Petco Field Trip - April 2016

Hello Blue Room Family and Friends,

Our field trip to Petco in April was a blast. The children were so respectful to all of the animals and were so excited to get to pick out a suckerfish. We ended up getting two for our huge fish tank.


We were there in perfect timing to watch the Petco employee feed the reptiles. She was great at explaining to the children what she was doing and why what she was doing. She sprinkled white powder onto the crickets, and told us that it was full of vitamins for each of the reptiles.


She also sprayed water for the reptiles that like a wet environment.


We all were very excited about the chameleon!


P was so excited to have it on her shirt, it even started to climb up.


It was so awesome to have one of the Petco employees help us with an unofficial guided tour!


There was a super cute fluffy dog who was going to be getting groomed. She was a great dog and enjoyed her hair cut very much. It was fun to watch.


We were so respectful of everything in the store until the very end, when we stopped by the doggy beds and our imaginations ran wild. We wanted to pretend to be dogs. So some our friends tried out some of the doggy beds.


N climbed into the igloo and fit perfectly. It was hilarious! All the children thought it was so funny and want to give it a try too.


SMILE! A very special thank you to all of our parent, grandparent, nanny and teacher volunteers, and D's big brother (who carried our suckerfish very safely back to school). Without you this walking field trip would not have been possible.

Hugs,
Kristina



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The Human Body

Hi Blue Room Families and Friends,

Our body unit started several months ago with talking about hearts, measuring our heights and weights, and has been evolving. Our kids are definitely retaining the information and talking about it at the dinner table!

Thanks to all the parents who have been sharing stories regarding "platelets are working," "white blood cells are fighting germs," "this is your prefrontal cortex," etc. We love hearing that our kids are applying their learning to their real lives!


This body puzzle was a tough one! It took 4 children, 2 moms, and 1 teacher to conquer it.


Y is the same size as the puzzle!


How tall are we and how much do we weigh?




Our Hearts...
We started talking about our hearts around Valentines day. It definitely started a conversation regarding veins. Some of our veins are easy to see and some are not.

Blood flow through the human body definitely captured their interest.


E is so proud that she has learned how to cut out a heart shape by folding her paper in half.


S added lots of detail to her heart.


M has a huge heart.


P adding color to her heart.


D practicing his scissor skills while he cuts out his heart.


M gluing on his heart.


Y making sure his heart is in the right spot.


Sensorial play around red blood cells and white blood cells and platelets....


Welcome to our school, P!


We were all very intrigued by how our heart pumps and flows through the body.


G making sure blood travel all the way to her finger tips and to her toes.


Working hard on our bodies, adding arteries and veins.


D making sure blood travels up to his brain.


P telling Teacher V all about the functions of the blood in our body.


Molding our "creative minds" out of floam for our body projects!


We talked about 3 brain parts: prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. They were able to do a representational brain on their bodies.


Check out our brains - We used three different colors to represent the three parts of the brain that we focused on.


We love to work with floam!


G and P showing off their brains.

Hugs,

Teacher Richa & Teacher Kristina


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Our Sense of Sight - Eyes

Hi Blue Room Family and Friends,

We talk a lot in our classroom about trust, respect, being careful, and helping others. and since we were talking all about letter E last week, we thought it would be great to spend some time focusing on our eyes, how they work, and what it's like to not be able to see. What would it feel like to take away our vision? I explained to the children what a "trust walk" was and how it can be difficult to trust others especially to trust them when we cannot see. The children chose a partner that they trusted to lead them.


Y leading his friend P. He made sure to tell him to stop right as he go to the rug.


G leading her friend K. G was great about talking to K. "We are almost there, keep going."


C leading his friend D. D was so trusting that he was almost walking faster than C.

I came to find out the children are very, very trusting of their peers and they had no trouble at all leading their friends and not being able to see. I was very caught off guard by this. I thought for sure they would walk very slow or even possibly not want to walk because they couldn't see where they were going. But they proved me wrong! That's a very different result than this activity usually has when adults or church youth group students are leading each other. Young children are so amazing!


B looking into the mirror to see what color and shape his eyes are. The children were drawing their eyes to add to their ongoing human body projects.


G and G looking at their eyes and trying to draw all of the different parts - iris, pupil, eyelashes, eyebrow, eyelid. We also talked about the function of each part.


G using eye droppers to clean the red off of the eye balls.


A, S, and K tracing an eye on our light table. They used so many bright colors to show each part of the eye.


E is for eyes.


Some of our girls also painted our heart that Teacher Thaovy made. It shows how the blood pumps into and out of our heart. If you get a chance, come check it out! Pumping the black pump makes the blood flow and the heart muscle "beat." It's fascinating!


Y, B, G, and K working on our human body puzzles. These can be a big challenge for the children but they are so proud when they get it. The children are always asking, "What is this called?" Even though our human body project has been going on for months, they're still deeply engaged.


K and Y working together.


Happy Birthday to our friend P. I cannot believe you are 5 already! P's mom came to read a very cute book called "Too Many Mangos," a story about sharing.


Time to sing to our friend P!


P was very excited to wear her crown and eat her cupcake! Happy Birthday kiddo!

Hugs,

Teacher Kristina


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