A great problem solving moment...

My favorite moments in the classroom are when a group of children problem solve together and I am invisible to them.

Today there was a great example of: perseverance, thinking things through and problem solving. There were 3 boys doing a stamping story work ("The Cat on the Mat"). This is where they read the story and use stamps to re-create it. The goat, for one of the boys, would not stamp completely on the paper. He persevered and kept re-stamping it to no avail. So the other two kept brain-storming what he could do differently to get it to work. After many tries of different ideas (keeping it on the pad longer, moving it around on the pad more, etc) and one of the other boy's getting theirs to work, they figured out the best way. We tend to forget how important problem solving and discovery is for the children - many times feeling like we have to provide the answer. This was a great reminder for me to let them discover and problem solve and to not jump in unless asked!

I'm back and Spring is in the air?

It's been awhile since I have blogged. Life took over. The 2010/2011 school year has been flying by, the children have settled in quickly and as usual they are so much fun to observe and be around. We have been talking about Antarctica. We do this every year, and almost didn't this year but it is such a fun continent to talk about my assistant and I couldn't resist! Right now we have various works out for the continent: a penguin balancing game (store bought) which we added dice to so they roll the die to figure out how many penguins to add; penguin tonging, making a sand map of Antarctica, a stamping work on a map (polar bears - in the Arctic, penguins in Antarctica). We also have a 'Penguins of the World' book making work. A few years ago I had purchased a penguin toob that has various types of penguins (there are around 17 different types!). I picked out 5 different types: Rockhopper, Emperor, Little Blue, Chinstrap, and African. I then found some great photos of each type to show the children.

At circle, we talked about how all penguins live south of the Equator and the uniqueness of each one and where they live. The children could then make a book. I used an outline of a regular penguin and the children could color it in and add the details needed (i.e. for a Rockhopper they could add the feathers on top of the head, for the Emperor they could add the orange and yellow around the bottom of the head, African penguins have pink coloring above the eyes etc.). For some reason the children really enjoy Little Blue the most. I will post a picture of the work soon.

We have had a very cold winter for our area but recently it's been warming up and feels like Spring. Here is a photo of a Spring work we did a few years ago when talking about flowers. It was an object to picture matching work. Enjoy and think Spring! (Update - here are a couple of photos of the "Penguins of the World" book making work.)