Dear Purple Room Families,

This week we will focus on what science learning looks like in a play-based classroom. We do not have “science time,” instead science is integrated throughout our day. We pay attention to the children’s interests and wonderings, and plan provocations that let them explore their own ideas. This type of physical exploration can actually change how the brain processes scientific information. Here is a fascinating, short article about how “hands-on” learning strengthens scientific understanding. 

Our current science focus– physics– actually began with an accidental discovery at the end of last week.

Did you know if you put a tiny plastic animal on one end of a triangular block, and hit the other end, you can catapult the animal in the air? 

After one student discovered this in the block center, there were soon animals flying all over the room, and children experimenting with different catapult designs. This was fascinating, but also not particularly safe for a classroom, so we took everyone outside to build catapults. What design makes the object fly farther? What design makes it fly higher? When children are exploring, they are natural scientists, testing ideas, discussing alternatives, and drawing conclusions based on their own observations.

We set up our science center in the classroom to further this interest. We added cardboard and plastic tubes, ramps, cups, and blocks for building marble runs. The children have been experimenting with different designs to make the marble roll faster or farther. We talk about how with a catapult, we apply force to make the object move, and with ramps we let gravity pull the object.

This learning extended into the art center. One child wanted to recreate the straw art project from a few weeks ago using a giant paper and a turkey baster. Soon several other children joined, with eye droppers and straws to move the paint around. As the paper got wet, it formed ridges and valleys. The children dropped paint onto the higher points and watched it roll down. “Just like the marbles roll!” They figured out if they pushed the ridges around they could manipulate where the paint would roll. Making connections across different disciplines helps students solidify learning.

Our “gravity painting”

When we went outside, the connections continued! Some children began to balance the large beams from the outdoor blocks across other blocks to create teeter-totters.  They practiced balancing with each other and seeing what happened when they made the teeter-totters taller or longer.

We read the book Balancing Act and discussed what happened when the mice tried to make their own teeter-totter. The children connected their own experimentation with the scenarios in the book, and got small sticks and toys to demonstrate what happened when more animals tried to get on the teeter-totter.

Suddenly the children remembered a learning tool we enjoy during math games: the math balance! “It’s like the numbers we put on and they’re the same!” “It’s equal!” “It’s three and three it’s the same on both sides! Like three and three is six and it makes the math balance not tip!” The children were connecting the physical act of balancing to the abstract concept of mathematical equations.

 

 

The math balance in action

As we demonstrated the numbers from the book on the math balance, one child noticed something– “when there’s two animals on one side and two on the other, the new frog should go in the middle! Then it would balance!” This led to a discussion of which numbers have “middles,” such as three, five, and seven (they can’t be divided equally– if you made two equal groups there will always be one number left over.) This is a concrete way to understand odd and even numbers.

 

Demonstrating our discover that three and five have “middles” and can’t be divided into equal groups.

Here are some more of the children’s noticings from this week:

Carmel: “We need a big wood to balance. Like a board, and we use screwdrivers to fasten it. Then we put a lot of things on and see if they don’t fall.”

Daniel: “We should have more pipes for the marbles. I want to make a marble run that goes all the way across the room. My bridge was very stable and the marble can go across it.”

Harvey: “If we had more cardboard pieces, we could make tunnels for the marbles. That way you can’t see where it is, then bam! Marble!”

Natan: “Me and Rylan are going to make a marble run down the loft stairs. We need lots of tubes and a block to stop it at the end.”

Rylan: “When the marble goes down the stairs it goes fast! We need to tape the tubes so they don’t fall.”

Jonny: “I want to put more things on the board outside to make a catapult. I want to see it go higher than me.”

Abigail: “Did you see my catapult! It made the pompom go extremely high! If you hit one end it just flies up!”

Shepherd: “I want to make a teeter-totter for lots of people. Like in the book with the mice and the frogs. And we can all go on and see how heavy.”

Yehonathan: “If you tip the ramp this way up the marble doesn’t go. If you tip it down it goes. And then you need something to catch it.”

Ella: “If you tip the tube higher the marble will roll. But if you lay it flat it just sits there.”

We will continue to explore physics next week, as the children’s interest has grown and they are asking for more specific materials to experiment with. If you have any toilet paper or paper towel tubes at home, we could use them!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Shoshi and Morah Shaina

 Dear Purple Room families,

    This week’s newsletter will focus on what math learning looks like in a play-based preschool classroom. We hope that this will give you some insight into the ways we integrate math throughout our day.

    When we plan math learning for the Purple Room, we keep in mind all the different components of math knowledge. We make sure that we balance our math activities so that the children build knowledge in each area. 

Counting and Cardinality– This includes knowing number names, knowing how to count on from a given number, recognizing written numerals and matching them to quantities, and counting to tell the number of objects.

What does this look like in a play-based classroom?

• Singing counting songs! We sing all day, and often use our fingers as props in these songs. Using fingers to learn to count is a research-backed approach, as it naturally guides children to see numbers as parts that make ten.

We sing songs like “One, two, three, four five, once I caught a fish alive, six seven eight nine 

ten, then I let it go again!” This song teaches children to divide ten into two groups of five. 

Think about the beat in “One, two, buckle my shoe”-- this song is teaching children an even/odd rhythm which will help when we start learning about even and odd. 

• Playing games that require children to match quantities, such as dots on dice, to written numerals. These types of games are easy to differentiate for learners at different levels– we can add another die for children ready for larger numbers!

• We count all day long. The davening helper has to count how many pennies he or she needs based on how many children are in school. The line helper has to count and make sure we have everyone. We have ten students– how many are not here? 

Operations and Algebraic Thinking– understanding the idea of adding to an amount or taking away, understanding what the + symbol and the - symbol mean.

• This is a complicated idea! We play many quick games throughout the day to enable children to practice adding and taking away. We work on “counting on” to solve these types of problems– if we already have five children at the table and two more want to join, do we need to count everyone again or can we start from five? 

• We set up provocations for children to explore addition and subtraction and the symbols +, -, and =. One amazing tool is the math balance– it only balances if you put markers of equivalent quantities on each side!

Number and Operations in Base Ten– Understanding that teen numbers are “ten and some more,” for those ready for it, understanding that twenty and up can be composed of a certain number of tens and “some more.”

• Understanding that “10” is not one and zero is very complex for preschoolers. We play games that require laying out counters to show ten and how many more. 

• We practice reading teen numbers and understanding the difference between “12” and “21”. 

• We are starting to practice counting by 10s and 5s. For some children these are just fun songs; for others they are ready to start adding tens to make larger numbers.

Measurement and Data– Comparing, measuring, classifying and sorting according to attributes.

• Preschoolers naturally do this all day! We build towers and compare and measure their heights. When we work with loose parts, we can initiate conversations about attributes (shape, size, color, etc) and notice with the children how they are sorting their pieces as they work.

• We graph quantities with the children and compare amounts.

Geometry– Identifying and describing, comparing, and composing shapes.

• Preschoolers love shapes. We notice shapes all around us and discuss their attributes and differences. When working with blocks, magna-tiles, and various art materials we can naturally discover that two triangles can combine to make a square, that squares have sides of the same length but rectangles don’t, that an ellipse looks like a “flat circle.” One student noticed that a square is a “circle with corners.” What a fascinating conversation about equal length sides and how different shapes are similar and different!

You will notice that we didn’t discuss writing numerals or math equations. That is deliberate. Many four-year-old children are just developing the fine motor control needed to write letters and numbers, so we do not plan math learning that requires writing. We focus on the math knowledge itself. However, for those who are ready and show an interest in writing numbers, we do guide them and practice this Kindergarten skill.

We hope this newsletter helps you understand the math learning your child is doing each day. Please ask us if you have any questions! We love talking about early numeracy.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Shoshi & Morah Athena

 

Dear Purple Room Families,

Happy Tu B’Shvat! We hope you enjoyed the Zoom celebration.  We also celebrated having a new student in our class family! Welcome to the Purple Room, Abigail! 

 

 

In Jewish Learning, we focused on the holiday of Tu B'Shvat, and why we have a birthday for trees. We talked about how the Torah is compared to a living tree, and what we appreciate about trees.

Jonny: They grow and give us shade.

Ella: You can grow lemons on a tree, and then have lemonade.

Natan: My grandpa and grandma have lots of fruit trees. We had an orange.

Harvey: Trees give us fruit to eat. 

Shepherd: I like to try to climb the trees.

Yehonathan: We really don’t want to cut them down. We have to take care of the trees by giving them water.

We have also been learning about the weekly parsha. There was a lot of interest in the mud bricks which the Jewish people had to make when enslaved in Egypt. We took ice trays outside with us and experimented with different mixtures of mud and water to see if we could make bricks, too. On Monday, we discovered that some of our bricks dried over the weekend, and we could build with them! Here is one of our successful experiments:

 

Math Learning

We learned the math game: Race to Ten this week. In this game, children flip a coin to add one or two pieces to a ten frame. This game builds students’ abilities to subitize, fluency with simple addition and subtraction, and understanding of the relationships between numbers within ten. 

 

For an extra challenge, we also played Race to Twenty! We focused on learning how teen numbers are “ten and ______” and while we played the game we used “math names” for these numbers, for example referring to twelve as “ten-two.” Understanding the quantities of these numbers is a little harder for native English speakers than speakers of other languages, because English has irregular number names such as eleven, twelve, and thirteen. Many languages such as Hebrew have more regular number names that literally mean “ten-one, ten-two, ten-three.” 

Art Learning

This week we mailed cards to our grandparents to invite them to the Tu B’Shvat celebration. We included an art project: straw painting. To create a straw painting, students used eyedroppers to drop liquid watercolor onto paper and then used a small straw to blow the colors in different directions. This was fascinating for the Purple Room, and we continued this project throughout the week. The children experimented with using different amounts of paint, and also turning the paper to make the paint run in different directions. We compared our bright, colorful designs with paintings by Vasily Kandinsky. The children noticed the way Kandinsky combined large colorful areas with detailed dots and lines. We used Sharpies to add our own details to the straw paintings. The finished works were out at the Tu B’Shvat celebration and will be displayed in the hallway for you to see.

 

Literacy Learning

We do a lot of work on phonemic awareness, or being able to differentiate and manipulate the sounds in spoken words. For example, being able to separate the beginning or ending sound in a word, separate words into syllables, or identify rhymes. There is a lot of research that shows that phonemic awareness is one of the most pivotal aspects of learning to read. It is hard to get a picture of this learning, as it is mainly oral games. In this photo, we are playing a game where we find the last sound in a word.

Phonics is taking phonemic awareness and combining it with print. Can you see the big chalk letters in the picture below? We are playing an active game where we identify the vowel sounds within words and jump on them! 

Full Body Learning

We spend a lot of time outside, with a combination of free play and structured games. It is important to give the children time to explore and be in charge of their own play, and also to play in ways that require understanding directions and cooperation. These games help children with self-regulation. They learn how to have fun and move actively while being aware of their body state and aware of others. Here we are playing “Zoom Zoom Zoom,” using paper plates as steering wheels for our race cars, as we listen to directions to get across the field.

Parachute is a favorite! Here we are playing “Popcorn.” We decide as a group if we want to bounce the balls lightly so they stay on the parachute, or get really active and try to get them all to bounce off!

We hope you have a restful weekend, and we will see you on Tuesday.

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Shoshi and Morah Athena

 

 

 

Dear Purple Room Families,

Welcome back! It is so wonderful to be together as a class again. It seems like everyone grew over break! We have enjoyed reconnecting and meeting our new Morah: Morah Athena.

This week we continued our learning about plants and seeds as we get ready for Tu B'Shvat next week. The class has been particularly interested in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We have read some traditional retellings of the story, and some not so traditional versions!

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Reading different versions of the same story helps the students compare and contrast characters and plot. It also helps them develop a sense of themselves as readers: some preferred the scarier giant in the traditional version, others preferred the funny or kind giant in the other versions. We talked about how different people like different things, and what types of stories we enjoy reading.

This story led to an interest in castles. We looked at the different depictions of castles in the books, and other images of real castles. There has been a lot of castle building in the block area! Below is one castle in several stages of construction. This one was built over several days.

We measured the castle as it got bigger.

 

On the last day, it was taller than Morah Shoshi! (Photo credit Daniel Lvov)

Jewish Learning

We have been learning about the parsha through felt stories each morning. We learned about the Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt, Moshe’s family saving him by putting him in the basket in the Nile, his encounter with the burning bush, and the first 7 plagues (for those paying attention, yes we covered the parshas from winter break, too!) We are also hard at work on our own siddurim (prayer books), which we should complete next week. The children are very excited to daven with them!

Active Play

We have been playing a lot of active games! We talk about how our bodies feel before, during, and after running around. These types of games help the children learn to move with energy while still being aware of others and their surroundings. We discuss what it means to cool down, and what it feels like to run quickly but not run into each other!

An animal race game

A laundry pick up game

Matching and rolling sock pairs to get ready for laundry pick up!

Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you next week!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Shoshi & Morah Athena