I Can See
Today we started out unit on how we learn with our five senses. This will be a sensory filled week.
Our focus today was seeing. What do we use to see with ? What if we couldn’t see ? What would we miss ?
One of the activities offered today was painting with a blind fold. It will be out all week. It was interesting to see some of the kids keep the blind fold all the time as they experiences feeling for the brushes in paint tins and feeling for the paper while some of the kiddos just couldn’t stand it and they would remove their blind fold to paint
As we played outside this morning we could hear a lot of noise coming from the construction site. We took our first walk as a large group to see what was going on. We used our sense of hearing and seeing to investigate.
One of our favorite books every year is ” Brown Bear Brown Bear ” We listened to the song today and used props ! The kids loved it.
On the way to the hospital I heard Jasmin say ” Look, its like Jack and the Bean Stalk.” It was a tall ( very tall ) skinny tree that she pointed to. It did kind of look like the pictures we see of the beanstalk. On our way back through the alley we stopped and talked about it. I TRIED to tell them the story from memory but missed a few pieces. Ex : ” Ms Debbie, what about the harp ? ” Oh yeah … so when we got home we looked the story up on youtube and watched it . The kids loved it.
Sometimes when you are outside and you need to see something very far away you can use binoculars. We talked about ways we could use binoculars and made a fun pretend pair to take home.
Outside the kids used magnifiers to explore things with their eyes close up. We were looking and listening ( Dallas and I ) for a worksampling indicator . One indicator or development is a child asks questions and begins to solve problems that arise during explorations. Another indicator is that a child communicates experiences and observations and idea with others through conversations, representations or behavior. The science related observations we take are a little more difficult to catch in the moment. Sometimes they have to be set up.
Mr Randy has been working on a windmill. I dont know if you have noticed a copper homemade windmill on our playground. Mr. Randy and I saw one like this at the memorial site of the Buddy Holly plane crash while traveling this summer. He immediately came home and decided to make one. As he came in the room today after working on it he blew the copper tins and made them move and asked the children can you see air ? Most of them agreed no . Canyon, the inquisitive one, says ” Did he re-use something?” I replied ” I think so… what are you referring to ? ” He said ” The bicycle wheel. I used a box and made my home.” That opened a discussion about re-using or recycling. I asked did he know what else was reused. He said ” The donut things.” Yes, bundt pans ! Do they make donuts this big. SIGN ME UP. Canyon keeps us on our toes. ( And… this was a science related observation that was not provoked ! )
The kindness cape is taking trips around the playroom a little more often. Today Makenzie earned the right to fly through the air with a K on her back. One of her friends wanted to purple kitten from the Brown Bear Song but she got it first. Makenzie decided on her own without prompting to let her friend have the purple kitten and make another choice. Way to go Kenzie ! That was kind !
It was a good Monday.