Today’s group worked on the classic story, Corduroy, by Don Freeman. Morning activities were all about bears and buttons, whether structured or unstructured.
Ms. Newman worked in the hallway in small groups to support math skills. Each child played a game of ROLL DOT. They were each given a bear with numbers written on various parts of it’s body, a dice and a bingo dobber bottle. They were shown how to roll the dice, count the dots and then find the correlating number on the bear. Once they identified the number, they placed a dot on the number symbol and repeated each step until each number was covered. Additionally, each child worked on completing long repetitions of both simple and complex patterns, using teddy bear treats as their object to pattern. First, we stated the pattern aloud, using letters to dictate the pattern (AB. AAB) and then turned that into the colors of the bear treats. The children counted the different colored bears that were required to complete the different patterns and reflected which color they had more or less of. Finally, the children took the bear treats into the classroom and ate them along with their morning snack.
Inside of the classroom, Mrs. Lozano worked with children on writing strokes, tracing lines of different shapes that connected buttons to sewing needles. Once each child completed their tracing activity, she worked 1:1 to help them sew a button onto a piece of fabric, using a child safe needle and actual yarn! They were so excited to sew and to observe the stitches grow as they stitched along! Those children who were not working with Mrs. Lozano were role playing with bears in dress up, using bears in the block area or creating “projects”. Everyone was busy and working collaboratively until group time.
As per usual, we sang our songs that supported our theme, reflecting upon the letters we have studied thus far and even worked on a few new FALL themed songs. Upon reading the book, the children moved onto a cutting/classifying activity. Because Corduroy lives in a department store and has an adventure in the furniture department, the children were given pictures of items that were and were NOT furniture. They were shown how to approach the cutting, moving their scissors along the outside of the pictures first an then “snipping” the pictures apart. We worked as a large group initially, completing the task together before the children were then given all of the materials and asked to then repeat the task on their own. Some children did so with ease while others needed 1:1 or even some help from a peer (what a great accomplishment for one child to be able to help another!).
We even did some gummy bear science. The children were introduced to 3 different clear liquids that were in jars (water, vinegar and baby oil). We looked at them, smelled them and touched them so that the children could use their senses to understand the liquids and then make predictions about what would happen to a red gummy bear that is submerged in the liquid for the day. Some children made simple predictions, like sink or float, while others described “melting” or even dissolving about the bears placed into the water. Because we all agreed that the oil was slimy and coated our fingers, the children suggested that the gummy bears would get slimy vs. dissolve when placed in he oil. HMMMMMMM…..predict, observe, report!
Finally, we worked on another adaptation of last week’s montage/collage. Last week the children used magazine cut outs, newspaper mountains/rocks, wall paper trees and construction paper to create outdoor scenarios. This week the children used the theme of Corduroy as their inspiration to create a combo of the outdoors and a city scape. They used fabric, pictures of bears, paper and buttons. Mrs. Lozano demonstrated and described to the children how they would “make a plan” for their work. They selected materials from a central location and brought them back to their assigned work areas. They then laid out their montage, exploring how they felt about what they were creating BEFORE using any glue. Once the children were satisfied with their plan, they were then to use their glue bottles to glue together their montage. The final step was to gather buttons and lay them onto their montage, again, without any glue. Plan, observe, adapt. Once they were satisfied, they used another, sticky glue to adhere the buttons into their designs. It was extremely rewarding to observe the growth the children are making in their ability to listen to and complete directions and the creativity they are developing when approaching such new/unfamiliar activities!
Stay tuned to next week’s THRILLING THURSDAY post to find out what happened to the gummy bears!
