From Caterpillars to Butterflies

As most of you are aware, we have experienced quite a life cycle through our painted lady butterflies.  A few blog posts ago, we went into detail with our thoughts about the caterpillars.  I think what was most exciting about them for the children was the hypothesizing.  What would they turn into?  When?  How would they do it?  We had many conversations throughout this process.  If you get a chance, look into what happens to the painted lady butterflies through this process.  It is quite fascinating!





First it starts out as an egg.

Out of the egg comes a caterpillar.  The caterpillar will eat and eat until it grows more and more.















The caterpillar climbs up and makes a hard shell around itself.  Inside the shell the caterpillar changes.



































And then comes the butterfly!



The butterflies came out of the chrysalises and went to look for food (oranges and water we placed inside the net).  We watched the butterflies for a few days as they made their wings stronger.

After observing them for a few days, it was time to let them go.  The children agreed that they needed space to fly around, as the net was too small.  The butterflies would crash into the sides all the time!  Ms. Stoltz discussed last thoughts as the children followed her outside to make the release.  Once in a while we look for the caterpillars outside, but we are content in thinking they have found a new home more suitable for their needs.

Early Childhood Standards of Quality: Early Learning Expectations

1. Visual Arts: Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.
2. Writing Skills: Children begin to develop writing skills to communicate and express themselves effectively for a variety of purposes.
3.  Expressive: Children develop abilities to express themselves clearly and communicate ideas to others.
4.  Fine Motor Development: Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to improve a variety of fine motor skills both in structured and unstructured settings.
5.  Observation and Inquiry: Children develop positive attitudes and gain knowledge about science through observation and active play.

6.  Living and Non-living Things: Children show a beginning awareness of scientific knowledge related to living and non-living things.

Painting Strokes

The children have been spending a lot of time painting with watercolors and small paint brushes.  They are creative and are becoming more intentional with their creations.  They are very interested in painting animals, and families.  In order to help the children develop their painting skills we have been exploring different ways to paint with a paint brush.  What are different ways to use the brush?  How can we create different designs? We wanted the children to make a connection between the way they use the brush and the design they created.

The children came up with names for the different ways to paint with the brush.

Lines:

Swirls: 

Dots:

Twirls:

We will continue painting and exploring new ways to use our paintbrushes.  I am curious to see how these strokes will show up in their future drawings.  These strokes are the foundation of their paintings and can be used to add detail and depth to their creations.  What are some other ways we can paint with these brushes?

Early Childhood Standards of Quality: Early Learning Expectation

1. Visual Arts: Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.

2. Spoken Language: Expressive. Children develop abilities to express themselves clearly and communicate ideas to others.

3.Viewing Images and Other Media Materials: Children begin to develop strategies that assist them in viewing a variety of images and multimedia materials effectively and critically.

4. Creativity and Innovation: Children use a variety of developmentally appropriate digital tools to learn and create.
5. Fine Motor Development:  Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to improve a variety of fine motor skills both in structured and unstructured settings.

Intentional Paintings

We have many children in our classroom who love to paint.  We have spent quite a bit of time exploring the different aspects of painting, and now we are focusing on what is it we want to paint a picture of.  The children always have an idea of what it is they are painting, however, sometimes during the course of one painting, the object in their painting changes.  So they may start off painting a rainbow, but by the end it is a dinosaur.

We wanted to help the children to become more intentional with their creations, to start and complete a painting with one focus and then add details.  To do this we provided them with pictures to use as inspiration.  We used things around the room, as well as books and the iPad to find pictures of things they wanted to paint.  The children used these as inspiration and then were able to expand using their own ideas and adding their own details.  Many of them were interested in animals and insects.

"It's a lady bug and a shiny green beetle.  This one has really long legs!"

"I want to paint a cheetah.  It has a tail and lots of spots."

In order to help the children to plan out their paintings, we began to draw out our work before painting it.  This way we can erase it if we do not like it and change it.  They choose what they would like to paint, and used the same tools as inspiration.  Then once they had finished their drawing they painted it.

Early Childhood Standards of Quality: Early Learning Expectation
1. Visual Arts: Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.
2. Spoken Language: Expressive. Children develop abilities to express themselves clearly and communicate ideas to others.
3.Viewing Images and Other Media Materials: Children begin to develop strategies that assist them in viewing a variety of images and multimedia materials effectively and critically.
4. Creativity and Innovation: Children use a variety of developmentally appropriate digital tools to learn and create.
5. Fine Motor Development: Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to improve a variety of fine motor skills both in structured and unstructured settings.

Early Childhood Standards

This is just a quick note about what you will be seeing at the bottom of the blog posts lately.  I have started attaching relevant information regarding the Michigan standards for preschoolers.  Depending on the type of lesson the blog post is highlighting, you will see what standards are covered at the end.

Just like elementary grades, there are Michigan standards of quality for preschoolers.  The state of Michigan has defined what is reasonable to expect for all young children to accomplish in multiple domains of development.

Here are the domains:

• Approaches to Learning
• Creative Arts
• Language and Early Literacy Development
• Dual Language Learning
• Technology Literacy-Early Learning and Technology
• Social, Emotional and Physical Health and Development
• Early Learning in Mathematics
• Early Learning in Science
• Early Learning in Social Studies

Under each of these categories is what I am highlighting at the bottom of the blog posts.  For example, one lesson might have been about making blueprints for a house (previous blog post).  Many areas and domains are covered according to the standards.  When children use a pencil to draw their ideas, they are focusing on their fine motor experiences.  When a child communicates their ideas verbally to their teacher or peers, they are using their expressive language.  When the child thinks critically about a house, what it needs, and their own experiences, that child is thinking of their relationship in place.

What is planned for the children has intention behind it and covers many domains of development.  So make sure to look at the end of each blog post for a summary of the lesson's standards.

For more information, visit  http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/ECSQ_OK_Approved_422339_7.pdf

Blueprints of a house

In order to plan out ideas for a classroom dollhouse, we need to decide on what we need to build.  We have talked about it as a group, but sitting down with individual children gives us more aspects of a house that otherwise might not be thought of in a group discussion.  While sitting down with the children, I saw that each child had a focus on a certain aspect of their house.  

These drawings will be sorted and saved to use again later while making plans as a group.  My next steps are to make a master list of what needs to be a part of the house.  Knowing what is important to the children is vital when building.  This way I can start to gather materials needed.  I have talked to the children about what materials they would like to use, but they do not seem to be interested in this idea (so far all they have said has been boxes and tape).  Maybe once we start to build they will have more opinions on what materials they need for the future.

It's a big garage door.  I don't know how to draw a car. (He grabbed a car from the shelf to trace). What else?  I like that house with the blue roof (looking at pictures of houses).  That's about it.  I'm done.

I'm going to make grass first.  And a worm.  This worm has no eyes.  I'm drawing this house.  It has a small red car (on the car).  3 lights?  See?  It's open (the garage) with no sides.  

I want to draw a brick house.  A door!  With a door knob.  Windows! 

Early Childhood Standards of Quality:  Early Learning Expectations

1. Visual Arts: Children show how they feel, what they think, and what they are learning through experiences in the visual arts.
2. Writing Skills: Children begin to develop writing skills to communicate and express themselves effectively for a variety of purposes.
3.  Expressive: Children develop abilities to express themselves clearly and communicate ideas to others.
4.  Fine Motor Development: Children experience growth in fine motor development and use small muscles to improve a variety of fine motor skills both in structured and unstructured settings.
5.  Relationship in Place: Children begin to understand and interpret their relationship and place within their own environment.

Caterpillars

At the end of last week caterpillars were mailed in to school.  I introduced them on Monday to the children.  We were very excited about them and really enjoyed watching them closely with the magnifying glasses.  Each day we have been observing changes and discussing predictions.  A lot of the children are guessing the caterpillars will grow as big as their arms!

 "It's spikey."



"They're moving!"




"They have 60 legs!"

 


"They have spikes so they can wiggle up the cup."


"I see they have food to eat and little mouths."


"I see one sleeping."



"They will grow and eat leaves."

We just started discussing the change that is coming up.  Some of the caterpillars have started walking up to the lid already today, so I expect a chrysalis or two soon.  We will keep you posted with our findings!

How do we make a house?

Last semester we worked a lot with the building of houses.  We discussed materials needed, different types of houses, tools used, and important parts of houses.  I added a new shelf to the block area to store all of our house materials.  So far we have a house book, masking tape, basket of tools, and empty space for more house materials (TBA).  I wanted empty space to give us the freedom to add materials when we need them.

What I did add were pieces of carpet.  This provided new inspiration for the children while building.  We spent the morning using them while making houses.  This is a story of one particular child's journey through building and how the other children reacted.

First a base for the house was constructed.  Carpet was considered initially, but was decided against as more "bricks" needed to be added.

"I need a seat and a bed.  Two seats in my house."

Here is the garage

This shows how the "bricks" were stabilized.    Careful application of masking tape helped them stay still.  When the house was completed, children would come and go and enjoy the pre-made house with people.  This way those who wanted to pretend could pretend without the hassle of building a house.  

This got me thinking.  What if we put our house building skills to use by making one large house to perfect over a few weeks.  This way we will have our own house that is specific to what we need.  I plan on presenting this idea to the children next week and will let you know of the results!

What is that sound? Part 2

For the past Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the children have been exploring sounds.  We have been comparing many different types of materials and coming up with plans for creating new mediums for making sounds.  In our research we studied atypical instruments and many made with common materials.  We saw pictures of drums made out of garbage bins and violins made from tin cans.  It was fun to figure out what the instruments were made from. 

Through this investigation, the children seemed to have an interest in videos and pictures of instruments made out of pvc pipes.  We have used pvc pipes to test out motion of marbles and water, making mazes, and connecting like puzzles, but we never thought to test out sound.  This seemed like a good idea to the children.  We started to research pipe instruments and became overwhelmed with what we saw!  

We finally came up with a plan of what we wanted to pursue.  

We made a list of what we would need

1.  8 straight pipes

2.  lots of curved pieces

3.  2 pieces of wood

4.  tape to put it all together

From there, we went to work.  We spent 3 days of putting the pieces together.  I did not have the time to go to the hardware store to get 2 pieces of wood, so we used what we had.  The end results were pretty amazing!

After the children finished and were satisfied with the results, I took it home to secure it.  After explaining to the children what was done (with a drill!) we were ready to get to work.  We discussed changes that were made to the instrument.  We drew our experiences on paper.  We shared our stories as a group.  I think the part that was most exciting with the children was the creation of the instrument.  Those ideas were shared the most.  The children went back to stories of how they used tape, how they connected the pieces, and how they arranged everything.  The fact that what they built could make noise was just an added bonus!

"loud pipes are the bigger pipes.  Smaller pipes are softer sounds."

"The pipes are big and then small.  They make noise."

"Long pipes"

So make sure to stop by the ECEC Program Exhibit on the 16th from 5-6:30 to test out the instrument and see what else we have been up to!

Drum Explorations: Ms. Kattan's curriculum letter

Hello, my name is Iman Kattan and I am an intern in your child’s classroom this semester. I am in the classroom all day Friday. As an intern, I am learning how to run a classroom and interact with students. I regularly write and plan lessons for the children in the classroom. So far, I’ve observed that the children in the classroom really enjoy making music with instruments. As a student teacher, I take children’s interest and plan lessons around it. The children have been doing small group activities planned around music, instruments and movements. So far, the children have explored different size drums, finger cymbals, and guitars with another intern. The children are learning the concept of rhythm, performing, pitch, beats and movement.

The big idea for our lessons on music and movement is to develop children’s knowledge about how to manipulate sound using instruments. The implementation of previous lessons included children exploring different size drums and finger cymbals. The children have been experimenting with sound and movement. We have been doing the inquiry lessons in the gross motor room, so the children have lots of room to move instruments and their bodies to make music. Some of the children have moved instruments around to see how it affected the sound produced. They noticed that the sound changes when they hit it with a different amount of force and angle. The children also danced while they played instruments and moved their bodies. They experimented with the concept of loud and soft sounds. They used different methods to make soft and loud sounds. They used more force to create louder sounds and less to make softer sounds. I have observed children using their bodies to make sound. They used their hands and fingers to make sounds. I plan to expand children’s learning by planning future lessons on making sounds with different tools. Some of the materials I plan to provide include bells, straws, and different size drumsticks. The children will be able to test out different materials and how they change the sounds produced. The children were engaged and explored the instruments by making music, moving their bodies and singing along. They noticed the amount of force they used affected the sound projected by the instrument. The children worked on their fine and large motor skills while working with the instruments. They also learned to differentiate between loud and soft sounds. To further this learning, the children will continue to explore sounds, movements with instruments. In the next lesson we will explore different materials including small and large rocks, sea shells, and feathers. They will use these materials to see how they can change the sound produced by the drum. For future lessons I plan to talk about the lessons with parents and encourage them to join us. I will start the discussion when I see them at drop off and pick up. Family members can continue and extend the experience by finding different materials they have at home and experimenting with them. This lesson was constructed with the ECEC’s preference for the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy. This insures that the all the lessons planed are hands on and created with child’s interest in mind.