OCTOBER 24

AA

What a pizza-rific day!

Student interest in restaurant play Sparked this inquiry, but one goal for this unit is to take something very commonplace, and really examine it. Children were very busy in the "restaurant" today.

 Four day chefs prepared a batch of pizza sauce. Boy, did it smell delicious!

Next week we'll make dough and mozzarella cheese, so we can bake our own pies.

Our visit to Stone Hearth in the center provided lots of inspiration.

Riveted learners watch pizza preparation from its humble beginnings, a ball of dough.

 

The dough is rolled with a pin, then carefully stretched.

Sauced is ladled, then smoothed over the surface of the crust.

Cheese is then sprinkled, and then . . .

INTO THE OVEN!

So many toppings, so little time.

Pies are carefully marked before cutting to ensure fair and even slices. (This comment prompted thoughtful nods from 4 year old equity analysts!)

Everyone wants a chance to give this a try!

We received some detailed information on waitressing duties before heading back to the playground.

We returned to UNderwood tired and hungry. A pizza picnic was a delicious way to end the day.

MANY, many thanks to our friends at Stone Hearth for the generosity of their time, expertise and delicious pizza!!! 

October 23

The past few days have centered on 2 primary topics: Pizza and Robots.

Our dramatic play center has become a restaurant, and friends spent lots of time circulating taking pizza orders. Children made their own toy pizzas and toppings.

Using the laminator to make the toppings was a particular interest!

We plan to visit Stone Hearth Pizza tomorrow for a start to finish pizza making demonstration, and will be preparing our own pizza supplies next week

The magnetic recycle robots has been a favorite center!

OCTOBER 21

Our trip to Habitat was focused on the meadow.

In the library, Children created butterfly rings, 

played in the sensory table filled with varied grasses, did a little shadow dancing

And met a hissing cockroach.

Sarah presented a funny and informative puppet show about habitats.

The question "What's a habitat?" Prompted the following discussion:

Truman: It's basically a place where things live.

Will: and there's lots of water

Ben: and you get protection from enemies

Adele: and there's food there

Alex B: Like sharks don't live in lakes or ponds. They're too big and their heads would stick out of the water.

We headed out to the meadow to find some of the creatures which make the meadow their home. Using cloth nets, we swept the grasses slowly, closing them tight to hold the critters inside.

Animals were placed into bug boxes for investigation.

Remembering that animals make their homes and find protection in the meadow, we built nests for small creatures.

There is a small creature well camoflaughed here. See if you can spot its feet!

Lots of laughter and leaf play ended our beautiful autumn day! 

OCTOBER 17

Highlights from this week include:

Completing our cloud project!

 The finished 3-D murals.

We used boiling water and a pan of ice to create a cloud in a jar. It took some trial and error to see the effect in the classroom!

Shaving cream clouds and pipettes of liquid watercolor rainstorms.

A visit from Hugh Hanley is always a delight! 

Elaborate building projects are a hallmark of this class.

Please check out the beautiful water colors hanging in the big room. It was fun to use the table easels.

Small groups of children went on Signs of fall scavenger hunts! and recorded their finds on the iPad. Here is a sample:

Wednesday, October 9

Wednesday, October 9

Busy, busy 4 day friends have made great use of our spaces yesterday and today.

Inspired by our pond exploration on Monday, children have been imagining with frogs, turtles and bugs in the water table, playing games: Splish, Splash and a Critter sorting activity, organizing items by shape and color.

Some of the critters were incorporated into a play dough world as well.

 

The teachers presented a puppet show on clouds, and students added to a cloud mural begun yesterday. Today we glued cirrus and cumulus clouds into the sky. As we walked to the park we were struck by number of the cirrus clouds we saw!

So many other ideas were bubbling in the 4 day classrooms. 

 Our Pretend center has been transformed into a restaurant. Friends have imagined themselves as chefs, waiters and diners. This interest has sparked lots of writing (menus) and conversation.

Block creations have focused on cars. Police boats, secret hideouts and ramps have been made by individuals and collaboratively.

Abby shared a robot stencil kit which inspired many robot creations. Here's just one example.

Monday, October 7

Today's Habitat trip was all about the POND!

 

Though the weather kept changing on us-Cold, sunny, rainy, hot, no, wait, rainy, no, sunny-the intrepid 4 day kids tromped off to the pond to make some new animal acquaintances. 

We were offered a choices of 3 tools with which to search: nets, scoops and sieves. Ask your child which worked best for him/her. 

Reaching into the mud and muck at the pond's edge was a challenge while retaining one's boots, and then we looked into our vessels to see if we'd found any critters. Sarah gave us a great clue: "If your mud is moving, you've probably found an animal! " 

A spoon was a handy tool for excavating our muddy discoveries.

We collected several Isopods, a water boatman, a number of dragonfly larvae (kids were intrigued to see how different these "babies" look from their parents!)

Aislinn found a scud ( a tiny shrimp-like creature), so small we had to dig out a microscope to see it well.

Truman found the largest of the leeches!

The great blue heron we saw so briefly last week was our companion for most of our pond experience, allowing everyone a good view.

If you did not happen to see it, there was a very interesting article in Sunday's Globe magazine on outdoor education for young children.  Today alone 4 day kids developed their stamina, learned more about camouflage and reveled in autumn in New England.