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Just like most living plants, a tree needs light, water and soil to grow. When learning about the life cycle of living organisms, children begin to understand how things change and evolve. Incorporating life science concepts into early childhood classrooms allows the children to strengthen their curiosity for the world around them. We will begin our Orchard Harvest them this week! 
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A seed is the part of a plant than can grow into a new plant. They range in size and color. Many kinds of seeds are good for animals and people to eat. There are 7,500 varieties of apples grown in the world! If you look inside an apple, you will notice five "seed pockets" or "carpels" that contain seeds. During this Invitation to Create, they created their own representation of an apple by making choices and using their own ideas. Through this process, children were able to see different versions of apples and discover that apples are not always round and red. I cut open an apple for the children to explore, and one of them excitedly said, "This is like science!" I love seeing their minds at work! We then used the apple slices to create stamp paintings. I helped each child write their name, they were encouraged to say each letter out loud, place a seed sticker on each letter, and count the letters in their name. I also set out different sizes of apples, sticks, and trees for open-ended exploration. This led to great conversations, sorting, and stacking activities. We reviewed the Life Cycle of a Tree, and each child took turns spinning and collecting the matching piece. They glued the pieces onto a paper plate for their own tree life cycle craft. There are many different types of computers, such as laptops, tablets and desktops. Computers have many functions; browsing the internet, playing games, emailing, listening to music and more. Computers have a keyboard so we can type words. They created their own computer screen for their computer! For fine motor practice, they used a q-tip to paint the word blue. A good listener keeps their body still and looks at the people speaking. We can practice listening to sounds, music, or someone talking. Children experiment and role-play with a wide range of emotions. As they learn to recognize personal feelings, they begin to master impulse control and develop an ability to empathize with others. During this Invitation to Create, children designed a "monster face" collage with paper shapes and discussed emotions like sad, glad or mad. Through hands-on projects like this one, children can practice their social skills while reflecting on their own feelings. They used dot markers for fine motor skill practice. There are many different types of phones. We use phones to communicate with others. Phones have a keypad with the numbers 0-9. People dial a phone number to make a call to others near or far. They were encouraged to color and decorate their phonebook and practiced dialing and talking on the phone. We discussed who should be called in an emergency and in an emergency you should dial 9-1-1. Rhyming Ring-a-ling, they took turns flipping over a card and identifying the picture, flipped over another card to see if it has a rhyming sound, if so we connected with yarn. For fine motor they cut yarn and glued as hair. They used stickers to form letter Tt and sorted letters Hh, Ff and Tt. We can use our bodies to help communicate ideas. We can use movements or gestures to help express a thought without talking. While looking in a mirror at their own face, children described their facial features. Through this process, children were able to notice specific things about themselves and add more detail to their self portraits, such as the color of their eyes or the shape of their ears. For fine motor practice, the children had the option to either cut paper with scissors or tear it by hand. They glued the pieces in their fine motor journal. They also used small pictures of tractors and tape to form the letter Tt. We can show that we care about people by doing kind acts. We can care by writing someone a card or helping others in need. We can care for people, animals and objects. They used paper, crayon, bandaid, google eyes to create a card! There are many things people can do together as a group. It can be helpful to work as a team to accomplish a goal. The children are encouraged daily to work together especially during clean up time! Today they created a unicorn puppet. They used yarn for the mane and were encouraged to draw a face on their horse head and add the unicorn horn. They also colored letter Tt book and used dot markers to trace Tt. They used stamps to stamp Tt in their fine motor journals. We can share things like toys or food with others. When there isn't enough, we can still share so everyone gets some. Today, the children made friendship bracelets. I set out beads and pipe cleaners on the table and let them explore. They counted and discussed the different colors of the beads. The empty air filter box turned out to be the most entertaining toy of the day! #preschool #childcare #daycare #homedaycare #smallclass #learningthroughplay #ExperienceCurriculum This is our 3rd week into our Friends and Feelings Unit. This week is about caring. Young children are novices when it comes to problem-solving and cooperation. Some children need help with sharing materials while others may need practice expressing their ideas to others. These important social skills can be learned by focusing on how to share, care for others, apologize, include others in a game and play cooperatively. It is kind gesture to include everyone. Many activities and games can be played with everyone included. Today, we traced our hands on the Sharing Hands poster. The children took turns using watercolors to outline the hands, and we discussed what happens when the colors mix. They also took turns rolling the letter cube, choosing a crayon, and writing the letter they rolled on the corresponding letter circle. If they do not know how to write letters yet, they were encouraged to simply make a mark. Together, we worked to fill in the Letter Community Game sheets. |
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