The Lily Pads are learning about plants throughout the day, and have already started some classroom planting projects. During a recent science class, the students were presented with earthworms and some diagrams that explain how earthworms help plants. The students then suggested that we could put the earthworms in our planters to help the plants, so we did. This was the design of the lesson from the outset, but a cornerstone of our program is to allow students to think of their own ideas and act on them. As teachers, our goal is to guide and support rather than to decide and dictate what the students are learning, particularly in our younger rooms.
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The Astronauts and the Pumpkins recently finished their electric cars. After learning about simple circuits and how electricity can power machines, the students built their own cars using batteries and motors. The students then painted and modified the cars in art with Kate. Take a look at some of these creations!
The students in the Astronauts and Pumpkins classrooms are "pumping up the volume" this year in science class as they learn to measure liquids! Liquid measurements (i.e., measuring volume) are exciting for students: they get to use real science tools and play with water at the same time. Some students may be able to use the tools in 10-mL intervals, while other students with more developed number sense may be able to measure and read the syringe down to a 1-mL level of accuracy. Still others may be able to complete problems involving addition or subtraction of these quantities. During our lessons, we break kids into groups and give individualized goals and tasks to make sure all of our students have successful experiences in science class.
The Lily Pads are sprouting seeds this spring as part of a plant unit. The first experiment was trying to sprout a bean in a plastic bag without soil. After wrapping the seeds in wet paper towels, we checked on the bags yesterday. Many students were surprised that the seed sprouted even though it was not underground. These types of potentially surprising outcomes are perfect for science lessons in early education because they are the venue for that "aha!" moment of discovery.
The students in the Lily Pad classroom helped raise newborn bunnies! These bunnies came to our school, along with their mother, shortly after their birth. The students brainstormed classroom jobs to help take care of them, experimented with different types of foods, and even created bunny mazes to explore how the bunnies think and solve problems. This project offered many opportunities to incorporate emergent reading and math skills into a high-interest project for the students.
The Watermelons and the Legos are concluding a unit about the human body. The students broke into small groups to see if they could work together to build a puzzle of a life-size human skeleton. Before we started, we talked about words we can use to share our ideas and solve problems. This is a typical example of how the skills our therapists focus on (e.g., flexibility, social thinking, Collaborative Problem Solving) are incorporated into the daily life of classroom activities (e.g., team-building puzzles, group activities, games in music class).
After doing research and experimenting with wind and solar power, the Battleships, Clouds and Otters are writing letters to our local Councilmember from NYC's District 5, Ben Kallos. Mr. Kallos' office has been in touch with our school and is looking forward to hearing about our students' ideas about how our city could use renewable energy. Some examples of the students ideas include putting windmills on top of apartment buildings and adding solar panels to city parks.
This project has incorporated our Teaching Basic Writing Skills curriculum. This curriculum consists of direct instruction on how to sequence ideas, structure sentences and eventually build paragraphs. It's great practice for our students to generalize these skills outside of "writing" time on the classroom schedule. Young students are naturally curious about their bodies and how they work. Thus, a human body unit is a great fit for the Watermelons and the Legos. These lessons mix models, read alouds and audiovisual resources with active, hands-on learning to create an immersive learning experience. In addition to body parts and systems, the students also get to practice useful everyday living skills, like exercise, self-care and healthy eating.
The Apples and the Lily Pads are exploring a winter theme in science class. We were lucky to have some snow earlier in January, which allowed us to have hands-on fun with the real thing to kick off these explorations. After exploring ice in other forms, the teachers posed a challenge to the students: How could we put things inside ice cubes? The students took it from there. During our next class, we'll explore the frozen results.
This is an example of how our inquiry-based science curriculum is consistent with the HighScope active learning preschool curriculum. In both approaches, students are encouraged to ask questions and are given the support they need to find the answer for themselves. During our electricity units, we use a variety of electricity-themed toys (e.g., Snap Circuits), to introduce students to electrical circuits. These materials are easy for kids to handle from a motor perspective and make learning less frustrating. However, it's also very important that the students are able to apply what they learn with Snap Circuits to more realistic materials, like real copper wire or bulbs. That is, they need to generalize the skills they have learned.
To that end, the Otters and the Clouds recently experimented with some more realistic electrical materials from the hardware store. These materials don't just snap together -- they require some effort and thinking, and that's exactly what we want. As you can see below, the students figured it out. |
ProjectsBraque posts photos and resources here to accompany many science units and explorations. Archives
November 2017
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