Details and Planning

Sometimes Planning Time feels like kids saying whatever pops into their heads first so they can escape the table and go play.  But the play ends up being not very prolonged, lacking depth, inappropriate for the environment, and/or without direction.

To avoid getting in this rut, we have recently focused on quality planning.  First we identified when Planning Time happens in our daily schedule.  (It always happens right before Work Time.)  During our Greeting Time, we talked about what is supposed to happen when we make our plans, and sorted good plans from not.

• For example, if I want to spend my time painting, a good plan would be to go to the Art Area, put my paper on the easel, and use the paints and paint brushes there.  
• If I want to spend my time painting, a bad plan would be to go to the Alone Table where there is no paint.

*Plans should help us decide the correct Area to go to.  Planning helps us to identify what we want to work with.*

There seemed to be a growing trend to play house in the Toy and Puzzle Area with friends becoming upset that they did not have the correct materials for the plan.  This conversation in Greeting Time addressed this planning problem.

After talking about planning generally during Greeting Time, we put the concepts into practice.  We set a timer for two minutes and drew out ideas of what we wanted to do.  Then we all took turns talking about our ideas to see what our friends wanted to do and where they wanted to go.  

At Harmony's House, the classroom Areas are spread out between a few rooms.  This means that we have to divide our time between one end of the house and the other for supervisory reasons.  

Sometimes this means that what a child has planned to do must be postponed for a short time if the majority of children made plans for the Areas at the opposite side of the house, but because it was planned, it was definitely accomplished before Work Time was over.

All in all, the quality of play has improved in correspondence to the quality of the plans.  In the picture featured with this post, you can see how hard the children worked to build this "house" with cardboard bricks and blocks, and all of the things they moved in.  They prepared sleeping areas, seating, television, food, toys, and even floral decorations.  After such careful work, they then assigned roles and played family.  :)

Play-doh Plates (the Tectonic Kind!)

This week we dug deeper into the idea of Our Earth, kind of literally.  First we used a book to see illustrations of the Earth and interior layers.  We learned new vocabulary like "crust," "tectonic plates," and "magma" (melted rocks that the tectonic plates float on).

Next we used play-doh to form tectonic plates and discover three ways the Earth makes mountains.

1.  Fold mountains- a real world example of tectonic collision is the Himalayan mountains, and these types of mountains are identifiable by their jagged peaks

2.  Volcanic eruptions- when a tectonic plate moves over a hot spot and magma pushes up onto the land, we call it a volcanic eruption (like the Hawaiian islands)

3.  Dome mountains- sometimes the magma pushes up but does not find an outlet, and it cools forming a rounded mountain

Lastly, we observed how when tectonic plates fold, collide, go under one another (subduction), the Earth makes layers.  When lots of heavy mountains are on top, and really hot magma is underneath, the layers in the middle are changed through pressure and heat.  This is how we get different kinds of rocks.  In summary, geology rocks!  Especially when reenacted with play-doh.  ;)

Spring STEAM

The year is chugging right along!  We have welcomed Spring at Harmony's House with STEAM!

What is STEAM?  STEAM is an acronym for Science, Technology/Tools, Engineering, Art, and Math.  This is a summary of the STEAM opportunities that the students of Harmony's House have experienced during their studies of Spring. 

(While so many of these activities could fall into a few STEAM areas, Ms. Harmony has tried to evenly assign the lessons across the subject areas.)

SCIENCE-
Rain in Turtle Town:  In the Explore Table, the school friends learned about meteorology (clouds and rain) with cups poked with holes, adhesive and cohesive properties of water (the blocks stick to one another and to the sides of the Explore Table when they are wet), balance, and buoyancy.  It was very challenging to build boats and buildings for the turtles because the foam blocks float on the water, but the turtles sink, and everything is differently weighted based on size and shape.  There was so much dialogue happening here about science:  "Why do the blocks stick together?"  "I think I need to build on something flat."  "How can I make a tunnel?"  "The turtles are sinking!"  "It's raining!  Why is the water falling out?"

Water Cycle Experiment:  To better understand how water moves between the Earth's surface and its atmosphere, we did this hands-on simulation of the water cycle.  After reading two nonfiction books about clouds and watersheds in Circle Time, the children knew that clouds were made of water and ice, clouds rain or snow on mountains, and water/snowmelt runs down into streams, rivers, lakes, and eventually the ocean.  But how does it get back into the air?  In our simulation, we used a sponge to represent a cloud.  When full of water, it began to precipitate (drip) onto the Earth (tub of water).  Finally, we used a small cup to help the water evaporate up into the clouds.  After pouring small amounts of water into the cloud/sponge, it became saturated and was ready to rain again.  The children LOVED squeezing the cloud forcefully so that it made a rainstorm.  One child noticed that after the big rush of rain, the sponge still dripped a bit and remarked, "Look it's sprinkling after the storm!"

Animal Life:  Birds are building nests to prepare for their young.  Many animals have babies in the springtime when the weather is warming up and food becomes more abundant.  This Small Group activity explains how we made our own bird nests after studying and describing real nests.

Plant Anatomy and Physiology:  Doing a plant dissection with children is super fun and informative.  They ask great questions, and learn the names and functions of the plant parts in a hands -on way!  Read this post to find out more about this project.

TECHNOLOGY/TOOLS-

Popcorn Popping:  In Circle Time, we used an air popper to replicate the Earth's environment during springtime.  Outside, the Sun shines on our part of the world and warms up the air.  More sunny days, and longer sunny days, make the weather warm.  We have noticed that flowers are popping out on trees all over the place now that Spring is here!  Like the real weather outside, the popper warmed the air, and the seeds that we "planted," until they popped!  The yummy popcorn looked just like the flowers on the trees!

Wind Socks:  When studying Spring weather, we learned that air moves when it heats up or cools down.  Wind also blows with direction.  Using a wind sock can help a person know which way the wind is blowing.  We made our own wind socks and used them outside to help us visualize the wind's movements.

ENGINEERING-

Flower Gardens:  We used Gears! Gears! Gears! to "grow flowers" for Spring.  Ms. Harmony gave the students a few materials at a time so that the children had an opportunity to figure out how the gears worked, which accessory pieces connected to which, and how to build vertically as well as horizontally.  Each child explored the gears at his/her own pace and used the materials in different ways.  It was exciting to hear the change from "I NEED help!" to "I did it!" when they figured out how to connect, turn, and build.  

Flower Garden Amusement Park:  One day during Work Time, the children came back to the Gears and planned to make a flower park for the CareBears and animals.  They connected all these gears, "planted flower," and put the animals on top.  When the gears began to turn, the animals would spin around and around with them!  It was amazing!

ART-  
Black and White Color Mixing:  The children were given a bit of black and white paint and asked to predict what color they would get when these colors were mixed together.  One child guessed grey, while another thought it would be blue.  We then proceeded to mix the two colors on the "sky" and they discovered that the blue paper would show through where the paint was thin.  They also noticed that when you add more black, the paint was darker.  White paint made the mixture lighter.  The children used varying shades of grey to make rainclouds.

Spray Art and Lightning:  To create these awesome art pieces, we used spray bottles to make it "rain" at the art easel!  After the "rain" was dry, the children were offered cotton balls and lightning bolts.  They enjoyed gluing them onto the paintings to create thunderstorms!

Rainbows:  When light shines through water, it bounces around and separates into different colors.  We applied colored streamers to Contact paper and then hung it in the window to see the light shine through!  It made beautiful stained glass windows for us.

Tree Sculptures:  At the Alone Table, the children were invited to use these "branches, leaves, and fruit" to design and build a tree sculpture.  Each child's tree was unique depending on whether they wanted to sculpt with all the branches, just a few, lots of fruit or leaves...  However it ended up, the tree sculptures were beautiful to behold.

MATH-
Building with Shapes:  In a previous blog post, these rainbow blocks were discussed as a learning opportunity for playing with light, colors, and shadows.  They also allowed the children to dialogue about patterns and shapes.  Some of the children's language included, "Give me a rectangle."  "Let's make a pattern in the wall.  Square, rectangle, square, rectangle.  That's a pattern."  "We are out of [insert shape], what should we use next?"

On a different day, the children looked at the shapes to make a stained glass window for the floor.

Numbers in the Frog Pond: The Explore Table had numbered lily pads for the frogs.  Some children used the lily pads as places for sorting rather than quantifying.  Others looked for the lily pads that had the biggest number because they wanted to have the most frogs.  Either way, this Explore Table led to a variety of math conversations!

Big to Small, and Small to Big

Spring is about growing things!  Today we dissected a complete Ranunculi plant.  We started by cutting down the flowers, and using magnifying glasses, to learn about flowers up close.

Flowers hold the pollen for bees.  The base of the flower has sepals, the green parts that enclosed the budding flower.  Friend "Sunflower" asked, "What's inside of this black part?"  What an excellent question!  When invited to cut it off and find out, we noticed that beneath the pollen part, there was a tube like a straw that goes down to the plant eggs.  So cool!

Next we trimmed and sorted stems and leaves.  We noticed the stems had a hole like a straw.

The last plant part that we dissected was the root bundles.  The school friends were amazed that these tiny hair-like things could be SO strong holding onto the dirt and the plant stems.

This small group project took us from a BIG plant down to its smallest pieces.  Our work in the Explore Table is going to help us learn about plants from small to big:

We are starting with potting soil, pinto beans, pots, shovels and rakes.  Right now the children are enjoying digging in the dirt, smelling the soil, filling and dumping the pots, and using gardening tools.  Soon, the beans will start to sprout, and we will get to see how plants really grow!