"TRGTS" open for Business

Jacob is carefully sorthing the coins Quarters, dimes, nickles, and pennies. Sophie S. and Mia are the customers. Ben wanted to write the sign and looked at our board for reference.

 The sign is created, money is sorted, people are shopping with recycled bags. When we discussed that money was needed to buy items some children thought we could make money, which we did, and others thought that we needed to work for our money, and some thought we needed cards to pay for things.  It is quite interesting to hear the conversations about the concept of money. Equally interesting is how expensive groceries are at this target.

Team work

It was peace out (quiet time) in lunch bunch. Several activities are set up for this time. On this particular day children wanted to construct with Magna tiles. Brett and Max Greenstein made a plan: they wanted to make something big and use ALL the tiles. They negotiated placement of tiles and shared a vision. Others were working alongside but they did not have as many tiles to work with. One might think ... Trouble coming! Jacob, Jared, and Drew asked if they could add on to their existing structure. Brett and Max graciously said sure, then asked "can you post this on the blog, so my dad can see we did teamwork?" It is wonderful to sit alongside children learning life skills of negotiation and teaching and inspiring one another!

Tel Aviv LOVES Snow!

The Tel Aviv kids have been spending LOTS of time in the snow this week! The snow has been fun and it's not too cold when you are wearing the proper snow gear and this combination has meant that we have been spending over an hour outside each day! We have made snow angles, snowmen and practiced our climbing skills! While making a snowman yesterday Lily, Charlotte, Josie, Molly and Micah Rosin negotiated how to roll the ball and where to put in the sticks for arms. often times they had different ideas for how they envisioned the snowman but they were able to use their problem solving strategy to create a solution that everyone was happy with! Later in the morning we went up to the parking lot and practiced climbing on the snow banks. I was impressed with how each child navigated the plains of snow and carefully paid attention to their footing as they slowly climbed up the snow banks. It was quite a site to see and once they got to the top, they roared with laughter as they slid down. Such fun mornings playing in the snow! We hope that it will stay warm and snowy like this for the rest of the week!

We Need a Substitute. Any Volunteers?

We have recently introduced certain responsibilities in the classroom. The children gather at morning meeting and look at the schedule to determine what their job is for the week. On Friday there was a problem. The person who keeps track of the visual time schedule was absent. We asked for volunteers. Many children wanted to do this job. Who could be the substitute for this job. What would be the fair way to handle this situation?

We presented this dilemma to your children. We heard we could vote on a person, different people could turn over different order. We considered their suggestions, wrote down the name of each eager volunteer, and then placed the names on top of the visuals. OH, NO there were more volunteers than visuals to turn over. Another problem.. What could we do? Some children suggested that some children could do it today and some tomorrow, or we could do it together. We decided to honor their suggestion and put names in pairs so they could work together to complete their job.

As we placed the the names on top of the visual time schedule, we noticed yet another problem. In our schedule there are two good bye times, one before lunch bunch and one after. Yet another problem solving opportunity. We then needed to look at the lunch bunch schedule to determine who was staying so they would be there to complete their job.

It was a very long morning meeting filled with much learning opportunities for problem solving. This was not a planned activity but one that was responsive to an unexpected situation that came up. This is  life long learning skills in the making.

Great Puzzle Skils

Team Bet is talking about taking care of the world and taking care of animals yesterday Hannah, Jaedyn, Sydni,  Lizzie and Zach worked hard to piece together a beautiful puzzle of so many different wild animals. Putting a puzzle together takes a lot of team work and negotiation. Each child would work on a piece by him or herself but then others would often point out where the piece would go if they had an idea. Sometimes its hard to use your words rather than grab the piece and put it where you might think it goes, but with a little bit of coaching from Hannah this group did a great job!

Negotiating and building together

The Kapla blocks lend themselves to lots of imaginative play. Today we built a house, a garage, a swimming pool and a "really really big" deck. It was so big that it was longer than Naomi, even when she stretched herself out!

Also, the big pile of blocks stimulated some negotiations. The children discussed whether or not one group could use "all" of the blocks, but the final decision was that each group could use "some." Jeffrey said, "we can give them some." A great decision to share after careful negotiations! Diplomats in the making!

Building a city takes teamwork

The Scientist class visited the block room today. Lots of decisions were made and conversations were flowing. Large blocks, small blocks, round blocks and square blocks were all used to create a structure that exhibited the cohesive teamwork. "Please pass me the round block," "I need the long block," "How do we get the round block to stay?" These are some of the dilemmas that the Scientists experienced today while exploring their architectural skills. The Scientists are building a strong team with their friendships during playtime.