AFC PINE PM

While capering today, L & J took an interest in some magnetic tiles to build with. They first started building separate garages and roads for their cars, but exchanged materials with one another as they built.  "J can I have more squares please? I want to build a road." "Sure! Here you can have these." "Thanks!" L built his road for his car. At first, he carefully pushed the car across the tiles making a rumbling sound to mimic an engine. After a few passes with his car, his car started going a little faster and a little crazier.  "L, be careful! You almost knocked over my car wash!" L looked over and noticed his foot was just a few inches from knocking over J's creation.  "Oh, sorry!" L moved his body and began playing again.  J continued to build her car wash and started to attract the attention of some other kids.  "Look, you put your car here and it goes around and around like this....

This afternoon M came across an invitation our morning class has been interacting with over the last two weeks. The question asked is "Can You Make It Move?" M picked up the fan and turned it on. He started pulling out different materials like a crayon, paper, a pine cone, and a feather.  "These are going across the table! They are moving so fast with the fan." K wandered over and wanted to see what else could move across the table. "Here, try this M!" She placed a big tree cookie in front of the fan.  "It's not moving! It's too heavy." "Is anything else too heavy?" "Yeah let's try more things." M and K continued to try different materials. They began making a pile of the things that would not move with the fan.  "We have all the things that are heavy and all of the things that are not heavy." "Yeah like they don't move when you use the fan." "Hea...

What else can we do with leaves? Just when we thought we have done everything we can with the leaves that have fallen, the Pine kids came up with another idea on how we use them in our classroom.  "I think we need to paint the leaves. We need to make them all different colors." We headed outside to find different leaves on the playscape.  "We need to get all different kinds of leaves to paint." K & M searched the playscape for different shaped leaves.  We headed back inside to get started on painting leaves. Before we started the kids were asked: What do you think will happen to the leaves?  What do you think will happen to the paper? L started dobbing the leaves a variety of different colors.  "Look they are turning different colors! I am making it red and orange, and blue." "I think the leaves will turn different colors and like be really pretty! They are going to look beautiful. The paper is going to ...

While sitting outside during snack M looked up at the tree branches above us and noticed something about the leaves.  "Some of them are still green and others are red." Everyone looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders. "I don't know." "Well, I think maybe because like the leaves turn red when they hit the ground." M looked back up at the branches. "Oh, never mind. Some of the leaves are still red on the tree." M thought for a moment and it was as if a light bulb went off in his head. "Maybe they turn red and orange when they are ready to fall!" The others nodded in agreement and seemed to like the explanation M gave.  L noticed the leaves on the ground and crunched one in his fist.  "The leaves are crunchy. They broke!" M picked up a leaf and tried the same thing.  "They crumble when you can crunch them." The boys immediately began looking around ...

We started our day off talking about all the leaves we found in our collection yesterday.  "Some of them are really little and some are big!" "Which one is the biggest?" "That on is the biggest!" "Where did it come from?!" After finding out which one was the biggest and which was the smallest we quickly talked about where we could find all of these different leaves.  "I think the forest will have some really tiny leaves." "We can look today!" We arrived at the forest and M immediately found a leaf.  "Look! This one is so much smaller than the other ones!" Pine friends wandered through the forest for awhile before coming across another kind of leaf.  "This one is huge! It's bigger than my head!" Before M knew it, he found yet another leaf that was even bigger! "This one is even bigger! It's bigger than my head!" Everyone continu...

M came rushing into the room today holding two leaves that were bright orange.  "Look at these orange leaves I found, they are starting to change!" "I want to see them. Can we look for more?" A group headed outside to find more different colored leaves.  "This one is yellow! It looks like Louis' shirt!" "My shirt is yellow like the leaves." As the group searched for leaves they started talking about all of the different colors they could be.  "Some are orange and green. Some of them are kind of yellow."  "This leaf is green and red." "Did you know that chameleons change colors?" "Like leaves!" "And frogs!" "Leaves change because a magician changes them." "No, they change because it's fall." "Magicians make the colors change in the fall."  "This leaf is still green and this one is orange. I don't know...

W sat at the table and grabbed a hunk of playdoh. He started diving the playdoh into small uneven amounts.  He picked up the first piece and gently rolled it between his palms and set it to the side. W continued to roll several more dough pieces between his hands to create different sized balls.  "It's a ball!" After rolling several different balls out he started stacking them up one on top of the other.  "It's a snowman!" He added the last ball on top when the tower of balls started falling over.  "Oh no!" W grabbed onto all of the balls to try and prevent the structure from falling over.  He steadied the tower, but within seconds it fell over.  "Oh no! Stop that!" W tried several more times to try and keep the tower standing. No luck.  W's persistence is undeniable. He seems to set small goals for himself as he plays. In the video above you get a quick sample of W's in...

Yesterday, M discovered something hiding in the forest.  "Look what I found! It was in a really secret spot!" The Pine kids stood and watched in amazement at the gift they found hiding in the forest.  "What was it doing there?" "I think someone hid it in here." "It was in a really secret spot!" Today, we talked a little more about the heart in the forest over snack.  "It has so many decorations on it!" "We have to keep it in the classroom." "Let's make a new heart for the forest." "We can color it in the classroom and then take it to the forest." "I think we can get another one. Maybe we can make some pine cones too, or find a rock to color." The Pine friends decided they wanted to replace the gift in the forest with something new.  They were fascinated to find something like a heart in the forest. They wondered how it got there and who put it t...

The Pine friends always look forward to forest days and today was no exception. About halfway through their play, M yelled from across the forest, "Hey, I noticed something! I need to show you a secret thing." M walked through the forest ducking under branches & pushing others out of his way.  "If you look over here this log goes all the way up." M carefully climbed up onto the log making sure he still had the large stick in his hand. He seemed to use it as a guide.  "Nobody has ever climbed up this tree, but I'm going to!" M started walking across the log. He stepped over the crisscrossing branches in the way of his route. M used the stick to balance himself as he walked.  M stopped for a moment and pointed straight ahead.  "It goes all the way over there to that tree. I'm going to climb there." M walked a little farther and stopped again.  "I'm afraid of heights, I th...

Since beginning our study on colors the Pine kids have really grasped the idea of mixing different colors to create a new one. Today the kids wanted to mix the colors a way we haven't tried yet, making their own playdoh colors. Typically the class decides on what color they want to make, but this time was different.  W & J set off to the kitchen to start making the plain colored dough.  They took turns pouring the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and oil into the bowl as they wanted for the water to boil. When the water came up to a boil the heat was turned off and the liquid was added to the flour concoction.  "It's really warm. It kind of feels hot."  J & W kneaded the dough. They pushed the heels of their hands deep into the mixture and folded it back over itself. They continued to squish it together to make a cohesive dough that was both soft & pliable.   They returned to the classroom with the warm dough in han...