Preschool Ice Climbing

So that snow cave. . . it froze and became inaccessible for climbing inside.  So, these two figured out they could ice climb up it!  Who says garden hoes don't make good ice picks?  They slammed the hoe into the icy mountain, pulled themselves up a bit, then pulled the hoe out and slammed it in again.  How clever and how fun!!

Helping Hands

This last week of February, we are still on the theme of love and friendship.  We've designated this week as the Loving our World week.  The idea is to teach about charity, helping, serving, etc.  In order to communicate this to the preschoolers, we are using terms like "helpers" and "helping hands."  We are brainstorming how we are helpers at home, here at school, how we help people, animals, and plants, how other people help us, etc.

This is truly one of my favorite songs.  I first learned about it when someone gave us the soundtrack for the Curious George movie.  Ben Harper has been a long-time favorite artist, too.

I can change the world, with my own two hands.

Make it a better place, with my own two hands.

Make it a kinder place, with my own two hands.

With my own, with my own two hands.

I can make peace on Earth, with my own two hands.

I can clean up the Earth, with my own two hands.

I can reach out to you, with my own two hands.

With my own, with my own two hands.

I'm gonna make it a brighter place, with my own two hands.

I'm gonna make it a safer place, with my own two hands.

I'm gonna help the human race, with my own two hands.

With my own, with my own two hands.

I can hold you, in my own two hands.

And I can comfort you, with my own two hands.

But you've got to use, use your own two hands.

Use your own, use your own two hands.

Our project today was to make an Earth on paper, then cut out the shape of our hands to glue by the Earth, showing that we can be helpers of the Earth with our own two hands.  

There will be more to come. . . 

Snow Cave

This is what happens when the kids are looking for some "work" to do outside, so we suggest shoveling.  Then, some kids want to jump on the pile, knocking the carefully-shoveled snow down, so we suggest that another pile is started right next to the table because "it would be so cool to crawl under the table and feel like you're inside the pile." The snow in the second pile gets higher and higher, until a teacher decides to dig some tunnels.  Then it becomes this: a snow cave.  It was used heavily today, but we can't wait to see what it turns into after the next expected winter storm coming in the next couple of days!

Homemade dog treats

This week, our focus is on giving love to animals.  We read a book about a little boy who finds a bird with a hurt wing, and brings it home and nurses it back to health and healing.  After surveying what animals we all have living in our homes, we determined there were lots of dogs.  We made dog treats, either to give to our dogs at home, or to a dog of a friend/neighbor.

We used 2 different recipes.  One was simply sunbutter and flour.  The other included mashed potato, corn meal, brewer's yeast, flour, chicken broth, salt, and oil.

How does your garden grow?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells

And cockle shells

And pretty maids, all in a row.

We are the proud recipient of the 2012 Subaru Healthy Sprouts Award!  THANKS, MS. AMANDA!!

From Amanda: The Edible Playscape garden will be added to the already established 15 foot by 15 foot vegetable and herb gardens at Green Apple Garden Playschool. It will consist of several structures for plants to grow over and children to play under including teepees, tunnels and a sunflower house. It will also include a shape garden area and a small market stand to foster pretend play. This garden is especially designed to meet learning objectives for early childhood education. Toddlers and preschoolers will help plant, tend and harvest the gardens that are fully incorporated into their every day activities and curriculum. Designing the gardens as the center of the play area allows for open ended exploration and discovery. Children will utilize the garden as the setting for the development of cognitive, socio-emotional and physical behaviors; gaining critical thinking skills, working together and using their bodies. The gardens will be filled with plants and vegetables that allow the students to explore plant structure, life cycles and nutrition. The vegetables will be used to provide healthy snacks for the students throughout the day.

Love is a Circle

One of the best rewards for me as a preschool teacher is when I take a chance and launch into teaching the kids an idea, and I get the feedback that they get it. This concept, at least some of them got.

When you give away love, it comes back to you.  It is not a unidirectional motion.  It's a circle. It moves round and round, and sometimes when it comes back, it's bigger than it was when you gave it away.  Love grows.  If I give love to you, and you give love to your friend, and your friend gives love to another friend, eventually, I will get love back.

Here are 3 songs I used that make this concept easy to teach:

Love grows one by one

Two by two 

and four by four

Love grows round like a circle

and comes back knocking at your front door.

So let me take your hand, my friend.

We'll each take the hand of another.

One by one, we'll reach them all

Our sisters and our brothers.

Love is a circle, round and round.

Love is up.

Love is down.

Love is inside, trying to get out.

Love is whirling and twirling about.

Love is a circle, it knows no bounds

The more you give, the more comes around.

Love is our's alone to give.

It lives in us.

It's beautiful.

Love is something if you give it away,

give it away, give it away.

Love is something if you give it away,

you'll end up having more.

It's just like a magic penny:

hold it tight, and you won't have any

Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many

They'll roll all over the floor!

Getting Dressed for the Cold

At a preschool where we are committed to spending lots of time outside, we also spend lots of time getting dressed (and undressed) for the weather.  This requires a lot of patience from the teachers.  Our general approach is to ask the kids, "What will you put on first? Show me." and if we hear them say, "I can't," we say something like, "I want to see you try, and I will be here to help you if you need help."  Most of the time, they try and surprise themselves with what they can do.  Sometimes they get frustrated and we help.  Inevitably, though, lots of time is spent on the task of getting snowpants, boots, mittens, scarves, hats, and coats on 10-15 preschoolers several times a day.

A long time ago, I made up a song about this, so I decided to use it in this setting.  I taught the kids the song at circle time, and they acted out pretending to put on their outdoor gear.  Once they were used to the song, I started singing it more casually (and slowly) when they were actually getting dressed.  As is the case most of the time, music is motivating, and they rise to the task.  Here is a video of my own kids demonstrating.

I gotta get dressed for the weather outside.

Gotta get dressed for the cold outside.

Gotta get dressed for the weather, dressed for the cold outside.

First I'll put on my snowpants.

Then I'll put on my boots.

Next I'll put on my mittens.

My hat, and my coat.

I gotta get dressed. . . 

Ultimately, we want them to discover their own ability, to learn new tasks, to gain confidence and autonomy and independence.  But this all has to come from them, and it has to be fun.

It's a wonderful sight when that feeling of pride stretches across their little faces.  I also find that this is a hard time NOT to use empty words of praise.  I've had to intentionally use different ways to express my pleasure, because it's just too easy to say, "Good job!" Instead, I use tone of voice (surprise and excitement) to reflect what they have done.  Something like, "Wow, look at that! You got your mittens on!"  

These tasks may seem small to those of us who are big, but to the small people, this is a big deal!

Cookie experiment

There's nothing quite like throwing a few ingredients together, baking them, and seeing what they turn out like.  Our Valentines cookies turned out pretty well, I must say. The kids really seemed to like them, which is the most important part! Here's approximately what we stirred together:

2 mashed bananas
about a cup of flour
about 1/3 cup sugar
about 1/4 cup oats
some oil
a little baking powder
a little baking soda
strawberry koolaide (because they did need to be red, of course)
a few shakes of cinnamon

healthy dose of pride

Kitchen experiments are science experiments, and we love it when science comes to life.  The cookies could have tasted a lot worse, and the kids still probably would have loved them, because of that last (and most important) ingredient.

Mud-ice Pies

Who says playing in a yard full of ice isn't fun and stimulating?  Yes, there is some risk involved, but nothing serious.  At least not serious enough to outweigh the fun (and the learning)! This last week, we have discovered that garden hoes make really good ice chippers, that it's fun to chop up ice (especially when there's a muddy puddle hiding beneath), that making mud pies in the ice is just as fun as making mud pies on warm days.

It has been wonderful to see these young kids maneuvering their way through this world of ice.  They have to walk differently.  Will their foot slip?  Will the ice beneath their foot break?  If so, what is beneath it?  Will their foot get wet? They have to be more careful than usual, and they also become aware of their surroundings in a different way.

There are new fun things to do too. Mud pies become mud-ice pies.  They can spend hours negotiating with each other about the best way to make a mud pie together.  Sometimes they talk and talk and talk about it, and other times they just do it.

Other than mud-ice pies, there is lots of other work to do.  One time this week, I found a crew of them sitting around a pile of logs, planning a strategy for getting the big log dislodged from the icy pile.  Their plan also involved how they would move it across a patch of ice after they have managed to dislodge it.

So. much. going. on!!

And go ahead, use your imagination. . . if you didn't know it was mud, that icy mud could potentially look like a delicious soup!

Child-led Learning

I've read a lot about child-led learning lately on the web.  Sometimes it seems like topics like this come in waves, and every once in awhile everyone's talking about the same topic.  Child-led learning is something that means different things to different folks.  It's a continuum, of sorts, from completely free school approach to generally considering the children's interests in your planning.

I've had 3 kids, and the only advice I've ever been able to give a mother about labor is twofold:
1. Prepare and plan for every possible detail, and then to be ready to throw the entire plan out the window in the moment.  
2. Trust your body.  It is capable of more than you might expect.

Today, it occurred to me that this is much like the process of child-led learning, as far as how we do it here.

We write a curriculum, that is centered around themes and is both arts-based and nature-based.  We plan for every day, including art and science choices, morning and afternoon choices, our homesteading/small group projects, and details of our circle time together.  However, we are open to the ideas the children bring. This may come in many different forms, such as: 

1. The children choosing to "take it to another level" as my good friend and wise mentor displays
2. Several children may spend the week talking about space and rockets, so we decide to work it into our curriculum by expanding our month of "light"
3. The weather may have changed our physical environment, and at the suggestion of one kid, we completely re-vamp our morning, so we can do what he suggested
4. Often, the kids have song and story requests at circle time, and we try to honor as many of those as we can
5. A child notices that the curtains to our closet have broken, so we talk about what to do: can we fix them or do we need to make new ones? Can we use what we have to make new ones? New ones become the homesteading project of that child's small group.
6. Four of our preschooler have a new baby at their house, so part of our LOVE theme becomes Love in our Families.

As we move forward in this journey together, we gain more and more trust in each other.  Teachers learn to trust that an idea a child has is worthy of responding to in a big way.  By this, I mean not just responding verbally, but honoring that child's creativity by making his/her idea into a project or an activity, or even a theme.  In doing this, we are teaching the children to trust us, too.  They are learning to trust that we will listen to them, we will take their ideas seriously, we will honor their minds.  

Cold Outside Learning

I've been thinking lately about our commitment to being outside, and sadly, it's something that makes our program unusual.  Many kids even at this age spend their time inside.  Many adults do, too.  In the cold winter months, I know adults who have to deliberately get themselves (and their kids) outside for some fresh air, because it's just too easy to stay in.  I'm grateful for a job that gets me that breath of fresh air (literally and figuratively) every day.

With the snow we've had lately, I've been overcome by the beauty of it, and I've realized I'm so grateful to be immersing myself in it.  The kids love to romp and play in the snow.  No matter how many times we tell them it may be quite dirty, they love to feast on the snow and ice.  They tell us, "It's delicious!" We smile, and are glad they are staying hydrated and learning to love being outside, even when the rest of the world says it's too cold.

We've had some real cold snaps, and have had to come up with a cold weather policy.  The public schools here say they won't take kids out if it's below zero, but when I looked into safe temperatures for young children to play in, most said more like 15-20 degrees was in the "green" zone.  We've decided to go in between those two measures, and let the kids go out (if they choose) when it's over 10 degrees. We are then careful about being attuned to their verbal cues, and sending them in if they are too cold.

Some may be surprised at how many kids chose to go out and stay out in the cold weather, especially in this beautiful snow.  It lifts the moods of kids and adults to breathe real air, to run and move and crawl and chase, to roll in the snow, and feel the sting of cold on our cheeks and noses.

We've missed you, Winter.  We're glad you're here!!