It's Not Candyland, It's Sunderland!

For the past 2 weeks, we've been learning all about different places in our community -- our school, the post office, the police & fire department, the public library, the Millstone Market and the Frosty.  Yesterday, the afternoon class created their own Sunderland game. (Think Candyland with familiar locations) Here is a photo of a few boys enjoying this game.

We have also been very busy in our classroom post office. The children really enjoy writing letters, putting them in the big blue mailboxes and then sorting them into the individual mailboxes.  We have also created mail carrier hats, mail bags and some mail trucks and mail signs for our block area.

Putting mail into the big blue mailbox

Sorting mail into a friend's mailbox

A Trip to the Doctors' Office

As part of our study of ways to stay healthy, we have begun talking about the work of doctors.  Our kitchen area has become a doctors' office and there are many busy doctors helping care for the baby dolls. Today the children in both the morning and afternoon groups were caring for the dolls in many ways:

• using the scale to weigh the babies
• listening to the dolls' hearts with the stethoscopes
• administering shots
• checking the dolls' eyes and ears
• taking notes
• applying many, many band-aids
• passing out stickers at the end of each visit.

Check out these great photos.

Busy caring for the dolls in the morning.

Busy caring for each other in the afternoon.

Sorting, sorting all day long!

You may have noticed that there has been lots of sorting going on in our classroom.  Sorting is an important early math skill.  As your child sorts various objects, he or she may be working to identify shape, color, size or texture.  Last week we sorted buttons by shape and we also sorted small plastic numbers by color and numeral.  This week, as we focus on our sense of touch, we are sorting objects by texture (cotton balls, acorns, rocks and buttons).  Take a look at these children sorting. 

Sorting buttons by shape . . . .

Sorting objects by texture . . .

Sour, Sweet, Bitter & Salty

Last week, we began discussing the fives senses and this week we put our sense of taste to the test!  We have been learning all about our sense of Taste and about the connection between the tongue and the brain. Both the morning and the afternoon groups have been adventurous tasters this week. We have had the chance to taste Sour, Sweet, Bitter and Salty foods. Our samples have included lemons & cranberries, chocolate chips & honey, dark chocolate, and potato chips. 

Greta and Caleb are getting ready to taste cranberries and lemons.

Thomas has just tasted lemons and cranberries! 

Joshua has just tasted bitter dark chocolate!
Stay tuned for more adventures of the five senses!

The 3 Bears

The 3 Bears kept us very busy this week at SES!  Both the AM & PM classes were very engaged as they retold the story of The 3 Bears.  Our dramatic play area was filled with action as the children set the table with small, medium and large bowls & spoons, prepared porridge that was "too hot", "too cold" and "just right" and then ate the delicious porridge.  This type of play offers wonderful opportunities for math & literacy learning, imaginative role-playing, problem-solving and vocabulary development.  

Check out this photo of the children "eating" their porridge in small, medium and large bowls. 

The children also enjoyed retelling the story of the 3 Bears using Character Cards and Finger Puppets. In the AM Class, retelling with Character Cards was a small group, teacher-directed project.  For the PM Class, retelling with Finger Puppets was a Choice Time Project.  

Check out the PM Class independently retelling The 3 Bears. They were able to tell the story in accurate sequence and use specific phrases (i.e.  "Somebody's been eating my porridge!") as they played with the puppets.  

A Morning with the Afternoon Group - November 9

Our Half-Day schedule meant that the Afternoon Class came to school in the morning today. It was fun to see those smiling faces bright and early!  Despite the change in routine, the Afternoon Group jumped right in and got busy with Self-Portraits.  We are documenting the children's progress in creating representational artwork by drawing monthly self-portraits.  This monthly practice, along with regular Mat Man practice (our Handwriting Without Tears model) has already made a big difference in the children's artwork.  Today the children were looking carefully at specific features -- hair, eyes, hands -- and trying to add these to their work. 

In addition to Self-Portraits, we continued our work with The Three Bears. We read The Three Bears by Paul Galdone and followed our reading with some sorting work.  We sorted porridge bowls, beds and chairs by size -- Large for Papa Bear, Medium for Mama Bear, and Small for Baby Bear. 

Back to School!

We were all so happy to be back at school on Monday!
We jumped right back into our daily routines and began
a new unit of study about The Three Bears.  The children 
were busy exercising their fine motor skills as they cut out
circles to create bears from construction paper.  We also
explored the concepts of Small, Medium & Large as we 
rolled Cinnamon Scented Dough into balls. 

We began reading The Three Bears by Paul Galdone and this generated an
interesting discussion about porridge.  What is it?  Does it
really taste good? Maybe we'll add porridge to next week's snack menu!