Flippers to the Ocean

Baby sea turtles hatch on the beach and race with flipper feet to the safety of the ocean as fast as they can!  We replicated this animal activity with giant flip flops, a long strip of paper, and paint!

We started with yellow paint to be the beach sand, and ended with blue and green paint to be the water and sea weed.
 

These little turtles had so much fun and looked super cute on their race to the ocean!  <3

Sharks are Fish Too

During our Ocean studies, we learned about how to classify animals as fish via several activities.  This "shark anatomy" project took about two weeks to complete!  The first day we learned that fish are animals with scales, so we put on bubble wrap mittens and painted "scales" all over this paper.

Once dry, Ms. Harmony cut out the paper in the shape of a shark.  Over the next few classes, we gradually added fins, gills, and bones by studying our shark toys and from pictures in books.  A fish is an animal with bones, gills, fins, and scales.  (They also lay eggs!)  So this means that sharks, sting rays, and even sea horses go in the fish group too!  But "jelly fish" and "star fish" don't because they don't have any bones.  Isn't that silly?

Friend "Hammer" noticed that some of our stuffed animals in the House Area had gills too, just like we had put on our shark model!  He was pretty excited about that and found other animals that had gills too.  It was awesome to see the kids apply knowledge from Greeting Time, Small Group, and Circle Time to their own observations during Work Time.

One additional way we talked about classification was to sort these toys into ocean MAMMAL groups and ocean FISH groups.  We examined the toys for clues like blowholes.  We knew that an animal that comes up to the top of the water for air has lungs, not gills.  They are like us.  We also had learned earlier in the year that mammals are animals with fur or hair.  This meant we could classify animals like seals, whales, and dolphins in the mammal group because of either the presence of hair or blowholes.  (Once sorted, Ms. Harmony also reminded them that all of the animals in the mammal group had live babies, and all* of the animals in the fish group lay eggs.  *Actually there are some sharks that have live births, but there is no need to get that technical with kids ages 2-5!

The gills on the ray and shark were a dead giveaway that they went in the fish group!  :)  Ms. Harmony tried to be tricky by saying that since the shark had teeth, maybe we should put it with the seals and dolphins... but the kids caught on and reminded me that some fish have teeth, and others don't.  That's not important when deciding if the animal is a fish or not!  These kids are so bright!  You can't get anything past them!

What do teachers do after the kids go home?

We build epic pirate ships.  Out of cardboard and duct tape.  Naturally!  ;)  They also get up to sneaky shenanigans like stealing treasure chests, hiding them on the playground, and blaming the pirates!

Friend "Hammer" asks, "Who stole our treasure again?"
Ms. Harmony: "The pirates!  And they hid the treasure on the playground nearby their ship!"
Friend "Hammer:" "That can't be right.  Cuz pirates aren't real."
Ms. Harmony:  "Hmm.  Well I wonder who it was then because our treasure is REALLY missing and we REALLY have a pirate ship parked in our playground!"

Mr. Smarty Pants was trying to game the system!  Hah!  He still had fun playing along and finding, re-hiding, and finding again the treasure chests.

What did our treasure chests contain?  20 gold doubloons perfect for counting, beads, jewel bouncy balls, a sea creature, and sunglasses.

The school friends are so helpful with the toddlers.  They helped them find their boxes, open them, and appreciate all the treasure inside.

Toddler "Kite" loved her treasure box.  She dumped and filled it over and over.  :)

Playground Highlights

This week we had so much fun using giant bubble wands on the playground!  The friends experimented with blowing, twirling, and waving the wands to create enormous bubbles!

Oceans galore on the table... We used ocean counters and Big Notchems on the table to create coral reefs and tell stories.  :)

Planning birthday parties!  It's so much fun to set the table, bake in the mud kitchen, and invite your friends to your awesome party!  So much planning and such fun work!

Preschoolers as Scientists

"Let's do what scientists do!  We'll study something, look at it up close, touch it, smell it, listen to it, and think... then write down what we've learned.  We can record our ideas with words, pictures, or tracing."

This was our Small Group prompt on Tuesday.  The children were each given a clipboard, pencil and sheet of paper.  They could choose a magnifying glass, and from a variety of star fish, sea shells, and shark teeth from the basket.

Some things we learned during this activity is that only the swirly shells sound like the ocean.  Flatter shells, starfish, and shark teeth do not.

We used a lot of descriptive language like: smooth, spiky, rough, tooth-like, sharp, spiral, striped, and so much more.  The students were encouraged to write or draw these words.

We even learned where the starfish mouth was!  Imagine eating from your belly button!  Starfish have a mouth right in the center of their bodies.  Tracing the starfish was challenging as well.  All of the starfish that we used had five legs.

 Here are some samples of the notes the children made.

Toddler "K" (age 2) "traced" her star fish by drawing circles around it.  She made some squiggles which she indicated were the words "starfish."  Ms. Harmony helped her write out the letters so another adult could read her words.

Friend "K" (age 5) traced her starfish and shark tooth independently.  She also drew her representations of seashells and labeled her diagrams.  She sounded out the words she wanted to write and wrote the letters herself.  If she was uncertain about a sound, Ms. Harmony would help her identify the correct letters like, /sh/ and /oo/.

A Follow-Up on Potty Training

We moved to underwear with Toddler "K" back in January... so how's it going now?  This is a real look at her skill improvement and the process to get where we are now.

"K" is currently almost 28 months.  She wears underwear during her wake times, and diapers for nap and bedtime.  She stays dry really well during the day because we have a routine schedule that offers her potty breaks.  She can now tell her parents "Potty!" when she needs to go, which she previously would not do.  Earlier in the year, she was still dependent on her parents to tell her when to go potty, but now she can tell us when she needs an extra potty visit.

Let's be real about POOP... Yuck!  Most of the time, "K" will wait for nap or bedtime when she has a diaper to poop.  Recently she has told her parents when she needed to poop, and pushed out a little bit on the toilet!  This progress was met with great enthusiasm!  Occasionally, "K" still poops in her underwear.  :-/  Is it to be expected?  Unfortunately, yes.  For many kids, getting poop-trained comes gradually months after being pee-trained.

She can pull her underwear up, but not down.  She still requires help getting on and off the toilet.  Her gross motor skills were a bit late to bloom in general.

"K" will happily go potty in other bathrooms or stores with her potty seat that we carry in a backpack.

What was the process of moving from part time Elimination Communication (EC) to underwear?

Ms. Harmony decided in January that Toddler "K" understood what her body was doing, and had the focus/discipline to correctly manage her bodily functions.  For the first few days, Ms. Harmony and "K" played in only one room of the house with the rug rolled up.  She was bare from the waist down, although due to it being the middle of winter, she did wear a long sleeve shirt and leg warmers.  To give incentive to "K," she was rewarded with M&Ms for using the potty.  If she peed on the floor instead, she was required to clean it up (of course Ms. Harmony helped with this process).

Although "K" really wanted the M&Ms, she also was exercising her toddler independence and would not pee where she was supposed to, although she knew what she was doing and where she was supposed to go.  Ms. Harmony decided that wiping up pee puddles was not the correct consequence after the first day because it was not producing the desired behavior.

So, the next day Ms. Harmony told "K" again that it was important to learn to use the potty like a big girl.  She could put her pee in the potty and get a M&M.  Or, she could put her pee on the floor.  Ms. Harmony would clean it up, and EAT THE M&M because Ms. Harmony had done all the work.  THIS WAS THE GOLDEN TICKET!  Toddler "K" cried and cried when Mom ate her M&Ms, whereas before she did not really care about wiping up the puddle and missing out on the M&M.

Then Ms. Harmony made it a game.  Children readily learn when there is an element of fun, or funny.  Ms. Harmony would talk to herself out loud saying, "I really hope "K" pees on the floor!  I really want to eat M&Ms!  "K" should not sit on the potty!  No she should not!"  Every time "K" would sit on the potty, and especially when she peed on the potty, Ms. Harmony would pretend to cry and give "K" the M&Ms.  "Oh man!  I wanted to eat those M&Ms, but "K" gets them instead because she peed on the potty!"  (Wail, fake crying.  You get the idea.)  Toddler "K" would laugh and laugh about taking the M&Ms for herself.  She would try to go potty often because even if she could squeeze out a drop, she got the M&Ms and a big production from mom.

After 3 days of bare-bottom training, we added training underwear and worked daily after that to maintain the skills.  Some days were "wetter" than others.  But for the most part, "K" made steady improvement.  We have been able to take her out and not worry that she will have an accident for months now.  Hurray for freedom from diapers!  Hurray for confidence that she will stay dry even if we aren't at home!

Would Ms. Harmony do it again this way, or would she just wait?  Some kids can train in 3 days and never have an accident after that.

Yes, think of the all the diapers I've saved in the past 6 months.

Yes, looking back I'd still do the same thing even though it seems like a lot of work.  Her personality is the biggest reason for training her this way.  Toddler "K" thrives on routine and gradual transitions (bottles to sippy cups, crib to toddler bed, meeting someone new, going on play ground equipment, etc).  "K" wants to do what she's always done and is very resistant to change or new expectations.  Basically, by beginning her potty training before she was 2 years old, it allowed her to cement the new skills before she could remember any different.  At 28 months, it's highly unlikely she even remembers wearing diapers all day.  Basically, I felt the longer she was in diapers, the more aware she would be of that being "the norm," and the more resistant she would be to potty learning later.  I wanted to form potty habits, not diaper dependence habits.

Going forward, these are the skills related to potty training that she still needs to work on:

• pulling down her own shorts and underwear
• getting on and off the toilet
• redressing independently
• pooping in the toilet
• staying dry through nap and bed time

Ocean Adventures

Today we kicked off our Ocean theme with some simple salt water experiments!

• We tasted the difference between fresh and salt water, and talked about not drinking the ocean because the water is YUCKY to drink.  ;)  
• We also observed that salt water makes it easier to float.  The "boat" sank to the bottom of our freshwater but stayed right on top in the salty water.  
• When the students return on Thursday we will see if the salt water we put outside evaporated, and whether the salt stayed behind or not!  

The kids' hypothesis is: once you mix the salt into the water, you cannot get the salt back out.  We will see!

Work Time plans included learning the names of some common ocean animals like squids, lobsters, and sting rays.  Friend "Hammer" thought the squid was especially creepy!

The pirate explore table was especially popular because the friends enjoyed finding buried jewels and gold coins in the sand.

Friend "Kangaroo" and I worked on a 48 piece mermaid puzzle.  She recalled that doing this was one of her favorite plans.  One of her questions about mermaids when she played with the dolls in the House Area was: "Where are the mermaids' feet?"  We talked about mermaids were creatures that were half human, half fish.  They don't have any feet, just fins!

Finally, many friends enjoyed mixing blue and green paint at the art easel.  We made some beautiful shades of teal!

Happy Independence Day!

One of the funnest parts (for some people) of the 4th of July is the fireworks!  We had a great time making these fireworks on our paper WITH sound effects.  ;)

We also read a book "The Star Spangled Banner" that depicted our country's flag, current traditions, and paintings of early Revolutionary war time soldiers to the lyrics of the national anthem.  We noticed the colors of the flag and briefly talked about how seeing the flag can make us feel proud of our country.  We each used a red, blue, or white bandanna to wave and made our own parade for Circle Time.  "Yankee Doodle" makes for great marching!