Snow Business

"There's no business like Snow Business!"

We came back to school on Tuesday ready to inhale "Lung Lessons" in our study of the human body. By Wednesday as the snow started to fall, the spontaneity clause kicked in. ("All activities are subject to the magic of the moment as we learn and grow together.") We had an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Water Cycle, which we've been exploring the last few weeks. The children had been digging ponds and channels, which had been filling with rainwater from the clouds and with helpful little hands filling buckets from other outdoor puddles.

Taking a break...

We found some interesting uses for all that bark we were digging up!

We love to experiment!

And then today, the magic of discovering that our play yard was totally transformed by a blanket of white...

Yet our pond and canals were different... they had frozen into ice! This absolutely thrilled the children!

One of our favorite water sources for filling the ponds and canals is from the indentations on the top of the mini sandbox. But it too had changed, resembling a tiny skating rink!

At story time, we had read more about winter weather and the children were very curious about the icicles in the book. "What are icicles? How are they made?," various children asked. Then, lo and behold, we discovered them on our small play structure! We observed them dripping, watched with excitement, then understood how they had formed... what delight!

Icicles big, Icicles small,

We were enchanted by them all!

What better way to celebrate

than to leave

our angelic imprints

in the snow...

Though the snow is cold, we Bear Cubs are bold!

We learned so much from this snowy day!

Judith

Love is all you need...

Homegrown Bear Cub Love

This is a short week with Inservice Days, so even though we've been working on wonderful learning projects, in today's blog we're going to feature our loving celebration on Valentine's Day.

We began the day with centers where the children could explore and create...



printing with heart stampers was most popular!




Every project starts with writing your name.

The names with lots of letters take longer to learn... now how do all those letters go together?




Comparing and contrasting images, sizes and colors keep us wondering and thinking about our choices as we print.






We also had a Valentine book reading center, which the children thorougly enjoyed. Every child had their own book to take home... but first we read it together, discovering more heart shapes found in the natural world! (We've been on the look-out lately for "hearts" in nature...The children sense that they are a sure sign of affirmation and goodness!)

(oops, lost an image... Sorry S, K, V,and E!)





We played our circle game, "Will You Be My Valentine?" We noticed such wonderful singing and skipping! We have played this game a number of times in the past week... the children enthusiastically request it!

Life intertwined in brotherly love from the very first moment for our much loved dynamic duo (double the love x 3 = the third successive generation of twins in their family!)

Look at that skipping... that's a high level skill for this age! Our whole class is now able to skip---- in this educator's decades of teaching, that's a first for a group of 4 and 5 year olds! (We have been working on skipping in P.E. and during our everyday large motor times.)

Snack was so healthy and pretty... "tea sandwiches," heart shaped cheese slices and pink smoothies in red cups. Everyone was delighted!

(This photo was taken before second helpings were served... then the remaining food and the smoothies were devoured with gusto!)

And finally it was time for the highlight of the day, our Valentine exchange. Every child created one beautiful handmade Valentine at home to place in our classroom "mailbox." Then we each reached in (with eyes closed) and picked a card. Every card was special, and each child was so pleased with their unique and special surprise Valentine.

Anticipation...

Big Thoughts on Love...

Who do you love? How do you show love?

"I love my mommy and daddy because I just do. I give them hugs and kisses."

"I love my dad and mom and brother and Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Poppa and Cathy and Judith. Love is when somebody loves someone. You say,

'I love you,' or hug or kiss them."

"I love my mommy because she worries about me. You give love to your family. You give your family a hug."

"I love my sister because she's my best sister. Love means that you love each other by giving cards, chocolate or hearts. Or you can buy heart necklaces!"

"I love my mommy and daddy because I love them. I love Astrid, Nana and Papa, Auntie, Karl... that's all! I give them hugs."

"I love Mom, Dad and Ellery because I like to play with them. I think love is that you, like, make Valentines and monster trucks."

"I love my mom and dad because they're so special. Love is something when you love somebody and it's really great. Love is the best thing in the world! And if you're shy and don't want to say 'I love you,' you can do the signs." [demonstrates with hands the sign language expression of "I love you."]

Love makes our world go 'round!

Judith

Water, Animals in Winter, Lots of Love

Learning About the Water Cycle

Water is so amazing! We have been doing investigations to better understand this oh-so-common, magical, mysterious element. We love water in all it's forms, but lately, we have discovered how very fascinating water droplets are!

We have learned to use pipettes to place water droplets onto wax paper.


"The droplets look like little bubbles," commented several children.

We became mesmerized in our explorations...

and discovered that we could move one droplet to join another... Now the water drops grew bigger when they were pushed together!

We discovered that if we moved the toothpick slowly and carefully, we could move water droplets out again...

and the little water pools would shrink!

"How many droplets are in this big water drop?"

I wonder what we'll discover about the water cycle from this exploration?

Hibernating Bear (In PJ's) Day!

Last Friday, we ended our "Animals in Winter" study by asking our Bear Cubs to come to school in their pajamas, ready to celebrate the season in which wild animals either adapt, hibernate or have migrated. In honor of the special day, we made beary berry parfaits...

with every Bear Cub determining their own balance of berries, cereal, yogurt and granola in creating the layers.

M-m-m... bears love the sweet scents of all berries!

Thanks, Melissa, for helping us, and to Sonja and Christopher for the ingredients!

We put together books about how bears prepare for the winter, then read them.

We classified animals as to whether they migrated, adapted or hibernated for the winter months. The children love these big words and understand what they mean for the animals in our NW habitat. We introduced the concept of Venn Diagrams to show that, for example, some birds migrate and others adapt to their cold habitat. And once in a while, an individual bird of a type that supposed to migrate doesn't--- and somehow continues to thrive by adapting!

We helped a grizzly bear find her way through the huckleberry patch of a maze to her winter den, then drew her sleeping in the heart of the huckleberries--- the great bear's dream come true!

This was the most complicated maze that we have done this year...
so many twists, turns and "dead ends."

"I'm a hard working guy... See how I put my pencil behind my ear?"

We built a bear den to see how it would feel to crawl in and take a rest. It was good that we had our teddy bears with us to cuddle with!

We don't think that bears really wear pajamas in their den, but it sure was fun for us!

Our hamster, Pepper, had the run of the classroom so that he could watch all that we were doing. Pepper most definitely doesn't hibernate!

Lots of Love

Early in the week we began making hearts and wrote Valentine messages on them to our friends who moved to Milwaukee. Our fine motor and cutting skills have come such a long way these past months... We can even cut curves! We thought you might enjoy seeing the concentration it takes to carefully cut a heart card for someone you love (and this series of photos could have been taken with any member of our class community...)

and then we wrote and drew on them...

We put our hearts into it!

Creating Valentines offers great incentive for practicing our writing/reading skills in combining letters to create words, realizing that we can share our thoughts and feelings with friends far away...

and comprehending that our words are so powerful that they will convey our heartfelt messages to our friends when they receive them!

We all feel so happy... We agree that sharing love is the best feeling in the world!

So much love to life, so much life to love...

Judith