They're Here!!!!!

...Lets hope that they have chickens inside them!!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Overhead Projector

Robin Watch: Day 6

Mama Robin was planted firmly on her nest yesterday, so we didn't get any photos. Today, she hopped off to hunt worms on the playground, and our patience was rewarded with this:

FOUR!!!

Robin Watch 2011: Day 2

Mama Robin was in her nest today. We are trying to give her a wide berth, but she doesn't seem to mind a few peeks from curious kiddos every now and then.

We can't tell if this is the same Mama Robin that nested in our playhouse last year, or maybe one of her babies. Either way, she didn't re-use the old nest. This one is located a few feet away from the last one.

Apparently, Mama Robin had a busy night...

...Now there are three little eggs!

Hyperlinks & Hyper Kids!

I'm back from my trip to PA! Networking with 50 of the best and brightest Early Childhood Educators that this country has to offer was as awesome as it sounds! If you are a teacher of children from birth to kindergarten age, I strongly encourage you to apply for next year's Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation Teacher grant. You can check here to see if the application is up yet. While you're there, do click around and read up a bit on the history and mission of this unique and vital organization. They are good people! Really, do it now. I'll wait...
As soon as I set foot in the classroom, it was on to the next thing. As mentioned before, we have a lot of curriculum pots on the stove. Some of them are still cooking; our exploration of clay and ceramics is ongoing, as is the season of spring and all of the changes that comes with it. A few of the themes that we were drawing out seem to have run their course. The bus/airplane/spaceship dramatic play has dried up. In it's place, the children are fascinated with this story;

...This is by no means the first time Abiyoyo has captured the collective imaginations of the Frogs. Really, the story seems to have all of the elements that Three-year-olds love; Transgression, magic, sudden danger, monsters, heroism, and redemption- Lots of fertile ground for epic dramatic play! Lately, Abiyoyo has been showing up in the classroom at about ten o clock sharp, every single morning. You can tell he's here because someone will yell "Run for your life, Abiyoyo's coming!" and everyone will take off! This has lead us teachers to investigate what kinds of ways we can channel this running, hiding, adrenaline laced play into something that is better suited to a limited space. We were still scratching our heads when Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning posted this article on their facebook page. (Go ahead and read it...I'll wait again. Really, it's worth it!)

Here's an excerpt that really resonated with us;

Sensory activities fall into different categories. Perhaps the most useful one for self-regulation is Proprioceptive Input. That's a fancy word for "Heavy Work" that engages your joints. Thee activities make you feel grounded and can be calming for a high running child or invigorating for a low running kid.

"High running" is the perfect description for the kind of energy that Abiyoyo brings, so today we focused on adding some opportunities for heavy work into our environment. I'll post photos another time, so I can squeeze in one more exciting curriculum development...

If you were here last year, you might remember that we had a very intelligent Robin that somehow intuited that we were studying Oviparity and obliged us by building a nest on our playground and laying three perfect little eggs. Well guess what?

THEY'RE BACK!

April Month-To-Month Mural: Showtime!

For April, We're taking our mural on the road!

April 9th-16th is the Week of the Young Child. Our community marks this occasion with a children's festival and parade, and a week long art exhibit, featuring the work of children from area schools.

Guess where our work is displayed?

I'll give you a hint: You won't have any problem getting your kid excited about checking out the show...

Anyone recognize those mirrors?

Give up?

Herrell's Ice Cream!

Every classroom at Nonotuck contributed something. The Possums put together a display of original illustrated stories...

...and the Polliwogs and Chameleons took over the front window with their 3D flower sculptures and their articulated Dizzy Gillespie mural

Be sure to check it out before it's gone. My pictures don't do this artwork justice, and ice cream is always nice too!

Wordless Wednesday: Sugar Shack!

March Month-To-Month Mural: Wet Clay

We weren't quite sure what the next step for our mural should be. The Frogs have shifted into a phase where they are investigating three-dimensional artwork. They are especially into working with clay. We weren't quite sure if it was possible to incorporate this exploration into our two-dimensional mural.

Then we put this out on the art table;

...Which eventually turned into this;

...And this;

...which, we decided, could easily translate to this;

There was one point in the process where the entire canvas was covered in wet clay. Our previous layers were completely obscured. We teachers definitely had a bit of an, "Uh oh, What have we done!" moment.

Not to worry! The kids revisited the discovery that they made the last time and used Popsicle sticks, paint brush handles, and whatever else they could find, to scrape off some of the wet clay, once again exposing the layers of paint underneath.

Just to be on the safe side, we fell back on an old pre-school teacher standby;

When in doubt, add glitter!

We have found that using spoons to sprinkle glitter works well with this group. The kids are so very precise, almost delicate with their sprinkling and spreading- very different from the "Shake the bottle, hard, until it's empty!" approach that we see when we offer glitter in shakers.

For good measure, we also offered google eves and plastic spangles, perfect for embedding in the wet clay...

Once the glitter-storm had passes, we figured we should probably attempt to somehow seal this new layer. We mixed white glue and water, and painted the milky mixture over the entire surface.

Here's what the mural looks like now;

We almost don't want to change it again!

Super-Mega Curriculum Update...

Howdy all! Wowza! We have so many balls in the air right now, as we juggle several different curriculum threads that are emerging. In the interest of getting them all out there before we lose track of them, I give you…bullets;

• Thursday, everyone pretended that the book area was a bus. Eventuallly, that morphed into an airplane, made out of chairs in the middle of the classroom. Friday, we teachers arranged the chairs on top of the loft, and added headphones, computer keyboards, and books to see if the Frogs would carry this airplane play further. They did, adding a ticket counter at the bottom of the steps. Today, we set the loft up in the same way. The Frogs started in with their “airplane” game, until one child announced “I’m on a spaceship!” Well, given a choice between a plane ride and a trip on a spaceship, which would you choose? The Frogs blasted off. We added some homemade jet packs and space helmets from a few years ago to the mix, then borrowed a few books from the Chameleon Room that featured astronauts and space craft. They were very well received. Can’t wait to see where this goes!


• In the interest of bringing this air travel thread into other areas of the classroom, we teachers started using unclaimed artwork to make paper airplanes on Friday. This weekend, Chameleon teacher Scott found a great how –to-fold-fancy-paper-airplanes book at the recycling center. Serendipity? We think so!


• We are still pursuing our exploration of clay. Last week, we experimented with mixing self-hardening clay and water. Then we decided to add a layer of the thick, muddy terracotta slip we made to our mural. There was a moment in the process where we thought, “Perhaps we’ve made a biiiiig mistake…” As usual, it all worked out for the best. The current version of the mural is hanging in it’s space near the school entrance, so be sure to take a look. We also have a very image heavy blog post elaborating on the process coming your way today or tomorrow.


• We have added a few ceramic pieces to our kitchen area, in order to give the children a chance to experience what happens to clay when it has been fired, glazed, and fired again. We look forward to working with Nort and Scott in the art studio again, to make some of our own clay pieces that we will glaze and fire.


• It actually feels like spring outside! This means it’s time to pull our maple taps from the tree, as the sap becomes bitter as soon as the tree begins to grow buds. We produced about a pint and a half of syrup from the 15 plus gallons of sap that we collected. After observing the process of converting sap to syrup on the small scale in the classroom, the Frogs were able to visit a local sugar shack to see how maple syrup is produced on a large scale. Thanks to all of the parents who helped to make our field trip happen!


• With the new season, comes a number of perennial class projects; soon we will be planting seeds, reviving our worm box, and setting some fertile chicken eggs in our incubator to see what happens!


• Michelle will be traveling to Pennsylvania on the 12th to participate in the 2011 Terri Lynne Lokoff National Child Care Teacher Awards ceremony. This award comes with a $500.00 classroom grant, which will be put towards implementing an expanded science curriculum in the Frog room. We can’t wait!


• Phew! That’s all I can think of for now. Stay tuned to see where this goes!