AFC PINE PM

The Pine friends were excited to share the collection of pine cones they found on our walk the other day with friends from Magnolia and Dogwood.  "Let's paint them the colors from that!" J started working on painting her pine cone when she noticed the projected picture.  "I'm going to use those colors for mine and yellow because my shirt is yellow!" "It's kind of sticky. I am making it blue." A lot of the kids talked about how sticky the pine cones were. "I think someone put glue on them." "It's really sticky and makes my hands stick." "I don't know how they get so sticky." "It's called sap!" "What's sap?" "It's stuff on the pine cones." A from Dogwood was interested in mixing two different colors to make a new one. "I wonder what red and yellow make. Can I try it?" A put some yellow paint into the con...

L ran into the classroom this afternoon with a pine cone exclaiming, "I found this pine cone at the construction house!" The others started asking L a lot of questions and made some comments.  "Where was it?" "Can I see it?" "I see those too!" "I found it on the ground." At our meeting the kids discussed since we are going to the forest we should look for pine cones!  After about 15 minutes of searching meticulously, they were quite disappointed.  "I can't find any pine cones. There are too many leaves on the ground." They had given up hope on pine cones, but started collecting other "treasures."  "We can look for something else." "Yeah, let's look for acorns!" "And leaves!" "What about flowers?" It wasn't until our walk home that the kids spotted pine cones!  "Look! There are so many pine cones!" ...

J looked at the cups and immediately got to work building "the tallest tower."  "It's gonna be the biggest tower! It will be so tall." "I don't want it to fall. I don't think it will." Next thing J knew, the tower fell over.  "Oh man! It fell! I can just do it again." J started again.  "Can I use a chair so I can get it higher?" She pulled a chair out to place the next cup. It wobbled, but stayed.  "It's working!" J gingerly put the next cup on. The tower wobbled again. She froze and watched as it finally settled.  "Yeah, yeah yeah! It's working!" By the time J put the 7th cup on, she felt confident it wouldn't fall over. As soon as she lifted her fingers from the cup, the tower came crashing down.  "Oh no! It won't stay up!" J began once more. She started building by alternating the way the cups sat on one an...

While capering today, Magnolia friends showed us what they have been exploring in their classroom. They have been getting up close and personal with some sunflowers!  "Look it has seeds in it! See they are so little and you can eat them!" "Yeah, but don't eat the shells." "It's a little seed. It's so small." "You can eat them, but I don't like them." "You need to try them! They are good." K & W used magnifying glasses to get a better look at the different colored seeds. "Why are some black and some brown?" "They aren't all sunflowers. There are different kinds of flowers." "It's the seeds!" It's great being able to look at things a little closer, especially when they get to use magnifying glasses! 

K & M were playing a simple game of "hide and find the diamonds." While one person pushed as many "diamonds" into the gak, the other would either close their eyes or look away until told to find them.  "Okay M now you have to find the diamonds! They are really shiny so you'll be able to find them. There are a lot!" M dug through the gak and pulled out three or four "diamonds" before noticing one particularly colorful one.  "Look, I found a rainbow!" M did find a jewel that looked like a rainbow!  "It has all the different colors on it too. It's so shiny." K & J were skeptical about the rainbow M found.  "Let me see it. I want to see the rainbow." "Oh yeah, I see it! It does look like a rainbow!" The three friends were fascinated by the difference in that particular gem compared to the others.  "I can see myself in this!" "Oh le...

Pine kids were surprised today with the opportunity to get up close and personal with a guitar. L, K, and B were especially interested in seeing what kind of sounds the instrument made.  "Can I try it?" "I want to play it." Their interested peaked when some of the strings were held down on the neck of the guitar and created different sounds.  "It sounds good!" "It's making music!" As they took turns strumming the guitar they would carefully watch as Mr. James continued to press down different strings to create a variety of different chords. Each child tried strumming lightly, fast, slow, and eventually plucking at it like a banjo.  "How does it do that?" "How does it make music?" These were just two of the questions the kids brought up and left to wonder. They continued to strum and sing familiar songs as the strings vibrated after each movement.  The sound of t...

While out on the hillside, M yelled excitedly at something he found with a friend from Dogwood.  "Look! Look! It's little mushrooms!" "They are brown and so small." "Yeah, they are tiny! I don't know if there are anymore around here." "See how tiny it is. I think they are poisonous!" "Yeah, we can't eat these ones." "I don't know how they got here." "I think they just grew here." "Someone planted them here!" L soon became very interested in what the boys found. He examined the fungi with both his fingers and his eye.  "Look, there's the mushrooms!" L dug around the surrounding area looking around for other small mushrooms to pick.  "I don't see anymore. I don't like them, they are yucky!" M, W, & L continued their search around the hillside to find more mushrooms. They looked around in the grass...