our playground - a collaborative piece

Through the work on a collaborative piece about our playground, the children practiced picturing one writing topic in their mind, planning a piece, and representing their unique thoughts and ideas. We noticed and discussed the differences in representations; the details each writer added were slightly different, but represented the shared topic of our playground. 

We began our work with a nonfiction book about playgrounds, showing various kinds of playgrounds through photographs. On the large chart paper we planned our piece. All 18 of the children closed their eyes and pictured our playground. We discussed the important parts of our playground and broke up our reflections to fit on three pages. The children agreed that the dinosaur stairs were important - talking me through the direction that the dinosaur faces and how the stairs are shaped. I never realized the importance of the dinosaur! The children also discussed the importance of our white fence outside of our classroom door, adding the fence to page three.  

Using white boards and dry erase markers, the writers worked on each page while I took pictures, documenting our process. On Friday, I printed the photographs and children's words, putting our book together for an exciting and empowering read aloud. 

Page 1 - Our play structure. There are stairs to climb!

 

 

 

 

Page 2 - The swings and trees. We like to swing with friends.

 

 

 

 

Page 3 - We play in the sand and run on the grass. We have fun! 

 

 

 

 

pumpkin soup

This week, we read one of my favorite stories about friendship, compromise, and forgiveness. Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper is a Fall favorite. Children love the colorful and expressive illustrations as well as the problem - and the solution! Following the read aloud, I asked the questions;

Have you ever had a problem like this with friends? 
When you want to have something go one way and a friend wants to try something different, what do you do?

It provided a rich and meaningful conversation. It was one of those moments when you wish you had another teacher in the classroom to videotape or record! We continued our work with pumpkin soup through our morning message as well as the making of pumpkin soup on Friday morning and the sharing of pumpkin soup for afternoon snack.

This community is willing to try new things, even if they think they won't like it - many of the children stated that they would love to try pumpkin soup. One child said, maybe pumpkin soup will taste like pumpkin pie, I will definitely like it then!

When I first wrote the message, I only had Yes or No. Last year, the children were able to put their sticky note on the middle line of the t chart, meaning Maybe. One child said that with so many friends in our class, this would be hard and suggested I put an additional column for Maybe. I continue to be amazed by this group of children - they recognize that 20 Kindergarteners is a lot and because of this, we might need to do things differently. I also love that the children feel comfortable and trusted to question my work and offer suggestions!

 

 

 

The making of pumpkin soup provided opportunities for children to smell and taste. We talked about measurement and counted in the teens while we stirred. The children noticed how the soup changed - or transformed - with each added ingredient. With the crockpot on high, we smelt the pumpkin soup and cinnamon all afternoon.

For snack, the children helped to hand out napkins, spoons, and spoonfuls of pumpkin seeds. We had pumpkin soup, pumpkin seeds, bread and maple peanut butter for afternoon snack!

KC said it was good, but mostly okay. OC said that it was the BEST.

 

 

working with natural materials

Natural materials offer an array of open-ended play and learning opportunities, such as collecting, counting, sorting, dramatic play, creative expression, storytelling, and construction. 

This week, the children counted acorns collected by KC's family and OC. The children noticed the differences in the two collections of acorns;

The acorns OC collected were longer, "reddish", and had no tops. Children predicted there would be more acorns in his collection, because the collection bag was bigger.

The acorns collected by KC's family were smaller, shorter in length, had a top, were more "brownish", and were in a smaller bag.

The children helped to count the acorns, recording the number on a sticky note. We were curious to see what 100 acorns would look like, stopping the counting of OC's acorns at 100 and then dropping the remainder of his acorns in a different jar. This was an unexpected and unplanned math experience - often these are the richest and most exciting learning experiences of all!

Weaving

Continuing to offer a variety of experiences exploring and working with pine cones, I introduced pine cone weaving this week. Weaving is a fine motor activity, helpful for children to develop and strengthen their fine motor skills, supporting all of their future work. It is a calming and gentle experience, taking an incredible amount of concentration. The act of weaving is also an early introduction to sewing, an experience I will offer in the future during academic choice. 

While sharing her woven pine cones following choice, AM said, 

"Pine cone weaving made me feel calm!"

 

 


Small Construction

Pine cones, rocks, wooden rods and cubes continue to provide rich small building opportunities for the children. For some, the interest continues to be around bridges and different kinds of bridges. For other children, it is an invitation to tell a story, a little dramatic play piece.

 

 

OC drawing and writing about his structure. TW points to and explains each detail in his work, talking about pattern and balance.

 

ML and RC share their small structures. ML draws her work, she provides an additional representation of her story.

outdoor classroom 10-31-17

On Tuesday, the children worked in their outdoor journals, carefully observing pine cones and practicing the skill of scientific drawing. Pine cones can be found across the path leading to our playground and throughout the woods and our outdoor classroom. With all of our conversations and learning about seeds, pine cones provide an interesting seed coat to investigate.

What kinds of lines make up a pine cone?

 

 

 

 

During this experience, we talked about perspective; you can look down at a pine cone and draw what you see, or you can look from the side. We noticed the differences in the drawings as well as similarities, using the language of same and different. Some children shared that it was helpful to have a starting dot for drawing the top of the pine cone and others shared that a starting line helped when drawing the pine cone from the side.

ML and GK shared their scientific drawings of a pine cone. GK had made the choice to draw a heart next to the pine cone. The choice encouraged a conversation about following directions. While adding designs and additional symbols allows for children to be creative and playful with their work, part of Kindergarten is following directions - and part of scientific drawing is following a direction and providing your most powerful work.

GK loves to add hearts to all written work, a symbol that holds meaning, but is also one of GK's many strengths - all of the children admire GK's heart drawing skills! We talked about the lovely heart drawn next to the pine cone, noticing that it took away from the detail of the pine cone. There was no shame in adding the special symbol, but a gentle reminder for next time. I believe it's important to notice and talk about the choices the children make, honoring a child's need or want, while reminding them of the direction or expectation.

 

Our time in our outdoor classroom was very different this week. Following the recent wind storm, we were unsure of what the classroom would look like, or if it would be safe to play and learn in. Upon entering the woods, the children were in awe of the trees down, blocking paths. We were able to navigate between smaller trees into our classroom, an unrecognizable space. Children and adults quickly noticed the extent of the damage as well as how unsafe it was to play in - large trees balanced on smaller trees, waiting to fall down. We decided to leave the woods and walk along the outside of the woods, inspecting the damage from a safer location. As we were walking, DM took OM's hand and said, "This is the saddest day. I love our outdoor classroom!" 

One parent has offered to inspect the damages and see if perhaps families can come together to cut and move the downed trees in our outdoor space. I see this as an incredible community experience, one that the children can be a part of as well. Once trees and branches are cut, children can help move the stumps, perhaps using them to help create an actual border around our outdoor space and seating in our meeting area! If you have any thoughts or ideas for how we can continue our outdoor classroom, please let me know. Until the space is safe to use again, we will be utilizing the trails and fields around our school for our outdoor experiences.

 

Walking along the edge of the woods, away from the large trees.