Butterfly Life Cycle

We were busy busy last week working on our life cycle of a butterfly project.  The project is a great example of scaffolding our learning.... or emergent curriculum.  While you won't find "make a caterpillar" on our curriculum guide it does list noticing change of season.  After reading Eric Carle's, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" we talked about changes that are happening around us.  Changes in season from winter to spring we see more insects, changes from night to day, days change from Sunday-Saturday, caterpillars and people change in size by how much we eat, caterpillars change into butterflies.  Loads of Pre-K Standards were met during this fun project! 

LANGUAGE
7.PK.2 Listen and respond appropriately to stories and group discussion.
SCIENCE
L.PK.2  Explore and identify a variety of animals and plants.
L.2.A.2 Students know differences exist among individuals of the same kind of plant or animal.
L.2.B  Students understand that living things have identifiable characteristics.
L.PK.6 Identify animals and their homes.
E.2.A.3 Students know weather changes from day to day and seasonally.

 One student described the change of a caterpillar as magic. Thus, we introduce the huge word "metamorphosis" then start of our metamorphosis project.

SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL
G8.K.1 Recognize weather changes with the seasons and how people adapt to those changes.
Ec10.PK.1 Decide between two choices involving classroom resources.
6.PK.1d Demonstrate ability to delay gratification to complete a larger task (Waiting for paint to dry!)
6.PK.1a Attend to a task for at least 10 minutes.
2.PK.3a Use toys and materials with care.
2.PK.3b Clean up or put away toys and materials when finished.

CREATIVE EXPRESSION
5.PK.1 Recognize their own and others' artwork.
5.PK.2 Demonstrate respect for the artwork of others.

  We learned a moth makes a cocoon and a butterfly makes a chrysalis.

Using droppers and small motor skills of pinching, the students their choice of colors of paint, then fold, (another developmental skill) rub, and open.....ta da!
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
6.PK.2 Demonstrate the muscle strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate items (scissors, writing utensil, paint brushes, play dough, buttons/snaps, etc.)
6.PK.3 Use fingered or tripod grasp with drawing, painting, or writing instruments.
Look at that satisfaction!
CREATIVE EXPRESSION
2.PK.2b Express satisfaction when accomplishing a task and achieving a goal.
2.PK.3 Demonstrate persistence by trying again when faced with challenges.
5.PK.3 Use language arts, math, science, and other disciplines in dramatic play (finger plays, counting, grocery store, life cycles!)
2.PK.4 Identify color, shape, and texture through art experiences.

The finished product!  What's hiding inside that chrysalis?  A caterpillar!  And when the "chrysalis" is unfolded it's a butterfly!

 

Effects of Media

Hi everyone,

In my field of teaching children and their parents I am always learning new things (that I wish I knew when my kids were little!) Following is a very powerful TEDXRainier on the effect of media on children and brain development. It is a MUST see in my opinion.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis is a pediatrician, researcher and parent that shares:

"There are certain things we can do early on in our children's lives that enhance their ability to pay attention and certain things that we can do early on that actually impede them." "The more television children watch before age of 3 the more likely they were to actually have attention problems at school age. For each hour per day a child watches before age 3 it increases the potential by 10%, 2 hours equals 20%. Compared to a child who watches none. Cognitive stimulation reduced the chances by 30% " (like reading to them, taking them to a museum or singing to them.)

Television is not the only culprit. Recent studies are referring to it as any screen time ie; computers, games, etc., (yes, even educational games and music videos)

see: http://youtu.be/BoT7qH_uVNo

While some of our children are over the age of 3, brain development is on going and needs positive HUMAN interaction.

These statistics are worrisome, especially for young children, says Dr. JoAnn Deak, author of The Fantastic Elastic Brain. In the first 10 years of a child’s life, the brain is designed to learn by doing—by interacting directly with people and things. In terms of language development, brain growth is only impacted by in-person talking. Brain scans show that young kids do not learn at all from a screen. “Language-acquisition centers show no change when language is being received by video or audio,” says Dr. Deak. They do show a change when another person is in the room speaking with the child.

 

At HO4K we spend lots of time reading, playing, and singing with the students. (the 3 main things that reduce the chance of impeding attention span in children.

 

The following is from Work and Family Life...

No matter how old we are, we want to keep our brains sharp, right? When you read the front page article in this issue, you'll catch up on the latest brain research and find out what to do to keep your brain (and heart) going strong for as long as possible.

http://www.workandfamilylife.com/os/apr2013

Third Annual Screen-Free Week: April 29–May 5

What can we do about the excessive media trend? One thing is to take the third annual Screen-Free Week challenge from April 29 to May 5. It’s a national campaign to encourage families to turn off their TVs, computers and video games for seven days and to explore other ways to enjoy family time together. For more information, visit www.eyi.org/screenfree.

The "screen smart" message reminds us that there is indeed a life away from screens. Screen-Free Week is coordinated by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. See www.commercialfreechildhood.org.

 

I extend the challenge for the screen free week starting April 29 !!!! 

The benefits are worth the challenge....I see it everyday!

Ms. JoAnn

Making Tortillas

Last week, two of the students were reading Highlight magazine and noticed a recipe for tortillas.

SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL

1.PK.2a Express ideas for activities; initiate and participate in discussion with teachers or peers.

 They asked if we could use it in our next cooking class. We read and followed instructions and made our own tortillas.

LANGUAGE
4.PK.1  Demonstrate and understand that printed material contains information.
4.K.7 With assistance, listen to and follow pictorial and written directions to complete tasks.

 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
6.PK.2 Demonstrate the muscle strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate items.

We didnt quite master rolling them into circles... but that's ok,

our shape was oval last week anyway!

MATHEMATICS

4.K.1 Identify 2-D shapes.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

1.PK.1 Demonstrate personal hygiene skills (hand washing).

1.PK.3 Identify healthy foods.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Recently, we discussed that preschoolers start reading pictures before sounding out words and can use the pictures to help add clues as they decode the letters to make words.  During reading time, one student found something in the Highlight magazine that had instructions with words and pictures on how to make a caterpillar (demonstrating a Social/Emotional Pre-K Standard 1.PK.2a Express ideas for activities; initiate and participate in discussions with teachers or peers; and several Language Pre-K Standard 1.PK.4  Recognize environmental print and symbols; 1.PK.5 Demonstrate awareness that print carries a message; 2.PK.3 Identify pictures to aid in comprehension.) 
He enthusiastically brought it to the creating table and started his construction.

Soon others wanted to make one too. So he instructed them what to do....(demonstrating a Pre-K Standard in Science-N.PK.2 Share ideas with others.)

  he carefully, cut, curled paper, and glued...(demonstrating a physical development Pre-K standard 6.PK.2 Demonstrate the muscle strength, dexterity, and control needed to manipulate items.)

And ta da! He shows his rendition of his fantastic caterpillar totally created on his own! Wow!!

Pre-K standard Creative Expressions

2.PK.1 Select progressively more challenging tasks.

2.PK.2b Express satisfaction when accomplishing a task and achieving a goal.

2.PK.3 Demonstrate persistence by trying again when faced with challenges.

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!

The students have each made envelopes to put valentines in.  Your child is welcome to bring Valentine cards any time between now and February 15.  (NO gum or candy please.)
We will be putting them in the class mail box, then delivering them throughout the day.  This is a "hands-on" experience of our mail system as well as a wonderful reading/language experience as the valentines are read throughout the week.
Thanks! 
Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Chocolate Moose

We just LOVE a good book! What fun we have when we learn after reading a book that motivates us to explore and play!

. 

This sweet children's book is about a chocoholic moose who accidentally misreads a help-wanted sign for a mouse job at a bakery! In such a small mouse-sized bakery, this large moose runs into problems, making many mistakes and plenty of messes! But his sweet boss Mrs. Mouse, is patient and clever in helping him to feel useful! This wonderfully illustrated book helps children learn more about friendship and even the importance of reading!

After reading the story Chocolate Moose we were inspired to use our 5 senses in creating a project! First we ate chocolate "mousse" pudding. Boy, was it yummy! Next we used our fingers and the left overs to finger-paint brown paper to be used in the future! This was messy, delicious, and most of all FUN!

Throughout the story, the author uses colorful onomatopoeia (“Slurp, gulp, burp!”). We had fun coming up with our own sounds as we tasted our pudding.  This story really was silly!

Look at those sweet messy faces!  

                            After tasting and painting, we made moose antlers with our brown paper!

What a great story and what great fun we had making our very own moose antlers! This story is now one of our favorites!

Monster Soup

The students enjoyed the start to a magical Halloween season this week as they were introduced to Monster Soup! Ms JoAnn told the students how she found a recipe hidden by monsters under her bed! The monsters told her that whatever she does, NOT to feed it to children! It was full of wiggly stuff that kids will never eat. Of course, this exaggerated and imaginative story only made the children curious and excited to try such a mysterious meal!

Recipe

Ingredients

Rotten chicken broth

Moldy Bok Choy

Wilted Napa cabbage

Bug infested brown rice

Directions

1. First cook rice

2. Simmer vegetables in broth

3. Add rice

4. Eat and enjoy

Delicious!

Every kid that tried it liked it....and all but one tried it!

The delivery of the story was the best seller!

As students continue to study the #2, letter Uu, and Halloween they decided to create their own 2 ugly monsters to go along with the following chant:

There are 2 ugly monsters

Under my bed,

With floppy ears

sticking out of their heads.

With 1 (say body part ie; arm) up

And 1 (arm) down

They wiggle their (say body part, ie; hips)

Around and around,

Their faces get all scrunched up too...

Those ugly beasts look....just.....

Like....... YOU!

Such much more Halloween fun to come at HO4K!

Reading at HO4K

"There is no simple answer to helping children to read and write.... Young children need lots of exposure to oral language and print material. They need to have the self-confidence to explore new ideas and feel the pleasure and excitement of listening and telling stories, the intimacy of sharing, the joy of learning."

This is the advice from Joan Lombardi in her Exchange article, "Promoting Language, Literacy, and a Love of Learning Makes a Difference."

"During the infant and toddler years, children need relationships with caring adults who engage in many one-on-one, face-to-face interactions with them to support their oral language development and lay the foundation for later literacy. During the preschool years, young children need a wide range of developmentally appropriate experiences to support literacy, including — but not limited to — positive, nurturing relationships with adults who engage in responsive conversations with individual children. Child care providers need to model reading and writing behavior and foster children's interest in and enjoyment of reading and writing through exposure to a print-rich environment and daily adult reading of high-quality books."

You can tell by the interest and expressions, that the children are mesmorized by the content of the book being shared. This is a great opportunity to introduce students to fluency. Fluency is defined as the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression. Fluency is important because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.  Little ears can easily tell when a reader has good fluency during shared reading. Dont miss the great learning opportunity to read aloud to your children daily! They learn so much from this special time together!

Our Special Talents!!!

It is so important for children to recognize their special talents and gifts. It is also important for them to have confidence and feel pride while sharing these with others! We were so lucky to have some visitors with us last week who shared with us their special gift of dance!

Our first visitor is a 9 year old who did her own choreography for her school talent show and came to demo her hoola hoop skills for us. We were amazed at all the cool tricks and amazing moves she has with that hoop!

 
The other talent shared was by a recent HS graduate....clogging. We asked the children what they knew about clogging. Some said "I have no idea". One said "It's when something gets into something and stops the water " another added, "Clogging a toilet. I clogged a toilet before. It's how you make floods."
We learned clogging originated in Ireland and Netherlands with wooden shoes. First people used to wear wooden shoes to work in factories. Then they noticed when they tapped their toes to music it made cool rhythms. They stated dancing....it's evolved into metal taps on shoes. One student was able to figure it all out as they excitgedly shouted "There are little metal things on the bottom of her shoes. It makes a noise!"  Another added, "it sounds like bells because there's stuff on the bottom of her shoes." What great observers they are!

 After our special visitors, we read the book "The Talent Show" by Jo Hodgkinson. Each of the children decided to participate in their very own talent show.  We have challenged the kids to think about their special talents and cant wait for them to share them with us.

Come see our annual program "Hands-On-4-Kids Preschool Talent Show!" You will not want to miss it!  This year it will be held on Friday, August 17th, at 7pm. All students will be participating and we will have 6 kids graduating so it will be a wonderful event!

Learning is fun!

When we work with our bodies, our brains remember! The students are again working together to review their letters while creating them with their bodies! What a great way to practice teamwork while reinforcing our alphabet knowledge!

The letter E had us exploring elephants!

Students at HO4K were enthusiastic about creating their own elephant masks! The students started off by creating "elephant skin" by mixing and layering different paints to create a textured look. After the "skin" dried, we created elephant masks. The students loved participating in dramatic play, as they moved throughout the room as elephants, creating body movements and sounds that can only be heard in the African safari! Students will remember the letter E as it is tied to the memories of their elephant experience at school.

Writing is something that students develop at their own pace. Many will go through stages when they enjoy writing and then struggle to find the desire. It is always exciting when students engage in any form of writing independently. The above student used her chalk to not create with pictures, but instead with words. She wrote "Apricot,apricot go to the zoo “ ! What a great start for a future author!These are important pre-writing skills!

Whenever you get the chance, provide a few art and writing materials at home for your child. You will be amazed at how creative our little ones are. Their imaginations get the best of them as they sit down to create without specific assignments. It is then that they work within their own boundaries and creativity. There is nothing holding them back as they explore and create!

BOARD GAMES

When you are looking to spend some quality time with your little one, pick up a board game!

Beyond the joy of spending time together, your child can gain higher self-esteem and can safely satisfy their competitive nature. As an added bonus there are many learning opportunities in a friendly game! Students can master concepts such as:

• number and shape recognition, grouping, and counting
• letter recognition and reading
• visual perception and color recognition
• eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity
• social skills
• how to "gracefully" lose
• greater attention span and focus

Games don't need to be overtly academic to be educational. Just by playing them, board games provide many exciting opportunities for educational review and growth, as well as further development of life skills!

Students at HO4K love playing board games together! We learn how to have friendly competitions and love to practice the skills we already have.

F IS FOR FUN!

F-F-F-FLYING!

This week students worked on the letter F. There were many activities but the favorite hands down was the flying swing! Students took turns waiting patiently and reading their names off of a list to participate. Once safety rules were discussed, students were harnessed in and flying! Many skills were learned and reinforced from this activity. For starters, students used their bodies and large motor skills to move the swing. This took practice of coordination and core body strength. Focusing on their upper body and self control, students maneuvered in different positions, practicing above, beside, next to, behind and over objects. This connects to the math concept of spatial relationships. When swinging students also discovered speed, motion, gravity and cause and effect. These science concepts are always fun to learn about, but we all agree that learning with our bodies is the best way!

Fun is just a consequence of attending Hand-On-4-Kids preschool!