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:
Shabbat Families:
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March 2020
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