Week in Review: 1/11-1/15

Week in Review: 1/11-1/15

Helping Others: 

Our classroom community values being kind to one another. We wanted to explore this idea further and talk about how we could help others. The students were interested in the firefighter materials in our Dramatic Play area. We had a group time discussion about how firefighters help others in different ways. We also talked about how we can help others in our own way. During explorations, we offered the students different firefighter materials and observed how they integrated their knowledge of helping others along with what we learned about firefighters. We noticed the children using the long ladder on the truck to help people escape buildings and using their imaginary hoses to put out fires. We will continue to work on understanding how people can help one another. 





Early Childhood Standards of Quality Met: 

1. Early Learning Expectation: How People Are Influenced. Children begin to recognize that many different influences shape people’s thinking and behavior.

2. Early Learning Expectation: Participation-Cooperation-PlayNetworking-Contribution. Demonstrate increasing ability to be together with others, in play or intellectual learning opportunities and/or making positive efforts for the good of all; join a community of learners in person and digitally as appropriate.

3. Early Learning Expectation: Personal Safety. Children recognize that they have a role in preventing accidents or potential emergencies.

Sculpting the Giraffe:

Before winter break, we explored the various shapes and lines that made up the giraffe. The students worked on representing the long lines within the giraffe through drawing and painting. We wanted to revisit these lines and shapes this semester in a different way. We offered the children molding dough to create their own rendition of a giraffe. We talked about how we sculpt the dough to create different parts of the giraffe such as the body, long legs, long neck, head, and tail. The children were interested in rolling the dough into balls and snakes to create each part. They also experimented with how to represent the design of the giraffes skin on their sculptures. 

    



Early Childhood Standards of Quality Met: 

1.       1. Early Learning Expectation: Creativity-Imagination-Visualization. Children demonstrate a growing ability to use originality or vision when approaching learning; use imagination, show ability to visualize a solution or new concept.

1.       Early Learning Expectation: Visual Arts. Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.

6. Early Learning Expectation: Fine Motor Development. Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to improve a variety of fine motor skills both in structured and unstructured settings

Connecting two points with pathways:

Last semester, we explored ramps and pathways. We noticed the students interested in using different materials to create long pathways. To help their play become more purposeful, we invited them to create a pathway that would connect two adjacent points. The children worked together and problem solved to create pathways that turned and curved to connect one point to another. We saw some children making a curved path to connect the points while others added an angled turn to accomplish their goal. 

Early Childhood Standards of Quality Met: 

       5. Early Learning Expectation: Reasoning-Problem Solving-Reflection. Children demonstrate a growing capacity to make meaning, using one’s habits of mind to find a solution or figure something out.

1.       6. Early Learning Expectation: Participation-Cooperation-Play Networking-Contribution. Demonstrate increasing ability to be together with others, in play or intellectual learning opportunities and/or making positive efforts for the good of all; join a community of learners in person and digitally as appropriate

Transforming a box:

As a class, we read the book "Not a Box. " The book's premise is about a rabbit who turns the box into different things such as a car, rocket ship, and house. We gave the children a piece a paper with a square on it and asked them, "What are you going to turn your box into?"  The children responded with rocket ship, monster, car, house...ect. As a group, we discussed the shapes that made up their rocket ship or car. The children went on to add details in and around the square on their paper. 

Early Childhood Standards of Quality Met: 

1.       Early Learning Expectation: Visual Arts. Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.

1.       5. Early Learning Expectation: Reasoning-Problem Solving-Reflection. Children demonstrate a growing capacity to make meaning, using one’s habits of mind to find a solution or figure something out.

   7. Early Learning Expectation: Geometry. Children build their visual thinking skills through explorations with shape and the spaces in their classrooms and neighborhoods.