Category Archives: Classroom Posts

Towards the end of this week, we had two special things happen in Room 4:

1) On Thursday, we walked to the baseball and soccer fields on campus. When we returned, the children voted on whether they liked the baseball field or the soccer field more. During our walk, we also stopped at the cafeteria for cups of water.

2) On Friday, we had an artist visit our classroom!  To see more about what happened, check out our latest Facebook post:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.605636972829450.1073741896.213823248677493&type=1

Next week we have a lot of special activities planned. You can read more about them on our planning document below. However, some highlights are:

1) Tuesday and Wednesday at 9am: Officer Chris will visit our classroom to talk with the children about being a police officer. The children have been preparing questions for him:

a) What is on your belt?
b) Do you have a police dog?
c) Can we pet a police dog?
d) Do police officers have parties?
e) Can I ride in the car?
f) Do you have a police cat?
g) Do you have police cookies and police gum?
h) Do you have a police bird?
i) Do you have a police pig?
j) Do you have police chickens?
k) Do you have a police car?
l) What sounds does your police car make?
m) How does your car make sounds?
n) Does your car drive by itself?

2) On Monday and Tuesday, the children will be making baked pumpkin donut holes for our Pumpkin Day Parties.

3) On Wednesday and Thursday, the children and families will be attending Pumpkin Day Parties from 11-11:45am!

Here are some of the things the children want at our parties:

a) Balloons
b) A pumpkin
c) Ribbons
d) Animal pictures
e) Making presents for our friends
f) Pumpkins on the tree
g) Jack-o-lanterns
h) No fighting
i) Sign that says “Happy everybody party”
j) Sing songs
k) Sign that says “Happy birthday pumpkins”
l) Pajama party
m) Animal balloons
n) Decorations
o) Outside party

We are going to focus on having the following for our parties:

1) It’s a pajama party!
2) We are hoping to have the children make balloon-shape decorations
3) No fighting (the children had this idea and were insistent that it is an important element of a party)
4) We will ask children to make signs for the party
5) The children, teachers, and families will make baked donut holes and yogurt for dipping
6) We will have spiced hot cider

The parties will be from 11-11:45 a.m. It is going to be fun!

Here is our room planning document. Enjoy!

Teacher Planning Document 10-28-13

Today the teachers tried a few new things to see if the designs of the yard would be different.  We still had the photos of the yard in black and white and we offered the children colored marking tools.  We still prompted them with questions such as:

“What would you like to see in our yard?”

“Would draw your ideas for the yard on this photo?”

Today, however, one of the teachers brought some of the photos outdoors.  She brought out photos of the slide area, in particular.  However, children did end up drawing on other photos indoors and outdoors that are of the other parts of the yard.

This Facebook post shows photos of their drawings and their words about the drawings.  We will also post their comments below.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.604794866246994.1073741895.213823248677493&type=1

– “A tree house and a bird”
– “This is Mark” (one child wants Mark, the director, in the yard more)
– “A rainbow over our school and a machine that makes cake”
– “Kites, a rainbow, balloons, a rainbow bicycle… everything to be rainbow except the trees and the sky”
– “Change the color of the park to pink”
– “An aquarium”
– “Everything purple”
– “Everything blue”
– “Kites and volcanoes”
– “Change the color the sky”
– “Wet sand”
– “A swing”
– “A bridge”
– “Plants, flowers”
– “A scarecrow family with a sister and a mom, too”
– “The yard cleaned up” (it was clean up time)

It was interesting to see what the children drew today.  The other element that was added was that children from Room 5 also drew on the photos.

We hope you enjoy seeing their plans.

Environment Planning October 22

We hope you enjoy reading about our new plans!

Today some of the children visited the table with the photos of the yard and drew on them.  Some even cut the photos.  The teacher asked them questions such as:

“What do you like to do in the yard?”

“Would you like to draw something that you want to put in the yard?”

“Do you have ideas for our yard space?”

The children colored on the photos and some even cut the photos.  Did the children cut the photos to isolate one part of the photo or did they just want to practice cutting?  Did the children add color to the photos because they were in black and white?  If the photos were in color and the drawing tools were black, would they focus more on adding specific elements to the yard photos?

Here are some photos of their drawings:

As a part of our structures project, the children have been exploring our outdoor yard space.  We are going to invite them to think about the yard and draw what they would like to see in the yard over pictures we provided for them.  There are four photos: one for each section of the yard.  We have a play structure sand area, a grass area, a large sand/water area, and a concrete patio area.  We cannot wait to see what the children design.

What would you like to see in the yard for the children?  What did you enjoy doing in your childhood?  Do children still enjoy the same experiences that you did?