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Showing posts from April, 2015

Earth Day 2015

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We celebrated the Earth by painting beautiful pictures of our planet using watercolor pencils. We asked the question, " what do you love about the Earth? Dashiell told us that he loved the Earth because " if we didn't have the Earth we would have no school, no house, no anything." We all agreed that taking care of our planet is very important. We also spent time outside on this most perfect spring day weaving flowers into our window frame. Happy Earth day!

Revisiting the Solar system

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Our earth day celebration brought us back to the subject of our planet. What makes our planet special? How is our planet different from other planets in our solar system?  Because we were also celebrating our good friend Titus’ 5th rotation around the sun, what a perfect time to revisit our solar system. We read a book about the solar system and identified each planet, their size, color, and relation to the sun.  Using various materials we constructed a 2D model of our solar system. Each child picked how they would like to help. Drawing the planets, the stars, the sun, and helping decide where each planet should be located were all part of this group project.  After, we made sure to color around each planet and star the color of space.  We decided as a group where to hang this and reflected on how we made this awesome piece of art. 

Bees Wax

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We gave the children the opportunity to explore bees wax today. We found that it is much harder to work with than clay or play dough. We heated it up to make it easier but it still required that the children have concentration, patience and to really use the muscles in their fingers and hands.  They made a variety of little creatures but making bees was the most popular creation by far.  The bees wax hardens back up rather quickly and the children were able to play with their bees almost immediately after it was finished.  We had a real treat at snack as well. We had honey that still had some of the honeycomb in it. We had apples and pretzels for dipping. Yum! Thanks bees!

Bee Books

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A friend brought a book about bees in for us to read and share with class during story time. In the book, a bee travels far and wide to find its hive. Through different flowers and fields, and interacting with different animals. The book inspired the class to make their own bee books about bees journeying to find honey, nectar, or their hive.

Honeycomb

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We set out yellow/gold paint and asked the children to think about things that are yellow or gold. They gave us answers like  sunflowers , the sun and honey! Every child that painted on this day chose to paint honey. It was a great opportunity to continue talking about bees and how they make honey. The next day we used "hexagon" shaped blocks to stamp honeycomb shapes on our honey paintings. We looked at pictures of honeycomb in our bee books. We were all so happy to see how much our creations resembled honeycomb! We are looking forward to hanging them up in our studio for everyone to see.

Bees

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One day last week some of the children were looking at a book about bees. We noticed that one of our farm books was called " Uncommon Farm Animals " and realized that there were bees on the cover. Is there such a thing as a bee farm?, where does the honey we buy at the store or the farmers market come from? We read a book about bees and found out some cool stuff. Did you know that only female bees have stingers and they are the only ones that make honey? Did you know that there aren't baby bees? Just larva that spins a cocoon that changes into a pupa. It grows wings and legs and emerges from their cocoon as adult bees?! The children drew their first bees. Many of them were very careful to have their drawings depict things they recently discovered about bees. We are learning just how important bees are to other types of farms as well. We hope the interest continues. 

Making butter

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We have been talking a lot lately about where our food comes from. We learned that one of the many things we get from cows is butter - but how does milk turn into butter? One of friends said " stir it with a spoon", another said "put it in the fridge" , another added " add other ingredients". We divided the class into two groups and gave each group a jar containing cream. We had a "race" to see which group could get their cream to turn to butter first. Everyone was able to see it turn to whipped cream and then finally butter! We made salted and unsalted. We sampled both types on crackers - yum! Oh, and of course we learned the answer-  Shake it!

Dairy farms

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We read a book about dairy farms. Wow! So many things we eat and drink everyday come from cows. Thanks dairy cows!   In our studio we invited the children to draw or trace a dairy cow.

Light projector farm animals

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Working with the light projector gives the class the chance to not only work with a temporary medium but also observe the work of others. The children give each other guidance on how to draw/ paint/ manipulate images and offer ideas on how things can be changed or what they like about a certain piece of art.  One friend told another," your sheep looks like it's flying. You got to put the sheep lower so it can be on the ground."  For this project we chose to print out some basic animal shapes that you can find on a farm. Each child identified the animals and then chose one of interest to work with. Using markers, they created environments that you can often find their chosen animal living in.  During their work time we asked questions about the environment, how they identified the animals, what makes the animal they chose special, farms, and different things the children decided to add such as a " flock" of birds. 

Farms

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We introduced a new set of farm animals into our classroom. The children quickly began building farms, barns and stables for each animal to eat, sleep and rest in. All this activity led to some really great conversations about farms. What is a farm?, are there different kinds of farms?, why are farms important? The children drew something you might find on a farm. We feel like there is still  quite a bit of interest in farms. We are hoping in the coming days and weeks to continue with our exploration.