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What a week it's been celebrating all kinds of accomplishments. There is still a little confusion on what exactly we are celebrating, but they are getting the hang of it! A lot of the things the kids like to acknowledge are playing with their friends and being able to play at school. As we move into the second half of our year we will continue to celebrate all kinds of accomplishments, but really focusing on what we are able to do.That being said, they wanted to share the song we sing after talking about our celebrations! Enjoy and feel free to use this same song at home to celebrate the successes you see too! 

In the beginning of our day E & C began building with dominoes on the table. At first, C was excited to build a robot. After a few minutes he decided to see how tall he could make it. H called over to E and they began working. The boys got to a point where neither one of them could reach the top. C looked around and ran over to B.  "Hey, can you put this block on top? You're tall!" B proudly placed the block on the top. Everyone cheered and continued working. The videos below show how the boys took turns and and worked together. What the time lapsed video fails to show is the amount of risk the boys were taking as they added more blocks to their tower.  With each block added, the tower wiggled and wobbled. There was a risk in building on top of the table because whatever was built my fall over if the table is bumped. There was a risk building the tower with two people and there was also a risk using a chair or a stool to put the blocks on the very top.  ...

Happy Tuesday! Yesterday we started something new before dismissing to go home. Instead of reading a book or shaking our sillies out, we are going to start celebrating our successes for the day! We start off by dancing to Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" and then move into talking about something to celebrate that happened at school. Because it was the second day, it was easier to think of something to celebrate, but a lot of kids wanted to talk about home. We are trying to encourage the kids to see they do so many amazing things and accomplish a lot during their school day. I imagine by Thursday the ideas will be flowing! Enjoy the dance party from today's second celebration! 

Since we have been talking a lot about families and our families, the kids have stayed interested in playing with babies and taking care of them. When the babies were first introduced into our classroom the kids loved being able to swaddle them, rock them, and pretend to feed them, but that's where the play ended. In the last week, the kids have started assigning roles to both the babies and themselves.  The families they create are often consisting of a mom, dad, a baby or two, and a brother or sister. It's been interesting to see how they continue to assign typical roles to one another, especially when there are all kinds of different kinds of families.  Last week, one child stated that their pretend family was "full" and therefore nobody else could play. It had me thinking a lot about why that child may have only allowed a mom, dad, and child. Then it clicked, her family is only made up of three people and therefore those were the roles she was comfort...

This morning we continued our conversation about families. Since we started the book "My Family Plays Music" yesterday, we decided to finish the book today. Yesterday, many of the kids talked about how some of their own family members played instruments just like the characters in the book!  "My daddy plays guitar and sometimes I play guitar too." "My mommy plays the drums with me." "My brother plays the trumpet!" "We have a piano at home and my dad plays these kinds of drums that you put in your lap!" Today, the kids wanted to try out the instruments we have here at school. As we read the book, each child played the instrument that was featured on that page. Some kids played drums, while others played tambourines, and maracas. They shared the instruments with one another and passed them along while talking about the different sounds they heard.  There were so many instruments in the book that we didn...

This morning while playing with the baby dolls in our classroom, some of the kids started assigning roles to one another to play family.  "You can be the mom." "I will be the dad!" "I will be me! We are a family." C saw the familiar game and decided that he, too, wanted to play family.  "Can I play too?" "No, we already have our family, you can't play." C turned away with a very sad face.  "They said I can't play." It was apparent that the kids had a certain view of what a family can look like and how many people can be in it. It sparked an idea. What do our families look like?  The kids got to work on their family portraits. Each child carefully chose crayons varying in different shades and colors to draw pictures of their families.   "I got mommy, daddy, Noah, Piper, and me!" E drew 5 people lined up next to each other. They all had similar heads, arms, and legs to represe...

After a long weekend, the Pine kids were anxious to get back to playing with one another in different spaces in the building. This morning, a few of the kids found a way to set up a ball track using the large blue blocks in the collaboratory. L & B were quite intrigued by the way the heavy ball rolled along the hollowed out blocks. Since there was only one ball and two kids, the only thing to do was share!  After L pushed the ball down the ramp, she picked it up and handed the ball to B. His face lilt up with joy as he realized it was now his turn to push the ball on the track.  The two continued to take turns back and forth, laughing and cheering for when the ball made it around the track. Such a sweet start to our week! 

This morning during Capers some of the Pine kids chose to play with clay over in the Dogwood room. E Chose a green clay and began working methodically with her hands to make a turtle! It's great to work on different skills outside of our classroom on Thursdays. 

Yesterday our class checked out some yellow fruit that was sitting on the table.  "I think it's a lemon!" "It is so big!" "Lemons are yellow, that's definitely a lemon." The kids were able to explore the fruit in whatever means they wished. Many chose to use the magnifying glass to look a little closer at the skin of the yellow fruit.  "It's really yellow, and there's a little bit of brown too." "It has like little holes and dots on it!" "I have never seen a lemon like this." Others chose to draw the lemon. They picked up yellow crayons and began drawing large yellow circles on their papers.  "I am going to make it big like this one!" "It's so yellow, it looks like the sun!" Although the kids got to smell, touch, and look at the lemons, they weren't satisfied.  "Will we get to eat it?"  "I think it will be sour!" "...

"Are we going to do the water again?" was one of the first questions asked this morning as our day started. Absolutely, we can try the water colors again! As kids settled into different small groups around the room, E & B sat at the table staring at two separate vases full of water.  "Wait, this one feels kind of hot." "This one feels cold!" "Why is one hot and one cold?" "Where did the hot and cold water come from?"  This morning the Pine kids not only focused on just one drop, but also the difference in how the food coloring spreads in the water in hot and cold water.  B noticed that the food coloring in the cold vase was moving slowly.  "It kind of looks like an octopus!"  He continued to put drops of color into the water. A group of kids surrounded the vase watching as the colors swirled around slowly.  E began dropping water colors into the hot water. The colors were moving a l...

This morning the Pine kids were challenged to participate in a mindfulness activity with food coloring and water. Each child took turns placing just one drop of food coloring into the water. It was difficult, but with a little bit of working together the kids were successful in dropping and watching. The video is a compilation of different kids taking turns with the colors and watching it float through the water.  Each child's reaction is filled with joy as the colors spread throughout the water. They stayed engaged and focused on the colors moving slowly and finally filling the whole vase with green, red, blue, or green. It was a great relaxing activity on this gloomy Monday. 

This morning, T began drawing on the mirror. He drew all different colored lines and shapes. T was quite fascinated with his own reflection as he drew. T stopped drawing and picked up the basket full of markers. He stood up and watched himself dump the whole basket of markers out onto the floor. He laughed and was quite pleased with himself.  T cleaned up the markers, but still wasn't finished with the mirror. He was clearly tired of drawing so he found another way to entertain himself. In the video below you can see T placing the marker high above his head and then attempt to get it down. Even with help with his friends, T was still very adamant about doing it himself. 

F stood in the middle of the room looking around. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head making some kind of plan. His eyes lit up when he noticed two logs, almost the size of him, near a bookshelf. F ran over and put them onto the carpet. He laughed and pointed at them with excitement then began a game of rolling logs across the carpet.  It's great to see kids get excited and make up games and get others involved. So fun, F! 

Moving the blocks out into the shared space has been beneficial in so many ways for the kids. Not only do they have more space to build, but they also  have access to different materials to build with. Today, E found a curved piece of wood she referred to as "the arch." V saw the familiar shape and excitedly yelled, " It's like the Arch in St. Louis!"   B ran over to the girls and wanted to help them build too.  "We should try and make the arch." "It needs to be taller." "Yeah, we need these blocks and make sure it is sturdy so it doesn't fall over." They got to work.  After many different attempts to build the arch, E & B ended up finding something different to build, but V stuck with it for a few more seconds trying to figure out how to make the arch balance. Although V was unsuccessful in her attempts to create the arch, she still continued to try and create a sturdy base for the curved piece to ...

On Friday the teachers in Pine had the opportunity to rearrange the room to be more accessible for all of the kids. We realized that the area dedicated to blocks was just too small for several kids to build. That prompted us to move the blocks to the shared space right outside of our classroom. The Pine kids noticed immediately. "Um, where did all the blocks go?" "Do we still get to play with the blocks?" We talked about how we do still get to play with the blocks, but now our friends from Dogwood can build with us too!  The kids also noticed a few different books near the blocks. The books are full of pictures of different buildings and structures across the world.  E & E settled with a book about bridges.  "I want to make this one with like the curve thingy. I need it to be high up though like the picture in the book. It is going over the water, but we don't have any water so I will just make it like this." E set up...