The Opportunities are Endless

So. This is a follow up to the blog I wrote on how annoyed I get with block center problems. You can find that post here if you missed it.

Today in our class (by the way-I have a new permanent teaching partner since all those big changes. I lucked out again with someone fabulous!) the boys got silly with lego-so we brainstormed things we could make. They decided based on the ideas in the book I made-that they would build an office building.

This is the worlds most amazing office building, built by them:

As you can see-they posted some 'stuff' to the outside of the building once it was complete. The 'stuff' was the people and things they said were missing from their building. They knew that office buildings hold things. I asked them what kind of things, they said "people, bosses, money, computers and computer guys"

I encouraged them to make some of these things. They headed to the craft center and got to work.

 



That is a janitor in case you can't tell. Holding a broom.

These pictures really got me happy. First of all-look at that detail. Drawn in blue because the boy who drew it explained to me that our school has a boy janitor so the office building should too. Also-the broom. Awesome.

Second of all: and this is a big second of all:

WRITING.
We want them writing right? a common way of thinking is that they must sit at a table and write journal entries daily. So mythical. Writing is writing is writing is writing. At this age-practice practice practice. So I want to save this? I'll take it all down and glue these bits of writing samples into their journals. We need to get kids interested in writing-how do we do that if we make them write about things they don't engage in.

I love that this center time providing them with the chance to be creative and build. The blocks is their favorite center (or at least it is where they like to spend their time). So why not give them a chance to write about what they want to. Here's some more examples:

 

This is the secretary and the assistant boss.

 

 

I drew a girl and when I asked them who my girl could be they said "the boss" which I loved coming from a bunch of boys! :)

 

Also-thought it was really intelligent that when we placed our people and stuff around the office-they wanted to put the money they drew in the same room as the boss. Genius!

 

 

Anyhow. I am loving the learning going on in this center lately. I love that it is getting them writing. I'm looking for ways to incorporate more math in this center-aside from the obvious ways of counting how many blocks it took to build. Would love your opinions.

 

 



 

5 Reasons I Love Fall....

Reason #1-Pumpkin Spice Latte. Salted Caramel Mocha. Pumpkin Steamer. Salted White Hot Chocolate. It's the season I return to drinking hot beverages at Starbucks instead of the iced coffee drinks.

Reason #2- Crisp. Cool. Amazing. Air.

Reason #3-The fair. Where I am from. We have a fun little fair. The schools in our county are all closed for the day. The kids get free passes to the fair. It is called Young Canada Day. They can go to the fair, experience the culture of our area, ride rides, show school spirit. There are teams from each school that compete in various sporting events like cheerleading, road races, tug of war. The fair lasts a week but the excitement of Young Canada Day resonates for months.

Reason #4-We are only 1 season away from Christmas.

Reason #5-Opportunity to Learn. As school starts, the temperatures are still generally very warm here. So fall tends to be the first real change of temperatures that the kids experience during the school year. It's sometimes a gradual change, sometimes not. It gets them talking about the weather because it is different from what it has been.

 

A lady bug found by one of the other kinders in another class during our outdoor play period.

There is also such a noticeable change is surroundings. The leaves change colour and then begin to fall off. The kids notice these things, and therefore want to talk and learn about them. This idea works perfectly with the ELK program. Child directed. Child guided. Child initiated learning.

This season change has done just that for our kinders! The first cool day turned out to be a COLD day. 2 degrees!! We went from shorts to winter coats for that day! Insanity!

It did get them asking questions and got us answering questions. At the end of each school day we have about 25 minutes of outdoor play. Sometimes we just play on the climbers. Sometimes we have outdoor tasks. Their outdoor task this particular day was to find some fall items. Like a scavenger hunt only we didn't tell them what they had to find. They just had to tell us what they found that was fall-like.

Most of them brought us leaves. Some of them pointed at the trees and said things like "I see signs of fall because some leaves on that tree are green, and some are red." or "I see leaves on the ground that fell off the tree."

The next day-many of them collected leaves that they brought in and set on our discovery table. This made for a good sensory exploration which many of them documented in their discovery journals. We also have some milkweed and cattails on our discovery table right now. Some drew those. Some traced their leaves!

We decided to read them a book about textures. It included some descriptive words about textures (soft, hard, rough and smooth). It also had a portion on rubbings. We put rubbing materials out and many of them got right to making their own leaf rubbings.

 

Their abilities amaze me. Sitting watching them do the rubbings, listening to their conversations amazes me. I don't know why. Because I know they are smart. They outsmart me everyday. I loved hearing them helping their friends. "You aren't pushing hard enough to make a leaf. Push harder. You did it!" I love hearing them encourage one another. They take such pride in their work. I love that too. We are really encouraging them to write their name on all their work. All we ask is they try. Even if it's only the first letter and doesn't end up looking like anything. Everyone gets A for effort. Today one of our JK kids wrote his whole name. All 5 letters. PROUD EDUCATOR MOMENT meets PROUD CHILD MOMENT! great. super.wicked. feeling. I love my job.

 

Another leaf activity we have done already was our leaf creations at our production center. I glued one leaf on each piece of paper I had, and set them on the production paper along with some pencil crayons. I showed the kids what would be in the production center and told them they could turn their leaf into anything they wanted.

 

 

This one was a firefighter. Amazing detail. The red on top (his hard hat of course) The black squiggly lines on the right hand side (his fire hose). You can't see it but around the stem of the leaf-there is one red boot. He also has hands and arms, and of course those big eyes and a smile! :) All of this from one of our JK students. I love this one a lot because as a quick observation for this child I was able to jot down in the Social/Personal domain of the E.L.E.C.T. Document: 3.1-recognize people in their community and talk about what they do.

Easy Peasy. Lemon Squeezey. Observation noted, and can be looked back on for future reporting. (perhaps one day i'll blog about how I document observations.)

 

 

This one was a boyfriend. HA HA. The girl sitting next to this child drew a Princess, and so this little girl drew a boyfriend for the princess! :)

 

This one is a butterfly. Some of them are still very interested in the butterfly life cycle that is a part of our discovery center right now!

 

 

A leaf found by one of our SK boys that had him thinking hard about what made those little holes.

 

 

Ramble. Ramble. Ramble.

 

Sorry. Just wanted to squeeze in a bunch of fall ideas. It's so easy to get caught up in all the learning that is to be had during the most wonderful season.

 

Sidenote. If you came here looking for fall programming ideas I hope the rubbings helped. There are so many avenues you could explore. Our class is just beginning so I will be sure to post more as they occur! This blog post is part of a Fall Blog Hop over at the Teaching My 3 Blog. You could hop over there to gather more fall planning ideas! Enjoy! :)

 

 

 

 





 

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

Have you read about what we are doing in our discovery center these days? If not-you can catch up here !

We wanted to extend this a bit-and see where our kinders minds take us next. So we decided to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Most people know about this book-if you have been living in the dark-STEP INTO THE LIGHT! It's super. While teaching about the life cycle of a butterfly, it also carries a bunch of other teachable topics. There is opportunity to learn counting and the days of the week, there is potential to discuss nutrition, whats healthy vs. whats unhealthy and the effects it will have on our bodies

It also opens the window of opportunity to discuss self esteem with the children. That is why it is one of my favourite stories to read to my own children. I love conversing with them about transforming from a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, about how everyone has the opportunity-even people who start out as "unremarkable caterpillars", to realize their full potential and become amazing, beautiful, complex beings, just like the butterfly.

Well I read it to the kinders based only on the fact that we have our own caterpillars transforming in our classroom currently. I was hoping they would make the connection to our discovery center-and they did!

They also noted-that our caterpillars looked differently then the very hungry caterpillar. Ours are yellow and black striped, Eric Carle's is green with a red head! Only 2 weeks into the school year and their observational skills are blossoming!!

To extend this a little-we provided the class with materials at our production center (arts and crafts), to make their very own hungry caterpillar. They had brown paper bags, scissors, a picture of a caterpillar, grocery flyers, and glue. This is what they made:

 

 

 

A little grocery shopping bag for the caterpillar with whatever the children thought he would like it eat!

 

 

Also, all the caterpillar and butterfly talk seeped out into the other centres.

 

We had noticed that many of our children need help with their cutting skills. They were wanting to use scissors and we know how great that is for them to practice, but we were using SOOOOO much paper. So we opened up playdough, and only put out scissors to go with it. They would cut that playdough until the cows come home.

 

 





I overheard 2 children sitting, and cutting playdough, building a caterpillar.

 

Some spectacular sounding out of the word Caterpillar by one of our kiddos! Along with an awesome drawing of the very hungry caterpillar! :) We are making huge steps towards success already! They are learning through playing with the chalk!

 

 

And finally-two of the journals. We don't as a rule make the children do journals, but we leave them open on our Graphic Communication table (writing center) and allow them to come and go as they please. Most of them do it without being asked-sometimes we put the bug in their ear to inspire them! We have science journals and writing journals. These masterpieces are part of our science journals!

 



The top one a cocoon, and the bottom one, of course a beautiful Monarch! :) I am loving the interpretations of whats happening in our room!

We are Krazy for Katerpillars in Kindergarten. (hmmmm...sounds like a bulletin board.)