It's been a busy week in pre-k, as we got ready for the market on Tuesday, and the Solstice Celebration on Friday. We had a great time preparing to sell worm castings at our market table in the gym, and worked hard decorating labels for the bags. We’ve also spent some time this week finishing up our lanterns for Friday night. Tomorrow and Friday we’ll make corn bread, and will look forward to seeing everyone on Friday at 5:30 (yes, 5:30! Sorry about the mixed messages with times).
On top of the market and solstice projects, we’ve also enjoyed setting up a couple of interesting science experiments. After a conversation with a child in the woods, we realized that we have some questions about whether or not trees without leaves are alive. We took a clipping from a tree in the woods and put it in some water, and have made predictions about what will happen and whether the branch is alive or not. We’ve also enjoyed checking on the two pumpkin halves that are decomposing in our room. One is in a tank, and is turning all sorts of interesting colors. The other is in the worm bin, and is full of little holes!
Outside in the woods all sorts of fun play themes are emerging. Monday and Tuesday were great “building” days. We made snow forts, snow people, even a snow bear! Wednesday was a great day to carve the frozen snow. There have been a lot of imaginary kitties, foxes chasing voles, and Frozen 2 characters running around the woods as well!
This change of seasons brings many opportunities for fun and interesting books. Here are a few of our recent favorites from story time:
The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren
Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming
Winter Dance by Marion Dane Bauer
How the Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joseph and James Bruchac
Production time - hand harvesting worms from our beautiful worm castings.
Our rainy Monday turned out to be a lot of fun! Here we are climbing the "ridge" of snow banks on our way to the woods.
It started as a pile of snow...
...and turned into a tunnel!
We used melting snow to wet our watercolor paints, and paint the snow!
Wet rainy snowy hair day!
As we learn about the Winter Solstice it's a perfect time to do some play with light and shadows. Here's our new shadow puppet theater. The kids have been busily making puppets and putting on shows all week!
A version of "How The Chipmunk Got His Stripes" by James and Joseph Bruchac.
A messy counter, but some beautiful lanterns shaping up!
Making shadow puppets for the theater.
Everyone tucked in, ready for bed.
Hiking to the woods.
The snow was perfect for building on Tuesday. Here we are, making our "Welcome" snow bear.
So many kittens snuggling up with Ms. Tobey!
We set up our table for the market and got to practice selling our worm castings.
A beautiful arch entryway for the bunnies. They've been coming out and playing with us a lot during our inside play time this week!
A tunnel carved for some wood block friends.
Oh no! The wood block got stuck in the tunnels! Good thing these four kids worked together so well figuring out how to get it out.
Are they kitties? Puppies? Foxes? Frozen 2?
Comments
Post a Comment