Moments in Learning

We have started to talk with the children more about recipes for the mud kitchen.  We gave them each a “Mud Kitchen Recipe Book” where they can write down the ingredients and instructions for a mud kitchen recipe.

This is a great literacy activity.  Children write their names on the cover and watch the teacher write down the words they are speaking in the “instructions” part.

One thing the teacher noticed is that the children are not all grasping what a recipe is.  We have done baking activities in our classroom, but we are planning to do more so that they can start to see the format of a recipe: ingredients and instructions.

We also plan to use the mud kitchen daily so that children have a chance to explore more with mud kitchen recipes together.

Here are just a few examples of the “Mud Kitchen Recipe Books.”

The structures project is still going strong in Room 4.  The children have been experimenting with building using different types of materials.  Today, two children built houses out of a variety of items.  They made certain areas for their houses and specifically talked about there being kitchens.  This is exciting because they are now talking about the components of structures.  One child even used the Lego table as a roof.  There are some photos below.

We also did our planning for the next two weeks.  At the below links, you can see our environment and daily plans.  We have woven in some structures activities such as dioramas in the art studio and a study of cities using the book Roberto, the Insect Architect.

There are also other exciting plans like a bubble activity in the art studio and a small group where children are making games.  Today there was a new dinosaur game in our classroom.  Children organized dinosaurs in different ways, practicing classification skills (mathematics!).  The games are also very social in nature.

We hope you enjoy reading the plans.  Have a great weekend, too!

Environment Planning -11-25-13

Teacher Planning Document November 25 and December 2

We just added something new to our classroom: a “Giving Tree.”  This tree hangs near the sign-in book.  On it are leaves with different kinds of items written on them.  They are items and supplies that could help us enhance the learning environment for the children.

If you would like to participate, please snip a leaf off of the tree and bring it back with your donation when you have it ready for us.  Thank you so much!  Many of these items are things that cannot be purchased easily by our school and you may even have some of these things at home.

Many of you may remember the book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  That was our source of inspiration!

Today we added a book in our hallway that is hanging in the “Structures Documentation” display area.  The book contains drawings the children did when we asked them to help consider ways to redesign our yard.  We hope you enjoy flipping through the book to see their work.  Here’s what the cover of the book looks like.  Have fun!

Teacher Planning Document November 18

We have a lot of fun things planned this week.  We hope you enjoy reading what we are up to.