AFC PINE PM

  We made it to Thursday, and boy oh boy what a Thursday it was. Today was one of the harder days we have had in the Pine room and the kids had to work through a lot of different emotions and situations. For the last two weeks this group of 5 have been nothing but loving, caring, and demonstrating a lot of really kind behavior with one another, but for whatever reason today was a day filled with tears, sadness, and frustration. These days happen! We are not discouraged by any of it, because this is why we are here.  Despite it all, by the end of the day they were able to work together to play duck duck goose. It was incredibly encouraging to watch! They took turns, helped each other out, and practiced a lot of patience. These are the Pine kids we are used to seeing! Next week is a new week and we are all looking forward to making it a good one. 

  It's not every day that the kids say they do NOT want to go outside. We were shocked! At the very end of our meeting with Kari the kids took a vote: Collaboratory or Outside?  It was a landslide victory to go play in the collaboratory rather than play outside. The kids lined up and we made our way to the big space. It wasn't before long that they got right into playing a game they called "fishing!" It was hilarious. They all gathered long blue foam pieces to use as their rods and dipped them into the "water." There was one glaring problem... there were no fish! Luckily for us... these guys made their own fish. Our next problem, however, was a thinker. How were the fish going to stay on the pole?  "We need sticky!"  "Yeah like something that makes it stick to the fishing pole."  "Maybe we can have tape?"  Tape it is! With a little bit of help we got some tape onto the ends of the fish and the kids went at it! They loaded up the...

  Happy Tuesday! We spent our entire afternoon out at Larson Park! It was definitely a hot one so when the kids heard we were going to get to play in the creek, they screamed in excitement. Not everyone wanted to stomp around in the shallow water and that was a-okay. Such a fun afternoon splashing around, exploring, and doing a great job sticking together as a class! 

  We left off on Thursday with some questions about mixing colors to create new ones. As O found out, when she blended two colors it became a new one. Amazing! Today, we thought we could revisit this idea and test it out with some playdoh. I'll be honest, this was a huge experiment. Homemade playdoh can be a little tricky (and quite sticky!) so we weren't entirely sure if mixing the two colors would actually work.  First and foremost, we needed to make playdoh! J, L, and F were great helpers.  We used a pretty simple recipe of flour, salt, oil, cream of tartar, and water. A recipe for the stickiest playdoh this side of the Mississippi.  "It's so sticky!" "I don't like it." "It looks like dough!" "Pizza!" "Can we make it red?" "No, pink!!" "I want yellow." "We need green!" Phew, they were rattling off a list of things they thought we needed to do with the playdoh. We took a brief break to cha...

  O was sitting at the round table when she picked up the yellow dobber and started dobbing the paper plate. She sat for a moment, looked at her color options and picked up blue. She started putting blue on top of the yellow. "IT'S GREEN!" she exclaimed with excitement. "They make green together. Look!"  O continued to show everyone how putting one color on top of the other was creating an entirely new color. It was like magic before their eyes.  "It made green. That's cool!" It gave her an idea... what if she tried different combinations of colors to see if she can make new ones. She was on a mission. O continued to test out different colors and determine what the new color was. This is such a great segway into a whole new study. Next week we are going to dive a little deeper into the magic of colors.  Check out O's experimental colors in the video! 

  The beauty of playing out on the playscape in different zones is you never really know what you are going to find. Because all the spaces are being shared across all classrooms there are sometimes some left over toys or creations from other classes. Sometimes we just don't know what we will see!  "Look what I found, look what I found!" L came running over holding something round and painted in his hands. It was a painted rock!  "It is blue and purple. This is like treasure!" "I want to see the treasure!" "We have to hide it." The kids gathered around to look at what L was holding between his hands. Unfortunately, I was a little to late with the camera. A few minutes later I heard several squeals coming from the climbing wall.  "A SPIDER!"  L, O, and L were huddled around a part of the wall. They were watching a teeny tiny little spider crawl all around the wall. You can hear more of their conversation regarding the creepy crawly i...

This afternoon the kids settled into different activities after arrival. Some kids found themselves making a whole city with painter's tape roads, some dove into some books to get a good read in, and others tried making all kinds of creations out of legos. It isn't out of the ordinary for the kids to ask if we can play "office."  This pretend play cracks us all up because they are clearly imitating many of the same mannerisms they have seen either at home or at school. They pile stacks of papers next to them, lay out a bunch of markers, and start "typing" away on the out of commission computers we have. They talk about all the emails and notes they have to send. They make phone calls to each other and write copious amount of letters to send in the mail. Hilarious!  Today, I wanted to test out their letter identification as well as their typing skills they have been showing off these last few months. Plus they ask me just about every other day if they can typ...

We noticed quite the surprise while playing outside this afternoon! Some of the teachers noticed a few birds flying in and out of the same tree. Hmm? What could be going on? After some gentle investigation, they found a bird's nest with a momma bird sitting very still.  "IT'S A BIRD!" L yelled and came running over.  "Are there babies in there?" "I wonder where the daddy bird is?" "Are the babies okay? Do they have food?" "How do they eat?" SO many questions were flowing in and out of their mouths. It reignited a lot of the same wonderings we had a few months ago revolving our bird study. What are the chances?!  They are so curious about these birds and anxiously awaiting the reveal of the little baby birds. Luckily with some handy camera work we were able to catch a picture! Enjoy this video of the excitement and overall wonder.   

  We concluded Week of the Young Child with Artsy Thursday! Since the kids did a bulk of the work yesterday at the forest by collecting a variety of nature materials, they had it pretty easy today to assemble a sun catcher. Using the flowers, leaves, and sticks they found yesterday, the kids took some time to place those onto some clear contact paper laid out on a frame. Some were more interested in the activity over some others, but overall it turned out quite lovely!  We also let the butterflies go today! The video below is quite sweet as they try and navigate how to let them go appropriately as well as some talk about where they would live. This was such a fun little project that allowed the kids to take care of something and watch the magic of nature unfold before their eyes.  Have a great weekend! 

  Another gorgeous day at AFC was spent at the forest! Because today is Work Together Wednesday the kids spent time together hunting for all kinds of beautiful flowers, leaves, and everything in between. It was actually the first step in preparing for our Artsy Thursday for tomorrow. It was such a pleasant time running down the paths, giggling, and lots and lots of appropriate play. Looking forward to putting our collection together to create a class art project for tomorrow!