What is that in the tunnel?

Time to make a move forward. Listen to your inner voice and you will know exactly what you have to do.

-Grasshopper

The preschoolers raced out onto the playground, and up onto the playscape,
and the next thing I heard was screams from within the climbing tunnel.
I ran to the tunnel to see what was the matter,
to see who was climbing over whom.

Surprise!
No one was hurting; there was a grasshopper* in the playscape tunnel!
A big beautiful green grasshopper!
An amazing find!!

Thankfully (?), someone had left a trash cup on the playground,
so I was able to catch the grasshopper.
I moved the grasshopper down to the mulch, along the brick wall,
where it delighted the children for some twenty minutes or so.
I encouraged the children to work like scientists,
to stand back a little bit and observe;
we sang “What do you see as you look closely?”
The children were in both awe and fear -
especially when the grasshopper would unexpectedly fly.
Truly, the children swarmed the grasshopper, trying to get a very close look.
As the grasshopper climbed the wall,
I lifted children individually to see it up close.
We wondered why it kept licking its front legs.

Later, after lots of observation
(and so many students playing very close to the grasshopper),
I moved the grasshopper into a bush/undergrowth by the side of the school.
Time for it to have a little privacy!

Back in the classroom, quickly trying to think of a way to extend this learning,
I placed some simple coloring pages of grasshoppers in the writing center,
to discover during our centers play. While the children colored, they shared their thoughts.
Their thoughts form almost a story:

(Me, prompting) A grasshopper came to the playground. We found him in the tunnel.
What did you notice?

(T) He wanted to have a ride.

(W) He wanted to go down the slide.

(E) I saw it. He was walking. See that wall over there. He walked under it, on it.

(C) I was running away from the grasshopper because it was about to climb on me,
all the way to my head.

(J) Why was he licking his hand? Because he ate something - our lunches!

(B) That’s just what he wants.

(L) That it flew...I saw it walking on the tunnel and I went down.

(S) He flied and I run away and then I came back and then I saw him licking his hand.

(T) He so creepy.

(W) He want to climb up the wall.

(Sh) When I saw the grasshopper, it was trying to get in my eyes, and I run and run and run.

An unexpected inquiry about grasshoppers!! Totally exciting for all.

*Full disclosure - I found out the next day from one of my parents,
who is also an entomologist, this grasshopper was actually a katydid! Ah, well,
still great learning, all around!

SOLSC #9 Can I play with you?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

It's time to add a little something new to the block center...time to break out the balls and ramps! Oh, what fun we've had this week!

The ramps are wood boards, pieces of moulding from house construction...they are about two feet long. We have a few cardboard ramps from moving boxes. The balls are lightweight plastic golf balls (no one gets hurt if one gets thrown!)...I have a couple dozen of these, so there are no sharing issues.

Day One, I cycled the children through in small groups, giving them 20 minutes each. This open-ended, loose part play is so seductive for preschoolers - everyone participated, everyone wanted to continue playing when their small group was over, and everyone loves that these new toys will be a part of the block center henceforth.

I love the creativity and inquiry that happens organically, as the children explore these materials:
- using blocks and containers to lift the boards at one end, creating ramps that were high and others that were low, and noticing that the balls seemed to go faster at higher angles,
- creating bins at the base of the ramp to collect the balls,
- trying to figure out ways to connect the boards, so that the balls raced down a longer path,
- creating side walls on the ramps themselves, to keep the balls on the ramp
- using long blocks to tap the ball at the outset of the ramp, making it race down the path,
- building a wall all along the periphery of the carpet, to keep the balls in the block area
- and so much more!

Let me just share some of the children's excited exchanges with one another - such great language happening spontaneously in the play:

"I'm searching more stuff to build it."
"We want these to go down there."
"This is long, long, the longest!"
"Look at all this building stuff."
"I'm blocking the ways because the balls might run off."
"We roll this into this catcher thing and it catches this."
"The balls keep falling off!"
"One ball came off but the ramp was really huge and I didn't want it to fall off."
"I made a slice and stairs it could go on."
"Can I play with you?"

SOLSC #3: How do you like them apples?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

Hustle bustle, hurry hurry, c'mon, c'mon, let's get snack started for preschoolers. Would you help me rinse these apples? Let's use our apple slicer. Let's put the slices in this bowl...you can use the tongs to pick out your slices...everyone gets three slices, 1, 2, 3 ...let's count it out. Tongs and slicer, oh yeah, you are working those fine motor muscles while you munch! Let's repeat the steps. First, rinse the apple, put it on the plate, center the slicer on top, push down hard - yes! eight slices, enough to share, pop 'em in the bowl, go, go, go, munch, munch, munch, snack, snack, snack. Get another apple,
rinse it off,
put it on the plate,
center the slicer on top,
push and...
ugh!! what is that? 

Couldn't resist a photograph:

Isn't this surprising?

I've never seen an apple that looked so good on the outside and yet so very rotten on the inside. 

Preschoolers and I were absolutely fascinated by this! 

We looked closely - what is that part? some sort of sac? was this a worm's home? some other bug? wow? why did this happen? who'd have thought?

We put the slices back together again to form the apple - 

Now, the apple looks perfectly normal.

Then, let go, let the slices fall. 

Ugh. That's NOT normal on the inside.

I know it was a surprisingly yucky find, but I think we have scientists in the making. One preschooler asked - "Ms. Ingram, can you cut me an apple like that?" I told him I had waited a long, long time before finding an apple like that. We'll have to be content with this one.

Must admit, I'm a little hesitant to just bite into a whole apple now.

[Why does this apple seem like a metaphor for too many people these days - pretty normal looking but rotten at the core?]

Tuesday SOL: What about home?

I am participating in the
Tuesday Slice of Life.
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

It is no surprise that, at the beginning of the school year, home is ever-present on preschoolers’ minds. As children play and explore in the classroom, I see a great deal of fascination and curiosity about home. In dramatic play, the children play family, with pretend meals, bed times, and doctor visits. In the block area, children create homes for animals and people. We decided to delve into the topic. We wondered,

What is home?

What makes a home?

What do you love about home?

Preschoolers are beginning to discern what is the same and what is different, stretching their thinking muscles. I posed the question, “What is the difference between home and school?” and the children truly struggled with this. I loved listening to the preschoolers, as they tried to tease these two concepts - home and school - apart:



“You run at school.” (O)

“But not inside!” (S)

"Dirt is a kind of home." (M)

“I have a bouncy ball at home.” (C)
"I have a grabber at home." (J)

“You not bring your toys to school." (N)
"I like to play with my sister." (L)

"Home – watch cartoons!” (E)

“Yes, watch T.V. at home” (A)

“Home and school are the same because you are warm.” (C)
“At home, Mommy has a bed.” (B)
“Mommy is home.” (Z)
"Mommy picks me up." (I)


We are finally on to something! Our families are at home!

I think it is oh so sweet that the children struggled to figure this out. Perhaps there is a great deal that is the same about the early childhood classroom and children’s own homes? 

Tuesday SOL Are birds teachers?

This is a Tuesday
Slice of Life.
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day. 

Check out the Two Writing Teachers website for many more reflections on teaching.

Even though the school year has drawn to a close, I feel compelled to share about the children's bird exploration during May and June. It is a great example of a child-initiated project. My Teaching Resident (Ms. Keynes) noted, embraced, and encouraged the topic. I love seeing teachers build on children's interests and it is particularly delightful when it is a novice teacher who partakes in this challenge.

I love teaching in a school that allows me the flexibility to pursue topics that 'bubble up' from the children. It's true, we didn't know at the outset of the school year that we would focus on birds in the spring, but I knew that I could trust the children to be excited and eager to learn about something - there is always room for inquiry. This is the beauty of emergent curriculum, where children's own interests are the precursor and foundation of topics studied. Preschoolers are innate scientists - curious, observant, and persistent. Dare to pursue what is in their hearts! Why teach any other way?

Where did the interest begin and where did it lead?

I think the first hint of curiosity began with children excitedly sharing at a morning gathering about having seen our local eagle cam with their families. This camera provided live action of two baby eagles in the National Arboretum. Ms. Keynes decided to set up the eagle cam at the writing center, with markers and paper for children to draw their observations. We wondered - what would the children do? Would this interest them? Yes! The children worked feverishly in this area, watching the screen and making detailed drawings. The eagle cam became a daily part of our centers time. Here are just a few of the children's drawings:

Observational Drawing by RW

Observational Drawing by DE

Observational Drawing by GR

Observational Drawing by AH

Observational Drawing by NB

Observational Drawing by CB

Observational Drawing by CD

There was great conversation as children worked on these observational drawings. For example, 

NB - "Eagles fly - they fly everywhere around the sky. They land to get some food. They eat leaves."

EM - "Look at the eagle. He's eating the nest. He's eating. He's sleeping. He's eating in the nest. He's silly. They are in the bird's nest."

HF - "What does the eagle eat? I think he eats worms. No, I think he eats mice. Yes, I think he eats rats! They are very yummy."

CD - "I think they eat poop."

KA - "He's looking down at the birdie. He sees the birdie. I think they are brothers. And now he's looking behind himself. The birdie is kinda like the teacher - he's looking right at us."

That may be my favorite line:

The birdie is kinda like the teacher - he's looking right at us.

Doesn't that show the value of children being encouraged to draw what they see, to note the details?


With this obvious engagement, we delved into the study of birds, with a particular focus on eagles. Ms. Keynes asked, what do you know about birds and what do you wonder?

I was impressed with their beginning knowledge:

• They have wings,
• They fly,
• They sleep in a nest,
• They like to sit in the nest,
• They are in the nest not on the ground,
• They lay eggs in the nest,
• The nests are made of mud, hay, straw, and even bird spit 
• They will scare away anyone who tries to get the eggs
• They have tails,
• They have beaks,
• They eat fish, 
• They peck their way out of the egg,
• There are lots of different birds, like eagles, robins, owls, seagulls, penguins
• Eagles nests are the biggest
• Eagles have big wings
• Eagles' babies don't wear diapers

The children about a variety of things:

• How do they make nests? 
• How do they make the nests soft?
• How do they sleep in the nest?
• How many eggs do they lay?
• How many days until they learn to fly?
• How big is an eagle's poop?

We began to learn everything we could. Families pitched in, too. One family shared beautiful color photos of baby robins emerging from their eggs. Another brought in a beautiful nest that they had found. 

Children often arrived at school with stories to share -

AS - "Ms. Ingram, do you know when I was on my way to school, we were walking out of my car, I saw a robin's egg! It was small and it was blue and it was broken. I wanted to pick it up and show it to you."

LM - "I saw a bird that was so dead. Only had one leg. Even the skin was gone. It only had a beak! I saw it."

Scientists observe the details, yes they do.

Ms. Keynes taped off a circle on our gathering carpet that was the same size as an eagle's nest (these average 4-5 feet in diameter, with one in Florida being 9.5 feet!). We gathered here each day for several weeks during our bird exploration - reading books, having class meetings, and doing lots of dramatic play.

These little birdies are hanging outside their nest!

We attempted to 'engineer' a nest out of the base of a box, using lots of yarn and tape. (I loved how the children insisted on wearing goggles while creating this.)

Mo Willems' Pigeon loves our nest.

When the nest was done, children nudged further - "Birds like soft places. When are we going to put eggs in?" They delighted in creating individual "eagle eggs" out of papier mache.

Painting a round surface is challenging work!

One morning, our question of the day was "Who has the bigger wingspan - you or an eagle?" Many children insisted that they had the bigger wingspan, which made each of us teachers smile. We had each of the children lay down on the carpet and get measured against an eagle's wingspan (6 feet average), to provide a clear visual of the difference. The children also made a pair of paper wings that matched their personal measurement.

How big is my wingspan, compared to an eagle's?

One day on the playground, AM came running up to me with the excited words, "Look! A beautiful feather!" and when I looked at what she held, I saw that it was much more than this - she had a bird's wing in her hand, still attached to some of its bony torso. Oh my! Clearly this bird had been on the losing end of a predator's attack, perhaps a cat or a hawk. I tried my very best to remain level-headed and cool, although I was immediately squeamish. I wanted to encourage this budding scientist. I had her show me where she was when she discovered this "feather" and, finding no other bird parts in the area, we went inside the classroom to find a clear jar for displaying this find in our science center. Her classmate LM was delighted with this new addition, declaring "Whoa! Good Find!"

Later, AM said she wanted to share a story about what she found and so I wrote down her words:

"I want to write about the feather that I found, about the bird that I found. I found it on the playground. I put it in the jar. I don't know what kind of bird it was from. Maybe, it was a sister bird. I like that the outside was soft. I can't wait to show my Mommy. I'm going to tell my Daddy that I found a bird's feather that had bones in it. I don't know what my Daddy's going to say about the bird feather. Maybe my Daddy will say "Whoa, good find!," like LM said. I think the birdie died, cause it can't fly with just one wing; cause without part of his body, he can't be alive anymore. The End"


We didn't resolve every wonder that the children had at the outset of our bird exploration...and many more wonders appeared as we explored. The work of scientists goes on and on. Yes, the children worked like scientists, finding much beauty and intrigue in our world. Birds are teachers.

What about those clouds?

This is a Tuesday Slice of Life for Two Writing Teachers. 

Check out their website for many more reflections on teaching.


______________________________

I wrote recently about our neighborhood walks, noting how we have been observing the clouds in the sky. 

Truly, a "cloud study" is emerging in our class.

Behind our school is a large field, providing a large expanse from which to see the sky. This leads to some breathtaking views. We see storms forming, airplanes and helicopters crossing, winds blowing, rain pelting down, and bright sun shining.  Honestly, I've been surprised by how varied the sky can look. 

The clouds are captivating. I encourage the children to observe them more closely. 

The view is lovely from our classroom windows.  

"Look, Ms. Ingram, the clouds are moving!," one student called to me during centers the other day.

At least once a week, we head out the back door of our school to the field, to sit and draw the clouds in the sky. The children are honing their fine motor skills while becoming scientist - observers.

One day, we went out to draw the clouds but there was nothing but gorgeous blue sky, as far as the eye could see. I asked, Where are the clouds? and thoroughly enjoyed the children's responses:

"The clouds are in the sun." (H)

"Because my dad said 'if there is no clouds, you can play.' 

And if you see the clouds, you can draw the clouds." (D)

"Unless the sun take the clouds away." (B)

In the art corner, we have created clouds of our own, in several different ways. 

We created clouds with white, gray, and even black paint, using cotton balls and q-tips as tools to apply the paint. The children created these as a 'symmetry' lesson, putting the paint on one side of the paper only and then folding the paper over, resulting in a mirroring image on the other side of the paper.

We created a beautiful blue sky as a group project. The children delighted in working on their hands and knees, right on the floor of the classroom. 

Of course, once the sky was complete, we needed to add clouds. These we created with 'puffy paint,' which I always enjoy mixing with the children. Puffy white paint is easy - shaving cream mixed with glue (more or less equal parts of each) ... a delightfully sensory experience for painting clouds by hand:

Our fabulous art teacher Briana shared a blog with me by an artist and designer named Cristina Moreno, showcasing the most extraordinary cloud and sky work; I simply had to make a large cloud with the children!!

I wasn't totally certain how to create the cloud, but I thought - let's give it a try! Briana helped fashion a base/form for the cloud and even provided me four bags of cotton batting for the project. The children went to work on this large scale model of a cloud!

The children worked and worked on this, all morning long, pulling small pieces of cotton from the bag, stretching it to make it light and fluffy, and applying lots of glue. (I was astonished at how many bottles of glue we went through to create this exciting structure!)

The children were so engaged, with such great language streaming from their lips...the adjectives alone:

pillow-ey

fluffy

puffy

sticky

squishy

enormous

gentle

soft

bubbles

gooey

ooey-gooey

sticky 

wet

The children had so many great questions -

What are clouds made of?

How big are clouds?

Can we make a real cloud?

How long does it take to make a cloud?

What does it feel like to fall into a cloud?

It was such a thrill to stand on chairs as one worked!!

It took several days for the cloud to dry out.

Then, it was time to find an answer to another pressing question from the children:

How will it hang?

In our science corner, of course! Right in front of our window.

"If you want to have a cloud, you have to be a builder." (A)

We are getting our cloud work ready to share with the families for this Thursday's Learning Showcase. However, I'm not sure our cloud study is over - each day brings more curiosity and exploration.

Can't you hear Joni Mitchell singing?

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all

Tuesday SOL What about technology?

This is a Tuesday "Slice of Life" for Two Writing Teachers. Check out their website for lots more reflections on teaching.

*******

What are the signs of an excellent technology program at the preschool level?

Lots of iPads?

Computers?

Whiteboards?

Or is it about providing an environment that is rich with time, space, freedom, and possibility?

Children building structures and wondering, what makes this strong, sound, sturdy?

Children learning to use a variety of tools?

Children exploring mixtures and processes and wondering, why did that happen?

Children planning a project, sharing the resources, working together, showing respect for one another's work?

Children moving and manipulating objects and wondering, what just happened?

Children investigating how things work and wondering, how might I make it faster, longer, bigger, better?

Children working with odds and ends, having access to ample materials, and wondering, what might this be? 

Children thinking with their hands and wondering, would it be possible to create something all new?

Children designing and creating devices and wondering, how might I make it do that? 

Engineering - Can you create a sculpture that moves?

Engineering - creating a bridge that supports several toy elephants

Engineering - designing a boat that floats

Children exploring the world through play, making interesting things happen, and challenging themselves to new limits?

Merriam-Webster defines technology as the use of science to invent useful things or to solve problems.  Preschoolers know - instinctively - the best materials for this scientific work. Just watch them at play in the classroom!