Wordless Wednesdays: November Month-to-Month Mural

Wordless Wednesdays

Introducing Wordless Wednesdays

(Wondering what Wordless Wednesday is, exactly? Click Here!)

Why We Do What We Do

A former Nonotuck toddler toddler teacher, Amy Baker, was kind enough to share this article with me. Her comment?

"I wish more news articles had good information like this one does. READ IT! FORWARD IT around. It's a goodie!"

I totally agree! Enjoy!

NPR.org article; Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skill

As Promised...Pulleys!

Pulleys have been a part of the Frog room for as long as there has been a Frog room! We have always had two pulleys dangling from the ceiling, each rigged with a simple basket and rope. I'll tell you, over the last decade or so, these these humble, hardware store pulleys have been hands down the most popular and engaging toy in the room! The children never get tired of filling the baskets and pulling the rope to hoist them up to the ceiling and down again. They experiment with different ways of pulling the rope- hand over hand, holding it in one place and walking back and forth, rolling it around a block like a winch. They practice moving the basket at different speeds-fast, slow, medium. They pretend that they are giving stuffed animals a balloon ride, or lifting cars up to the ceiling. We often say that they are the product of the best four dollars we ever spent!

A few events over the last couple of weeks have really inspired us to beef up our exploration of pulleys. First, pulleys are classified as simple machines, just like our good friend, Mr. Inclined plane. Second, the city is in the process of converting our building's heating system from oil to gas & we were told that a giant crane would need to come by to lift the new chimney onto the roof. Not only are cranes awesome, they are also a machine that basically consists of a winch, an arm and a pulley.

In addition to our two usual pulley baskets, we installed a third one over by our classroom loft. We call this "the baby elevator", since it seems to be primarily used for hoisting baby dolls up to the loft and back down to the floor safely.

Of course, sometimes two-year-olds prioritize cupcakes over babies...

We also used some plastic pipe to build a frame over the sensory table, which we attached two more pulleys to.

The Frogs used these pulleys to experiment with speed, velocity and force, by filling the buckets up with plastic bears, hoisting them up high, then letting them crash back down into the table, sending the bears flying and making a wonderful racket!

As you can imagine, we are having a grand old time! The only minor let down was that the aforementioned giant crane showed up on a Saturday, when nobody was hear to see it! That's OK, we have another plan up our sleeve to bring a crane to Nonotuck!

...But that's another post entirely!

Wow....Just...Wow!!!

Anyone want to take a stab at building one of these for the Frog Room? The Directions are right here...

Inclined Planes are More Fun Than You Might Think...

When Francine and I get together to plan curriculum, we usually start by asking "What have the kids been passionate about/obsessed with lately." This time around, the resounding (but not surprising) answer was cars and trucks.

Cars and trucks are a perennial item in the Frog room. We may switch off the size and type of vehicle, but you can always find wheels close at hand.

We have nothing against simply rolling cars along the floor, but we figured it was time to expand everyone's horizons a little bit...

The addition of this wooden garage helped to point us in the right direction. Hang onto your hats, it's time to explore some inclined planes!!!

An inclined plane is one of the six simple machines as defined by Renaissance scientists. According to our good friend Wikipedia, simple machines are "the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force"

For example, a dump truck uses leverage to move it's payload (in this case, plastic cows) from the hopper to the dumping ground.

Leonardo Da'Vinci's fantastic inventions were all based on simple machines.

Because simple machines are...well...simple, they are easy to make and offer many hands on opportunities to explore concepts in engineering, mathematics and physics.

Also, when you "multiply force" you can make things go FAST, which is super fun!

As soon as we decided to start purposefully playing with inclined planes in our classroom, we noticed that they are everywhere!
Ramps...

Slides...

Ladders...

We're having too much fun with simple machines to stop with inclined planes. Next up? Pulleys!!!

Halloween Scenes!!!!

Our last post touched on how we pull a group of children together to make a community. Well, last week we were lucky enough to unite under the banner of Halloween!

We surprised the Frogs with a classroom-gone-batty.

Our loft was transformed into a 'Bat cave' using mosquito netting recycled from our now defunct playground gazebo. The Frogs took turns spatter painting the netting earlier in the week, then we teachers hot glued fabric bats all over it. We also used some recycled TP tubes that the Frogs had painted black to make a garland of flying bats to string across the classroom ceiling.

We had a variety of pumpkin related projects available. The Frogs used paint sticks to embellish our smaller pumpkins, and we opened up a couple of our larger ones, just to see what was inside. Squishing around in pumpkin guts proved to be less enticing than it sounds, once the Frogs heard about what was across the hallway...

CHICKENS!!!!!

...Chickens with a thing for toy vehicles, no less!

One of the families in the Polliwog room surprised the kids with a visit from three of their super tolerant, (and very well house-trained) pet chickens!!! Man, there's no topping live farm animals for party entertainment!!!

After the chickens packed up and headed back to their coop, we got ready for snack. Of course, it is a long standing Frog room tradition to make the kids really work for their snacks on Halloween! First, they had to break their pretzels out of a bat-shaped pinata, then they had to go on a treasure hunt around the community room in search of apples.

All in all, the day was a great success!

And now, we will leave you with a couple of before and after videos of our Halloween sensory table project.

Here's the Before;

...and here's the After;

Enjoy!

Becoming Frogs

How do you bring a group of very young children together?

You can give them a problem to solve, like "How do we get the toys out of there?"

You can draw their attention to something that they can't resist digging into...

...with tools...

...or, with their hands.

...perhaps, even with their mouths.

You can show them all something very exciting...

...and then talk about the experience together.

You can ask them to bring in something to share with the whole entire group...

...something from their yards...

...or something to eat...

Whatever we do, it seems that sharing experiences and then reflecting back on them, over, and over, and over again, takes this group of toddlers, with different ages, interests, and levels of ability, and turns them into "Frogs".

We're Still Here!!!

What?! It's October already? That was fast!!!
The transition from late summer into early fall is a strange one for us Frog teachers. Our classroom spends a most of the Summer in a state of limbo, with new Frogs orienting to our classroom, old Frogs gearing up for something new, and everyone taking breaks for vacations, long weekends, and other summer outings. By mid-September, the last of the "Senior Frogs" have moved on to their next big gig- sometimes the Possum room, sometimes other schools entirely- and The new class of Frogs finally starts to fall into place.
A couple of years ago, we started a tradition; As we were putting together each child's end of the year portfolio, we were inspired by how much growth- cognative, emotional, and physical- took place over the school year. We started to measure each child with a length of ribbon during their first week in the Frog room, then again on their last day so we could compare the two. Then, we would use both of the ribbons to make a "magic" wand for each child to keep as a memento of their time in the Frog room.

Just like last year, we were floored by how much the class of 2010 has grown! The differences between the "first day" ribbons and the "last day" ribbons ranged from 4 to 6 inches-Wow!

This week, we are preparing to measure the Frog class of 2011. We are looking forward to growing together this year!

Frog Class of 2010 Retrospective; Many Hands

Here's another post featuring assorted photos from the past year. Enjoy!