Gymnastics Monday!

Our Wee Friends are loving every moment on the gymnastic bus with Miss Jennifer. This morning, while our younger friends waited for their turn, we created apple art using laminated apples and dry erase markers.

Nate and Addi waited by the door and belted it out using magnetic spheres and rods as their microphones. Stephen continues to defend his right to be a princess too!

We read The Apple Doll again and checked in to see how our apple soaking in lemon juice was doing.

Macy noticed that the apple smelled like lemonade while Simon commented on how mushy the apple had become. We’ll let it dry out now and continue to study it as it changes form.

We are turning our reading area tree into an apple tree and many friends, using a picture of an apple as a model, created their own apples with red construction paper.

 

 

After Alexandra finished creating apples, she spent a long while working with scissors.

 

 

 

 

Kai and Macy worked collaboratively attaching the leaves to our tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Princesses Alma and Umi snuck away into the Lego/Castle loft, carefully navigating each step in their long gowns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We asked the question: “Have we finished our Snow White exploration?” There was a resounding “no!”. So we studied the dwarves, assembled dwarf like costumes and paraded around the classroom singing “Heigh-Ho”. The princesses ended up back at the cottage asleep and the dwarves examined them.

 

 

 

 

Everyone gathered to receive a rose. Jane has planned the continuation of our Fairy Tale Study: next we will study Beauty and the Beast. She explained “The princess doesn’t go to sleep, but there is a very mean beast.” Our friends are still making their own connections on how the fairy tales we’ve read are similar/different. After that we will explore Cinderella.

Here’s an example of how our studies connect to our journaling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For lunch we served whole wheat pasta with chicken, carrot/peas and apples. Have a great day!!!

 This morning, Kai, Macy and Annie continued studying the pictures/scenes in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. As they read they identified “there’s Simon!” (the raven) or “there’s me!” (Kai, the prince). Annie found herself as Snow White and Macy recognized herself as Kai’s horse.

Yesterday, many friends created beadwork. This interest continued this morning as friends gathered to create crowns, bracelets and necklaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After more conversation about the characteristics of the seven dwarves, Nate found a dwarves cap and Heigh-Ho’d around the classroom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few friends enjoyed an apple tree counting game. They rolled the dice and moved a poker chip from apple to apple ’til they made it to the apple in the center of the tree. They practiced counting dots on the dice and number recognition on the apples. They counted out loud as they moved around the board.

 There were lots of structures being created in the truck room this morning. Owen built a castle out of Magna-Tiles. Simon and Alma worked collaboratively to make a wrecking ship. Stephen made a sledge hammer out of Trios.

 

Melinda led each Wee Friend through the multiple-direction process of making silly putty. Glue, water, food coloring, liquid starch, Borax and alot of elbow grease!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Our older friends assisted our younger friends. They measured, counted tablespoons, poured, scooped, stirred and squished, identified colors to dye their putty, pulled apart and asked lots of questions!

 

Melinda read The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven. We demonstrated how to make an apple doll by peeling the skin, cutting out eyes and a mouth, sticking it onto a stick and dressing it. We extended this exercise into another science experiment by soaking the apple head (just like Susanna in the story) in a lemon bath to see if it will preserve the doll. We’ll take it out Monday and slowly dry it. Next week each Wee Friend will have a chance to make their own apple headed doll.

 We also read The True Tale of Johnny Appleseed by Margaret Hodges. We continued our conversation about the man, noticing many interesting things about Johnny from the fabulous illustrations. We got to talking about apple seeds and learned that they are poisonous! We collected the seeds from the apples we served at lunch and studied them. We learned that if you accidently eat one or two seeds from one or two apples it’s not a big deal. If you eat a whole backpack full then you would get very sick. Annie lent us her backpack for a visual demonstration of how many seeds it would take to get really sick. We imagined that Johnny Appleseed probably had a sack that full of seeds. But he didn’t eat them! 🙂

For lunch we served pita pocket pizzas, broccoli and apples!