Week of December 15-19, 2015!

It's almost here! And by that I mean pajama day! Don't forget that next week, on Monday and Tuesday, we will be getting cozy in our PJ's while we eat yummy bagels, read stories about The Polar Express and hear the enchanting story of The Snowman! Don't forget you PJ's (holiday themed, perhaps?)!

And in other good news, our school applied for and was approved for a "Little Free Library!" They will begin production on our Little Free Library soon and once the ground thaws in the spring, we will install it for all to use! Take a look at their website, http://littlefreelibrary.org, and read all about their mission to make books available to all! Yay literacy!

Yet another busy week and we don't plan on slowing down anytime soon! We saw Teacher Rich for music, Mary Beth for Movement and enjoyed a Hanukkah-themed yoga class! In addition to all of the enrichment we had, we also made PRETZELS!!! To go along with our bakery theme, of course! The children love to bake and so we just had to teach them all about baking pretzels.  We first read the story, "Walter the Baker" by Eric Carle and we all discussed how and why we use yeast.  The children then joined us for some measuring, mixing, rolling and twisting! Check out our pics:

 Activating the yeast...

 Kneading the dough...

 Rolling the dough...

 Forming the Pretzels just like Walter the Baker!

 Well done children!

And the final product! Yummm!!

Week of December 8-12, 2014!

The weekend is here again and we are excited to celebrate the holidays with cookie decorating at Panera Bread in Burlington tomorrow, Saturday, December 13th at 3pm.  Lots of friends will be there and we hope you will be there too! Don't forget to RSVP via Evite so Panera has enough cookies for all!

As we continue our bakery and baking curriculum, the children have been pattern making with felt cookies, sorting pom pom blueberries and cherries to make yummy pies, decorating  gingerbread houses and so much more! Next week Hanukkah begins and we are looking forward to lighting the candles.  We discussed the similarities between the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays and the answers were right on target! Some included: "we eat food," "we see our family," and "light candles." What a smart bunch of kiddos we have! 

We have also been working hard on constructing and designing our very own gingerbread houses! The children talked about where their houses are located and discussed the various architectural designs including pretzel windows, candy cane lawn decorations and rice chex shingles.  

In our science lab, the children have been experimenting with trays of baking soda, colored vinegar and eye droppers.  The children first made predictions, tested their theories and came to a conclusion. "Whoa! it's exploding!" and "I hear the sounds it is making, it sounds like a frying pan!"  We talked about the chemical reaction and how baking is similar to a science experiment.

Our yoga adventures took us on a trip to the Christmas tree farm, Music and Movement with Mary Beth introduced the children to the music and dancing of the Nutcracker play and Music with Teacher Rich continues to keep us laughing and learning all about tone, pitch and the parts of a guitar.

Lastly, as our winter break approaches, we will be closed from December 24th-January 4, 2015.  We will be back in full swing on January 5th.  But right before the break, we will enjoy our last few days of 2014 together by celebrating with pajama day! We will have pajama day on December 22 & 23 along with a super fun bagel snack! 

Check out some pics from our week:

 Gingerbread House construction

A few completed houses!

 Explorations with baking soda and colored vinegar

Week of December 1-5, 2014!

Happy December! We are diving right into our new curriculum topic, the bakery!  During free play time, the children have been busy baking blueberry and cherry pies, cookies with colorful frosting, donuts and much more! The children mix, bake and display their goods for customers to buy. Definitely stop in for a look!

During curriculum time, preschool has been busy investigating measurement.  This week's activities focused on using measuring cups and water.  And pre-k has been learning all about making patterns.  The children have discovered that patterns can be made out of anything including, numbers, letters, and even people! 

We have also been busy exploring the architectural works of Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect.  He was an amazing architect who loved clean lines and designed several structures throughout his life.  He was also very drawn to stained glass design and the children discussed and re-created some of his work with stained glass.  The children used crayon shavings and wax paper.  A teacher used an iron to melt the colors together.  Once cooled, the children used black tape to create the lines similar to Wright's work.  After their masterpiece was complete, each child presented their work to the class using the light pad (a lightweight light box), allowing the beautiful colors to shine through.  Bravo, children!  The display will be up on the bulletin board until mid-January.  Come check it out!

Don't forget about our organization of the month, the MSPCA! We will continue to collect food, treats, and new or gently used toys, blankets, etc.  The MSPCA is also happy to accept household items such as paper towels and disinfectants.  Bring your items into school or to our gathering at Panera Bread next week!

Lastly, don't forget to RSVP for our December cookie decorating gathering at Panera Bread in Burlington on Saturday, December 13th at 3pm.  All are welcome, but please RSVP via evite so Panera can have enough cookies for everyone.  For a small fee, children will get a sugar cookie and lots of yummy icing and sprinkles to design their own cookie! We are looking forward to seeing you there!

 A Frank Lloyd Wright inspiration on the light pad

One of our kiddos getting her masterpiece ready!

And a preschooler exploring with water and measuring cups.  We found out that 12 cups of water filled this bowl!

Week of November 24-26, 2014!

It was a jam packed short week this week! The feeling of Thanksgiving is in full swing around here and we have a classroom full of energetic children to prove it!  As we prepared for the holiday, the children participated in preparations for our Thanksgiving Feast.  They used child safe knives to cut the potatoes and potato mashers to smash the potatoes to make our mashed potatoes.  We also feasted on turkey, corn bread and cranberry sauce, family style!  We also referred to our feast as a "Friends-giving" and a celebration of friends. Yum!

In keeping with the theme of Thanksgiving, we read several books about the meaning of being thankful. We asked each child what they were thankful for and we received many thoughful answers that included being thankful for their families, siblings and pets.  All answers were written on a tag and each child hung their card on the thankful tree.  The thankful tree will be displayed in our classroom, come on in and check it out.  In the mean time, here are a few of the children's answers:

"I am thankful to go shopping with mom and dad to buy foods and drinks" 
"I am thankful for my buttons" 
"I am thankful that my mommy and daddy love me" 
"I am thankful for Ninja Turtles" 
"I am thankful for my mommy's hugs" 
"I am thankful for my mommy who reads books to me in bed because I am afraid of the dark" 

Reminders: 
- November Shutterfly pictures are up
- The MSPCA is our organization of the month for December, please begin to bring in your donations!
- Our monthly gathering will be at Panera Bread in Burlington on Saturday, December 13th at 3pm.  Please RSVP via Evite

 Cutting the Potatoes!

 Mashing the Potatoes!

 Getting ready for Friends-giving!

The Thankful Tree

Week of November 17-21, 2014!

Happy Friday! What a great week we had! We saw Mary Beth for Music and Movement and the children learned all about native american traditions.  We also saw Teacher Rich for music class and yoga was a blast with a pretend trip to the apple farm, collecting apples and making an apple pie!

As our farmer's market curriculum continues, the children helped us to make banana bread from scratch.  They mashed the bananas, measured the ingredients and watched as the bread machine went to work.  It was the most fun watching the machine mix up the ingredients.  In addition to making the bread, the children also made their own butter! They learned about the emulsion process (vocabulary word of the week) and created butter by shaking cream in a jar with a marble.  The process was a success and believe it or not, the butter formed pretty quickly!

Up next week: Stain glass recreations inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 532.  The children will recreate a stained glass piece of his using wax paper, crayons and black tape.

Lastly, we are excited to begin collecting items for various non-profit organizations around our area including Room to Grow in Boston, Heartbeat in Burlington, MSPCA in Boston/Methuen, Burlington Food Pantry and more.  If you have an organization that your would like to suggest, please email me and we can definitely add it to our donation rotation.  We will be collecting throughout the month at school and at our months gatherings.  Just think, if everyone contributes one item, we will have so much to give to people and animals in need!

Families: Don't forget to check our Shutterfly site for monthly picture updates of our adventures!

 Ingredients for our banana bread!

 Completed emulsion process (aka butter!)

Children hard at work measuring and loading up the bread machine!

Week of November 10-14, 2014

What a busy, yet productive week we had! As our Farmer's Market curriculum continues, our market is up and running smoothly, we are sorting and learning about different fruits and vegetables and we used string beans to measure various items around the room including our bodies! The children range in height from 7-11 string beans! Our science table is home to our 2 science experiments, nappa cabbage in colored water and carrot tops (also know as carrot scrapes) in water.  We are using the words "prediction" and "observation" as we watch what happens to the vegetables.  Lucky for us, the cabbage sucked up the colored water quickly and we observed the bright colors in the leaves this morning.  We are excited for the children to see the carrot scrapes begin to grow a new root and new stalks to form new carrots.

As the farmer's market season comes to an end, we encourage you to take your children to visit a local market.  Talk to your chid about unique vegetables and fruits they have never seen before.  You can also hold a taste test with your family and rate everyone's favorites using a bar graph.  It's a great way to encourage healthy eating at home while squeezing in some math skills with a bar graph.

Happy Friday!
Joanna

The nappa cabbage after 4 hours!

Introducing our Weekly Blog

We are so excited to announce the creation of our new blog spot! This will replace our newsletters and you will be able to view and learn about our week's work here.  Every Friday we will create a new post.  Be sure to sign on to see what we've been up to in our classroom, including pictures, quotes and much more.  We will also post curriculum extension activities for home.  Enjoy! We look forward to seeing you on our blog soon! 

Joanna