Week of 11/13-11/17
Dear Room 8 Parents, This week we transitioned from our potato topic to introducing another root vegetable, carrots. First, we showed the children a variety of carrot pictures such as carrots growing in the dirt, carrots with the tops attached, and colored carrots. We also presented the class with a large orange carrot. Before we could even ask what the children thought, they began to pose great questions to gather more information about the carrots. For instance, Elliot asked, “How does a carrot get orange?” Mason inquired, “What are the strings coming out of the bottom of the carrot, and why is it there?” Neda wanted to know, “How do you get all of the dirt off of the carrot?” Through the rest of the week, we researched answers to all of these unique questions. Ask your child what they learned about carrots this week or what their favorite piece of information was. In light of the slight confusion between questions and statements that we experienced last week, we decided to jump right into comparing and contrasting a potato and carrot to emphasize the difference of questions and statements. The children showed great progress in understanding that they need to use statements when comparing and contrasting two items. Instead of gathering information, they provided information. We heard a variety of similarities and differences between these two root vegetables, yet the children came up with more differences than similarities. Some of the few similarities that the children discovered included that both had bumps (Kayden), both grew from roots (Owen), and both grow in the dirt (Paisley). On the other hand, Skyler offered the first difference when she exclaimed, “The carrot is longer than the potato.” Ayla noticed that the carrot has a tip, while the potato is more round. Ella said, “The potato is heavier than the carrot.” The children noticed a lot of differences surrounding the colors of the potatoes versus the carrots. Ask your child what differences they noticed! Do both vegetables have the same color inside as they do on the outside? Do the colored potatoes and carrots taste different than the regular colored veggies? The children agree that the best part of the root vegetable unit is being able to try the variations of each veggie! Similar to last week’s potato tasting, Room 8 loved trying different variations of carrots this week. We began by tasting carrot juice, which went over much smoother than we imagined, considering that both teachers do not enjoy the taste! We were excited that the children had an affinity for the juice. While some described the juice as “weird,” “funky,” and “carroty,” others said it was sweet and fresh. Ayla noticed that the juice tasted much different than when a carrot is hard. Carter asked, “How do you smush the carrots to get the juice?” Kayden answered Carter’s question, “You use a machine to scrape all the juice out of the carrot.” This was a perfect explanation for how to make carrot juice! The children also had the opportunity to try roasted carrots. After seasoning the carrots with cinnamon, olive oil and brown sugar, we baked the thinly sliced vegetable until soft and a tad crispy on the ends. All of the children loved this version of carrots. Next week, we will introduce Thanksgiving and the idea and importance of “giving thanks.” We will discuss the importance of friendship and what characteristics we see in a friendship. We will bring the theme of root vegetables in by making a carrot pineapple cake as a class to bring to our Pre-K Thanksgiving Feast. More to come on our collaborative Thanksgiving project! We also wanted to share a wonderful moment of exploration by the children this week. On Monday morning, one of the morning centers was set up with small colorful pattern of tiles, graph paper, rulers, and pencils. These particular items have been used frequently in the classroom this year. We set them out with the intention of the children using their own creativity to use these items in whichever way they pleased, whether that might be measuring, patterning, sorting or whatever creativity they came up with. Since we have seen the children gravitate towards measuring and sorting, we thought that they would for sure do one of these two things with the tiles, but we were totally wrong and once again, blown away! At first, they were confused by the pencils and asked Teacher Mari how they could use them. After she told them that they could do whatever they wanted with the pencils, the children sat down at the table and began to put the tiles on the graph paper. All of a sudden, rather than measuring or sorting, they were writing numbers 1-20 in each square of the graph paper. We were fascinated by their creativity in using these same classroom manipulatives and objects in a completely different way. We want to give a big thanks to Carter’s family for joining us in Room 8 to celebrate Shabbat this Friday. We enjoyed story time, songs and spending time with you in Temple. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and Shabbat Shalom! Mari and Aaliyah Reminders:
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Week of 11/6-10
Dear Room 8 Parents, The children had a potato filled week! We began the week by taking a closer look at a Russet potato by observing the feel, look, taste, and smell of this particular potato variety. We began to answer some of the questions that the children posed last week regarding a potato. For instance, we answered Kayden and Paisleys’ questions, “Where do potatoes live/grow?” by discussing how potatoes grow and mature in the ground. Unlike an orange, which grows on a tree, we talked about how potatoes are known as “root vegetables” and grow underground in the dirt. Roots grow from the potato itself. Once the roots hit the surface, they turn into a flowering plant signifying the potato is ready to come out of the ground. This discussion also answered Carter’s question, “Why are potatoes bumpy?” A potato develops a bump in the area that the root was removed. The children were curious about how you remove the roots from the potato, so we looked at pictures and videos of the removal process. The children described the potato with a variety of adjectives and comparisons. Mason felt that the potato was soft, while Ella said the inside of a potato was wet. Ayla determined that the skin was rough from the roots. Wynter compared the smell of a potato to baking flour. On Monday, we also conducted our first potato experiment. We put 1 raw potato wedge in 3 jars containing different solutions including plain water, salt water, and sugar water. We are still waiting to see the outcome of the experiment, so stay tuned! On Tuesday, the children were able to taste the Russet potato in the form of an oven-roasted potato chip. We sliced the potatoes very thinly and allowed the excess water to rise to the top before cooking them. The children were fascinated by how much liquid comes out of a raw potato. After salting and roasting the potatoes, we had a delicious and healthy potato chip addition to our snack. Mason said they are crunchy, Paisley said the skin is rough, and Kayden said they are salty. All of the friends in Room 8 loved the potato chips except for Ella and Elliot. Benjamin was on the fence about the chips, said, “[He] like[d] them a little bit,” and ended up eating them all. After the Russet potato, we introduced a new potato variety, the yam. Similar to the Russet potato chips, the children tasted yam potato chips seasoned with brown sugar. The children liked these better than the regular potato chips! They liked the sweet taste and the slightly soft feel of the chips. We asked the children to compare and contrast the Russet potato and the yam. Instead of giving us facts or information to describe similarities or differences of the potatoes as we have done in the past, the children used questions to phrase their ideas. While this was not the premise of this particular class discussion, we were so excited to see that the children are truly grasping this new puzzlement concept that we introduced last week. This demonstrated that the kids were beginning to comprehend how to begin a discussion by asking questions. Rather than simply giving facts about a certain topic, the children understand that they can ask questions to learn more information about the topic at hand. To help the children further understand that we use statements to describe similarities and differences rather than questions, we listened to their questions and assisted them in turning them into a statement. For instance, Carter asked, “Why are both potatoes bumpy?” We helped rephrase the question into a statement by stating, “The two potatoes are similar because they both have bumps.” We will continue to emphasize the difference between a question and a statement and where and when to use each. We were extremely impressed that all of the Room 8 friends posed intellectual and unique questions, even as a compare and contrast. We can’t wait to see what they will inquire about our next topic. Room 8 enjoyed their first visit of the year to the library. Thank you, Andi, for joining us in the library and reading a great Noah’s Ark story to the children with Owen. We also want to thank you for being on the “Question Chair” and helping the children learn the importance of asking questions and learning new information about someone they do not know too well. We want to give a big thanks to Neda’s family for joining us in Room 8 to celebrate Shabbat this Friday. We enjoyed story time, songs and spending time with you in Temple. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and Shabbat Shalom! Mari and Aaliyah Reminders:
Week of 10/30-11/3 Dear Room 8 Parents, Fall weather is finally here! We reopened our discussion on the season of Fall. In early October, we visited the 3rd Grade Sukkah Exhibit, and the children noticed that there was a tree growing out of a sweet potato that was placed next to one of the sukkahs. They took a closer look and realized that the leaves of the sweet potato acted as the roof for the sukkah model. Paisley asked, “Why is there a tree growing out of a sweet potato?” After seeing the curiosity and fascination surrounding this vegetable and plant, we decided on our next topic of discussion for the season of Fall. We wanted to develop a new fall unit, since we already conducted an in-depth study on various types of squash. This conversation in the Sukkah Exhibit led us to the topic of Potatoes. This week we introduced the “Potato,” our first potato variety. Throughout the past few weeks, we have started our circle time conversations by asking the children to use “details” and “adjectives” to describe the object of the discussion. We have noticed that the children are mastering the concept of details, so this time we took a different approach to introducing the potato. First, we introduced 2 new vocabulary words, “question” and “statement.” The children understood that a question is something you ask to gather more information and a statement is a fact. Ask your child if they can give you an example of a question or a statement. Then, we questioned, “What do you want to know about the potato? What questions do you have about a potato?” As the class looked at the potato that was sitting in the center of the rug, they began to examine and ask thoughtful and unique questions. Kayden was the first to offer his question, “How does a potato grow?” Paisley asked, “Where does a potato live?” Michael said, “Is it hard?” Ayla inquired, “Where does it come from?” Carter was curious and asked, “Why does a potato get smushy and why does it have bumps on it?” The kids continued to fire off intelligent questions regarding the potato. Throughout the potato unit, we will answer all of the questions posed by the children. Beginning next week, we will look at the Russet Potato and how it reacts to sitting in different solutions. We are excited to see where we can go with the topic of potatoes. Whether it is cooking, science, math, or literacy, we cannot wait to see which subject the children are most drawn to regarding potatoes or even a variety of root vegetables. Since we are finally starting to see some fall weather, we enjoyed new P.E. activities with Coach Danny in the Temple this week. The children learned a new game that emulated various games including dodgeball, GaGa, and bowling. They practiced their hand-eye coordination skills and teamwork in trying to roll a soft volleyball to knock another ball off of a cone placed across the room. Learning this game allowed the children to develop the basic knowledge and introduction to dodgeball, which will be next week’s P.E. activity. Go Wildcats! We want to give a big thanks to Skyler’s family for joining us in Room 8 to celebrate Shabbat this Friday. We enjoyed story time, songs and spending time with you in Temple. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend and Shabbat Shalom! Mari and Aaliyah Reminders:
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