Last week Room 5 had a rockin’ hot cocoa bar with our morning snack and got a yummy lesson in applied math and graphing at the same time! One by one everyone came up to customize their own hot cocoa cup, and afterwards we voted on our favorite topping. We learned new vocabulary, made scientific observations about which items melted and at what speed (marshmallows take longer to melt than whipped cream!), and each friend cast their vote for favorite topping on our bar graph! Whipped cream and chocolate syrup tied for first place with marshmallows just one vote behind. This might be one of our favorite ways to introduce graphing to preschoolers. What do you think? 

We had a long and restful break for Christmas but now we’re back at school with brand new friends and brand new stories to share! 

Our two-year-olds jumped right back in to the cozy routine of their classroom and warmly welcomed all our new friends to the Room 5 family! They have been eagerly awaiting their return to the big playground and we all know that two-year-olds are nothing if not tenacious negotiators… these toddlers were NOT going to let a little rain keep them from a good time! So, we layered and buttoned up and headed outside! 

The teachers of Room 5 enjoyed their break but we sure missed these little guys!! Everyone is looking forward to a fantastic rest of the year in 2017…. Happy New Year and God Bless. 

Today in Room 5 we baked gingerbread cookies! We practiced literacy skills as we read the recipe together, math skills as we measured and counted our ingredients, and learned important lessons about science and nature as we manipulated those ingredients to see them transform into gingerbread dough! We counted using one-to-one correspondence as we laid our cookies out on their baking sheet and enjoyed listening to a reading of “The Gingerbread Man” as we gobbled them up with our snack. Yum!

Room 5 has been acquainting itself with the season of autumn through sensory integrations in our classroom learning centers. We have pumpkin spice mixed in with our sensory bin, autumn jewels alongside our playdough, and today we did “No-Mess Fingerpainting” on paper leaves to decorate our classroom! 

Some friends decided to imprint their playdough with the autumn jewels while others saw an opportunity to build a landscape of “trees” by sorting out and only using the leaf jewels to stick up straight in their playdough! When children take place in activities that build on their fine motor skills (like making prints in playdough) they are learning about  basic concepts of physics like force, quantity conservation and other other components of cause and effect. They are also engaging in language development as we discuss and describe what happens to the playdough and gems while they work. For example, “The jewel sinks into the playdough when you push it down” is an observation we made which inspired a conversation about homonyms! Some words sound and are spelled exactly the same but can have very different meanings… which is a lot for a hard-working brain of only two years to make sense of! By talking through these fun quirks of language with their teachers, and a first-hand example, these abstract concepts are made much more concrete to our young friends! 

Our mess-free fingerpainting activity had many scientific and sensory learning points as well! Our young friends were amazed as they ran their fingers all over the paint on their leaf and found absolutely none of it transferred to their hands! We covered the paint with a clear plastic bag and they got to smush and swirl it all around to their hearts content without getting any on their bodies- what a trip! We talked about the qualities of different materials and why their hands were not messy as they painted. Perhaps the best part for them was the unveiling of their beautiful work of art at the end as they peeled away the plastic from their leaf to reveal a vibrant mix of autumn colors. 

Room 5 is learning so much every day in so many ways and we are exceptionally grateful to the loving and amazing families who bless us with their children each day. Room 5 parents contribute so much to our classroom to enrich their experience (and help their teachers out!) that we can’t help but gush at the awesome blessings we have before us. May peace be with you all as we enter this season of thankfulness and praise.