Playing in Nature

During extended day on Monday, we went behind our classroom to see what we might discover in nature. Evan explained that if we turned over large rocks we may be able to find some different insects. At first, we flipped some rocks to find worms and roly polies. Then, Evan turned over a rock and discovered a salamander! The children had such a giggle as they tried to hold the wiggly salamander in their hands. You never know what you might find right outside your door! 

How to Make a Birdfeeder

 Hayley and Ellen drizzle honey on the paper towel roll

Nicolas, Hayley, Ellen and Hillary sprinkle bird seed 

Here's the perfect recipe for making a bird feeder. First you squeeze honey all over a paper towel roll. Then with a few additional friends, sprinkle bird seed all over the sticky honey covered roll. With teacher assistance, pull a string through the paper towel roll to hang off the branch of a tree. "That's a good spot, Tina" Hayley said as we watched the bird feeder sway from the branch.

Green Grass in the Sensory Table

The children in Kohavim planted grass seed in our sensory table that they have watched grow. When the grass first began to sprout, Molly and Max Goldberg felt the grass with their fingers. They explained that the grass felt spikey and prickly. Recently, the grass has grown so tall, that we have been able to hide animals (toy animals, of course!). Next to the table, the teachers posted a big piece of white paper with a prompting question: What animals can you find in the grass? Sabrina searched the grass and recorded butterfly, snake, lady bug, spider, grasshopper, frog and caterpillar. You might want to stop by the Kohavim classroom and see what you can find hidden in our grass in the sensory table! 

Do squirrels like pumpkins?

Well, what do you think...
  We could not believe our eyes today when we saw a squirrel feasting on a pumpkin right outside our door!  The children watched from the window as the squirrel opened the pumpkin with his teeth, carried the pumpkin a few feet away, spit it on the ground and then ate it!  The squirrel repeated the process over and over again until something scared him and he ran away.

When we went outside to play we decided to take a closer look at what was left of the pumpkin. 
That squirrel hit the "jackpot" when he found a plump ripe pumpkin in the middle of the winter on a spring like day!   Only in New England! 

Which animal makes a good classroom pet?

Yesterday, the Kohavim children discovered a spider creeping around. We captured the spider in a glass habitat and observed the spider carefully. We began to discuss the idea of keeping the spider as a classroom pet. After some research, the children found out we were not prepared to take care of the spider and decided to release it. Today, the children continued their discussion of which animal might make a good classroom pet. Below is their conversation:

Eliza: A bunny because it eats carrots.
Molly: How about a bird?
Hannah: No because it makes noise. It will interrupt when we are having morning meeting.
Zack: Maybe you should get a parrot or a snake.
Hannah: A cat
Molly: But are you allergic to cats?
Hannah: Yea
Jesse; If you are allergic would that be a good pet?
Molly: Then you can’t come to school.
Hannah: I used to not be allergic to cats but my first time I met a cat I was allergic to them.
Jesse: What about an elephant?
Jacob: No! Because it would make noise at morning meeting. Maybe a giraffe.
Molly: No that would get too big and break the ceiling.
Hannah: What about if we get a baby giraffe?
Molly: No because it will get big.
Hannah: But when it grows up we can get rid of it.
Molly: But then we wont be able to get it out the door.
Jacob: Maybe it can go upstairs in the Haifa class.
Hannah: What about a chicken?
Molly; A chicken would be running around.
Jesse: What about a horse?
Jacob: No because it makes noise.
Hannah: What about a worm?
Molly: But it will get dried out in the hot sun and stuff.
Hannah: But we could get dirt and leaves.
Lily: A bunny is good because we have carrots
Hannah: It doesn’t make noise.
Lily: And it’s really soft and we can get a cage for it.
Zack: I want to get a parrot cause I just want to.
Dylan: It (parrot) repeats your words.
Zack: And if you get into a fight, maybe the parrot will say the same thing and you might win.
Dylan: But the parrot would fly over all the places.
Ryan: Or we could put it in a cage.
Ryan: A puppy. A pug.
Dylan: We can name him Tucker.
Dylan: How about a kangaroo?
Zack: I think it would be too hoppy.
Dylan: How about a crocodile? We can make him calm.
Zack: Once I touched a baby crocodile.
Dylan: How about a cat?
Zack: Molly and Jesse are allergic to cats.
Ryan: Oh I know!
Noah: A dog.
Jesse: How about a penguin?
Zack: I don’t know what it eats. Maybe fish.
Eli: Because he likes to be cold.
Dylan: How about we get a cheetah?
Zack: It would be so fast. If we would play tag we would never be able to get him!
Zack: I love parrots cause then it would go on my shoulder.
Dylan: But we don’t have a cage. We could buy one.
Zack: One of my friends has a parakeet, maybe a parakeet.
Dylan: How about a pet fish? Because it doesn’t do anything. We could feed him stuff.
Ryan: We don’t have fish food.
Max Greenstein: We can prepare a house for it, so it feels like its at home.
Ryan: If we got a penguin we would have to be cold.
Max Greenstein: How about a dog? Dogs are easy.
Jesse: Well I am wondering about when the dog has to go to the bathroom.
Zack: I have a dog. They go to the bathroom on the grass.
Jesse: What if it is morning meeting and the dog has to go to the bathroom?
Ryan: Maybe there would be people on the playground.
Max Greenstein: I’m gonna draw a hamster.
Dylan: Yeah, because the hamster likes the rolly thing.
Max Greenstein: But we don’t have food for the hamster.
Dylan: We could buy it.
Jesse: What about a turtle?
Ryan: I want to have a turtle as a pet here.
Zack: He would be so slow.
Ryan: Because I like them and they would be a good pet.
Eli: I made a worm and a penguin.
Sabrina: I made a mouse.
Ryan: But he might be a little too quiet. His whiskers might be a little too ticklish.
Zack: If you play hide and seek, he would be so quite we can’t even find him.
Dylan: He might be too small.

The Kohavim children had many ideas about which animal might make a good classroom pet. They also thought a lot about how you take care of the different animals and the qualities that make an animal a good pet. They even designed an experiment to discover if a penguin might actually be a good pet. For more information, see our blog post about our "Penguin Experiment." And stay tuned for updates on if we find out which animal might be a good pet for our classroom!

The Penguin Experiment

The Penguin Experiment 

The Kohavim children have been thinking about which animal might make a good classroom pet. One animal that was suggested was a penguin. The children had many ideas about what a penguin might need. They thought a penguin would need to be cold and eat fish. They realized that in our sensory table we had snow. They decided that we could keep a pet penguin in our sensory table full of snow. Some children were not sure this would work, so we designed an experiment. Jacob drew a penguin to be our pretend pet penguin for the experiment. The children put the pet penguin in the sensory table. They decided to cover the table because if we had a real penguin they thought it might jump out of the table. They immediately noticed there is not a lot of space in the sensory table and wondered if that would be enough space for a penguin. They decided to leave the pretend penguin in snow overnight because when we do get a classroom pet it would have to stay at school overnight. We can't wait to check the sensory table tomorrow morning and see how our pet penguin experiment has gone! 

Exploration With Gak

The Rainbows had a lot of fun playing with the Gak that they helped to make on Tuesday. Everybody had fun making footprints with the colored animals and the children were intrigued by the many different shapes that the footprints made. Sorting the animals by color in the Gak was another fun way that they explored with the slippery and wet material. As Audrey was trying to get some of the animals to stand up in the Gak, she noticed that certain animals stood up easily and certain animals kept falling down. We began to examine why this was the case and we discovered that some of the animals legs were thick while others were thin. I showed Audrey the difference by standing up a giraffe which had thin legs and a rhinoceros which had thick legs. Right away she noted that the giraffe immediately fell down and the rhinoceros was still standing. She had me show her the difference between thick and thin numerous times. Then she began to repeat the words "thick" and "thin" while standing up the animals accordingly. Sophie, who was sitting across from Audrey, also began to repeat the two words to herself. What a wonderful "teachable moment!"

Working Together

The wooden blocks and colored animals were a big hit today on the rug. Josh, Sophie, Rose, and Audrey worked together to build houses for the animals. They had a continual dialogue with each other about which blocks to use, where they should go, and where to place the animals. Everyone's ideas were heard and tried, and no one was left out. Nice job Rainbows!

The Wooden Animals Have A Home

 

On Tuesday, we painted wooden animals and waited for them to dry. Today we got to play with them. At first the kids were very worried that they were going to get their hands dirty. I explained to them that while we were not at school yesterday, the paint had time to dry. I showed them how no paint came off on my hands when I touched the animals. The kids used colored wooden blocks to make houses for the animals. Some of the kids worked cooperatively with one another to make houses together. There was lots of sharing without prompting and very polite asking, such as "May I have  a turn when you're done?" Way to go Rainbows!

Dancing Nancy comes to visit

The Rainbows had a rockin' good time with Dancing Nancy this morning. They turned themselves into all kinds of animals as we "visited the zoo." Can you guess which animal they are below?

If you guessed frog, you are correct...

Dancing certainly helps us to develop gross motor coordination, but it also gives the children an opportunity to experiment with rhythm in their movements.

It was great to start off the day with this active, musical play. We're already looking forward to seeing Dancing Nancy in 2012!

Who Built the Ark?

Children are fascinated by the biblical story of Noah and the Ark; how he gathered the animals two by two and waited for 40 days and nights while it thundered and rained outside. Elias and Micah attentively listen as Mary Ann reads the book. Later this week, the Levana children will be designing and building our own ark. One of our most popular songs has lyrics everyone enjoys singing: Who Built the Ark? Noah. Noah. Who Built the Ark? Noah built the ark.