



We also had brand new centers today.

We played a new game based on the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We practiced one-to-one correspondence in our counting by moving our caterpillars one space for each time we said a number.


We also had to practice patience by waiting our turn to spin the spinner.

We also talked about the caterpillar life cycle. Caterpillars undergo complete metamophosis (they COMPLETELY change physically) as first an egg, than a caterpillar, than a cocoon, than a moth or butterfly!

We also used new pattern builders, new bear counters, an I-SPY puzzle and a new opposites puzzle. We also have a color game where we sort colors by shade.




We also continued to illustrate and dictate stories in the writing center.