Buliding Houses, Learning Patterns, Exploring Rhymes

Caution: Construction Zone!

The children have been building homes like we have never seen before! They used all the tables, blocks, fabrics, and loose parts to build intricate spaces. They worked together to negotiate rooms within their structures as well. They chose to make rooms for one or two friends, and had amazing conversations when they ran into conflicts and challenges. When the spaces were too small, they worked together to make them bigger. When it was too challenging to get to a space inside their structures, they reworked their construction so that there was a way in. When walls fell down, they discovered the concept of reinforcement. They used more blocks to help hold up and stabilize the blocks that they were using as walls. 

They also chose to use the parachute to create a huge structure in the middle of the classroom. This too, called for a set of rules that they made up as they went along. Lucy and Ariel F. chose to bring colored pencils and small books under the parachute structure. Other friends decided that they were not allowed to draw inside the parachute. When they discussed why and realized that colored pencils don't take up very much space, they agreed that it was fine. 

They tried a lot of ways to make the parachute stay up. They put planks on top of it to hold it in place. They used chair legs to loop through the hand holds on top of the tables. There was so much trial and error happening all at once. They also needed to negotiate with each other, because they would get one spot set up, but then they would pull in another area and the first would fall down. The Rainbow class worked together like never before on these structures. They used social skills, communication, math, and physics principles to complete their work. Once their structures were "complete" their sense of accomplishment was visible in their faces.

This work is clearly a growing interest for everyone in the Rainbow Class so we will allow for this work to continue in a larger degree next week.

Exploring Patterns

We explored patterns at the discovery table this week. There were many small loose parts available for the children to use in order to create patterns. We started out by using felt pieces as a work space. We then moved on to collect natural materials and use paper shapes to glue patterns onto black paper. We also had small beads and pipe cleaners available to create patterns. The children discovered that there are many ways to create patterns. You can differentiate objects from each other by shape, size, and color. You can also create patterns that alternate in different ways such as blue, green, blue, green or blue, blue, green, green, etc. As the children worked with the materials, their patterns grew increasingly complex. They also enjoyed copying each other's patterns, especially with the beads and pipe cleaners. 

Outdoor Work

The children chose to do a muddy boot cleanup one day. They collected all their boots, put them in a bin, and washed them clean using the hose and a paintbrush. They discovered that when all the muddy boots were in the tub, the tub water was no longer clean! They realized that they needed to wash them clean as well.

We also explored water shadows this week. The children lay still on the ground as Morah Mirele sprayed the hose over them. When they stood up they could see the dry space where they had been before. This was a great exploration of positive and negative space. They realized that if they moved while the hose was on them, it didn't work as well, so they tried the activity again. They could see their bodies were more differentiated the second time around.

The children also enjoyed using chalk this week. Its colors were brilliant when wet from the water. They also made a few obstacle courses and completed them with friends.

Rhyming Words

Our literacy work focused on rhyming words this week (I don't know what happened to all the pictures!) There were small books on the literacy table for the children to draw rhyming words on each page. We had a memory game set up where the children needed to find pictures that rhymed with each other, instead of pictures that were identical. We had a rhyming bingo game out as well as rhyming literacy trays where the children matched the large picture with one of three smaller pictures below to make a rhyme. This was challenging work as we got started, but everyone caught on quickly and had a lot of fun discovering the concept of rhyming.

Counting Up and Counting Down

There are two big dates that we are counting towards now that Pesach is over. We are counting up the Omer to Shavuos and we are counting down to the last day of school. We have a strip with numbers for each activity on our wall near the window. The children are crossing out one number for each day that we count down and circling one number for each day that we are counting up.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Documentation for the week of April 3-7, 2017

Finishing our Hagaddahs!

We continued to discuss each hagaddah page at morning meeting this week. We spoke about what each page meant and how we could portray that meaning onto paper. Once we agreed on a plan, we executed our plan at the discovery table during indoor exploration time.

On Monday the children worked on the festive meal page. They decided that they would use markers to draw, "A table and chairs and people sitting in the chairs and the food on the table especially the gefilte fish. Yummy! Ewwwww." 

On Tuesday the children worked on the Afikomen page. This was definitely remembered from last Pesach. The children were very excited about finding the Afikomen this year at their seders. They decided to use felt to create an Afikomen cover and make matzah using white paper and brown paint. They cut the felt, then glued it together. Next they cut the white paper for matzah, stuck it into the felt bag, and painted the part that was peaking out. There were a lot of steps to this page, and the children showed excellent focus in order to complete it neatly. Morah Mirele did a great job too with the extra mess (saving Morah Tara from a lot of anxiety)!

On Wednesday the children worked on the bentching page of their hagaddahs. We spoke about what it means to bentch, when we do it, and why. Leah told us that her bentcher has a white cover. Hillel told us that we are singing to Hashem. Imie told us that we are thanking Hashem for our food. When we discussed how we could put that concept onto paper, Oree said that we could draw people and food with books on the table singing. Bayla said that we could make a rectangle shape out of paper and put it on the page like a bentcher. After more conversation, the children agreed to create mini bentchers to put onto their hagaddah pages. Once they got started, they all chose to make books that were open to bentching pages instead of just showing the covers of the books. We pulled up a page inside of a bentcher on the iPad and they copied what it looked like. Ariel F. said that she couldn't see any of the letters and wondered how she could copy them. We tried to zoom in on the picture, but it was blurry. Eliya said that she could just draw scribble scrabble, but make it small scribble scrabbles like on the iPad. Ariel F. drew some scribble scrabble and some Hebrew letters. Lucy chose to draw a spiral and some Hebrew letters. Ariel S. chose to draw all scribble scrabble on her pages.

On Thursday we spoke about the part of the seder where we say Halel- we pronounce the glory of Hashem...How do we put that onto paper?! Bayla suggested that we draw Hashem. Morah Mirele asked if we know what Hashem looks like. Lucy said that we could just draw everything every where. Imie's mouth dropped and she said that that would take so long and be too hard. Hillel said that we could make a crown, because Hashem is the king! The children liked this idea a lot. We found sparkly stickers and streamers in the storage closet. Then we pulled up a picture of a crown on the iPad, and the children worked with scissors and glue to create crowns on their papers.

Pesach Sorting: A Math Game

We placed large circles at the bottom of the table with numbers relating to Pesach in some way. We had lots of pictures relating to Pesach concepts above them. The children worked to sort which concepts were grouped together and which number they corresponded to. Ariel S. and Hillel noticed that there were four glasses of wine right away. Next they recognized one of the plagues. They remembered that there were ten plagues so they started to find them and place them on the circle with the number ten. Lucy and Imie worked together later in the day to find all the items on the seder plate. Imie said, "I didn't even realize there were six foods on the seder plate!" Bayla, Leah, and Oree worked on finding all the steps to the seder. There were so many! They realized that the steps had the most pictures so they must go on the highest number: the 15 circle. This game acted as a great review of Pesach concepts as well as a great way for the children to work together in small groups. There were also the four sons and the four questions, which we spoke about more as a class on Thursday.

Learning to Recognize 11-20 using Hole Punchers

Our literacy table focused on numerical literacy this week. There was a game available for the children to use a hole puncher with number cards. They punched the number of holes in the card as the number printed on the card. This was a challenging task, but they were able to use the helper sheet on the table just like they had last week with the rice and rocks activity. The children are still learning the pattern and concepts of what makes a 1 and a 7 the number 17. They were also very capable of checking their work by counting the number of punches that they had made and counting how many more punches that they needed to make in order to get to the number on the card.

Literacy Trays

Our literacy trays this week focused on matching and creation of letters as well as Pesach. There was a magnet tray where the children matched the English capital letter magnets to the lower case letters on the tray. There was also a tray where the children matched Hebrew letter magnets to letters written on the tray. Leah, Imie, and Ariel F. were so proud of themselves when they found every single letter on the tray that they were working on!

We had three peg boards out with rubber bands and Hebrew letters. The children chose a letter and then tried to create it using the rubber bands on the peg board. Lucy worked very hard to create an Alef and Oree made a fantastic Shin!

We also had two seder plate literacy trays to work with. One had a seder plate with words in English and Hebrew where the children matched the pictures of food. The second one had a seder plate with all the foods on it, and the children matched the words to the pictures. We also had the four questions printed in Hebrew for the children to trace.

Let's Have a Seder! Dramatic Play

The children immediately noticed that our pillows were on the chairs in the dramatic play area and not in the library! They went to explore the other materials out on the table too. Imie began playing with the seder plate. Hillel, Eliya, and Ariel S. began taking turns hiding and finding the afikomen. Bayla, Oree, and Ariel F. began saying Kiddush.

Outdoor Work

We started our outdoor work, this week, by bringing water and sponges to the art wall where we painted last Friday. Hillel and Bayla squeezed the sponges full of water onto the wall. Ariel F. took bowls of water and splashed the wall. They watched the water and paint drip down the wall.

The children also became very interested in building tunnels this week. They created ships with tunnels in them, which they called "private rooms." They negotiated how much time each friend got in the private rooms and then decided to build more rooms so that they wouldn't need to take turns. They made similar choices in the construction areas in the classroom this week creating tunnels and bridges with the blocks. We will explore these concepts in greater depth when we return from Pesach break.

Pesach Fortune Tellers

On Wednesday afternoon we broke up into two groups and played with Pesach fortune tellers. They were a quiz game where each child got a turn to choose a question. On Thursday we put the fortune tellers out on the table so that the children could explore them on their own and play the game together.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

We hope that you all have a wonderful Pesach break! We also hope that you explore and enjoy the hagaddah that your child worked very hard on! We will see you again on April 19!