Tinkering with Toddlerhood

The Tree, More Baking and Planning for Next Week

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Y. Hu

Hello Everyone:
Thank you for coming to Open House Last night. We had such a good time meeting families and showing off our classroom and what the children have done thus far. Today, we visited the Liquid Amber tree again to see if more leaves turned yellow. The children compared the leaves to the ones they collected from our last visit. It was clearly more yellow and orange than the last time.

Next week, we will be baking bread using flour, eggs, milk, water and yeast. We will be observing the dough as it rises and compare before and after tracings of the dough. Here is the link to the recipe:

30 Minute Rolls

Here is a copy of next week’s planning sheet, Have a great weekend!
week of 9.30.13

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Making dough

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Y. Hu

After determining that the children are truly interested in the topic of baking bread through the focusing activity of kneading dough, we began our first investigation of the basic ingredients of bread making: flour and water.

At group time, we read a book about wheat in which children and teachers talk about the various items that are made from wheat (e.g. pasta, muffins, cake and of course bread). We invited the children to explore flour in the sensory tub. As the children explore, we talked about the texture of the flour and introduced words such as powdery, soft, and silky. We then slowly added water to the flour. The children began to feel stickiness of the dough. While some children expressed their experiences verbally by saying “sticky”, “yew”, “wet”, or “It’s like playdough”, others expressed through their actions by constantly going to the sink and washing their hands.

Our next step is going to involved following a bread recipe and bake bread from scratch.

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Patty “bread”, Patty “bread”

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Y. Hu

We started our exploration of baking bread by kneading pre-made biscuit dough and making them in the morning. The children and the teachers talk about the texture, the smell, and the temperature of the dough. We repeated “Patty Cake” rhyme and rolled and patted the dough. After the dough is finished, the children took a walk down to the kitchen and put the dough in the oven. While in the kitchen, the teachers had a conversation with the children in regards to safety. Some children mentioned that the oven was very hot and it might be too dangerous to touch.
After the bread/biscuit were baked, we took another field trip to the kitchen to retrieve them. The aroma of freshly baked biscuit permeated the hallway. We studied the dough and talked about the change in color and the increase in size. Last but certainly not least, we enjoyed the biscuits as a part of our snack. Nothing can taste better than breads shaped and baked by our own hands.
The purpose of this activity is to offer children a shared experience which can be the beginning of our project work on baking bread. Through this baking experience, the children used their senses to understand the various properties of the unbaked dough. As children placed the dough in the oven and witness the before and after appearance of the dough, they gain a basic understanding of the effects of heat on the raw dough. We will be utilizing this activity as the base of future investigation as we continue along.

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The Tree

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Y. Hu

Today we took our very first “field trip” to visit the tree that resides around the building (on Glaser’s side of the Center). It is a Liquid Amber tree that is starting to change color due to the shorter days. Each child was handed a leaf from the tree to observe and take back to the classroom with them. We plan to visit the tree every week in the next few months to watch the leaves change color and fall on the ground. We will keep a timeline by taking pictures and a collection of children’s comments/or drawings about the tree. This activity will give children hands-on experience as to how leaves change color in relationship to the weather. It will also allow the children to make predictions and observations about nature.

In addition to studying the Liquid Amber tree, the children have been singing about leaves during our last group time, as Ms. Krissi is teaching them a new song name “Fall”. It is a very soothing song and the children love to use their hands to mimic the motions of leaves falling from the tree. Here are the lyrics to the song. We will find a change to record the song during group time and post it in the near future. Have a great weekend!

“Leaves fall in the fall, they fall down
Leaves fall in the fall, fall on the ground,
Red ones, yellow ones, brown ones too
Leaves fall in the fall, fall from the blue!”

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Environment Planning and Planning Web for Baking Bread Investigation

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Y. Hu

At the Child Development Center, we use the project approach as a way to guide our curriculum planning. We pick a topic for investigation either base on the interests of the children or from a teacher initiated interest. In the past few weeks, we have observe the children really enjoying “baking” in the dramatic play area inside as well as the “mud kitchen” outside. We wanted to take this interest to the next level by launching an investigation on various aspects of bread baking. The teaching team sat down together and drafted an anticipatory planning web. When the teaching team web together, it helps us to get all the ideas out on paper and to connect them to various developmental tasks. As the investigation progresses, we will revisit the web and expand on the sections which will be of high interests to children. We will start our investigation next week by introducing baking pre-made dough and experimenting with shaping and baking the dough. We are excited to start our first project.

baking bread web

9.9.13

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Polar Bear Polar Bear

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Y. Hu

Today we read

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear?

during our morning group time. After the story was over, we asked the children to identify their favroite animal in the story. While some children shared verbally, others were able to tell us by pointing at the animals in the book.

We utilize our morning gathering as an opportunity to come together as a group and practice pre-literacy skills such as lanugage comprehension, interest in literacy, and recognition of symbols.