The Play is the Thing

 The title of this post comes from a book I remember reading years ago as part of teacher training. In our class we try to incorporate play experiences throughout the day in addition to the time we call "Explore Time", which is student generated, free play. I think it's best to let the pictures speak for themselves.  Below you can have a look at the friends having fun with the lion dance as we learned about Lunar New Year and letting their imaginations take over with trains, legos, and and other building materials. You can also see that we spent a portion of Global Play Day outside on a snow mound playing "pokemons, penguins, and pandas".  Maybe you can even spot the pine branch "bamboo".  And just for fun, though it's not a typical form of play, I thought you might enjoy a look at our last Farm to School session (we made sweet potato hash) and a drawing experience with Art Hub for Kids.

Recent Highlights

 It's important to keep things fresh in these darker days of winter.  This past week two fun activities (one inside and one out) brought smiles to our faces.  On Wednesday we joined our fifth grade learning buddies in their classroom for a change! They showed their Kinder-counterparts how to navigate the math practice application, "Dreambox".  This will become an option on our Math Menu in the weeks to come.  

On Friday, the freshly fallen snow called to us to come outside  early for recess and simply enjoy the rolling, packing, and piling potential.  Have a look...

Before and After

      As I looked over pictures from right before and right after the break I noticed that we didn't skip a beat!  By this I mean that this is the time of year when learning and friendships seem to deepen and grow stronger.  

First, you can have a look at us listening to "peer presenters" as we sample homemade pickles and look at a handmade painting at share time. Next, you can see the children enjoying music both in Music class and at our grade level sing along.  And lastly you can see us enjoying the Dreidel game with our big buddies and getting crafty with the help of some volunteers at our winter workshop.

    The new year brought us back together with a new sharing theme- games and puzzles, and a REnewed energy for learning!

In fact, "Kindergarten culture" is so strong amongst our crew right now that even our pretend area is set up to play...SCHOOL!  

    And, despite the lack of snow, we put our knowledge of animals in winter together with the Mrs. Bauman's second grader's knowledge of animal habitats and we teamed up to create some model animal homes at the edge of the woods on Friday.  Have a look-

   

Let's Catch Up

 I remember mentioning in a recent newsletter how December goes by in the blink of an eye- clearly some time has passed since my last post and we've been busy.  Last week we enjoyed some mood-lifting and immune-system-boosting tea with our farm to school teachers.  The children selected their own mix of herbs by listening to their properties and sampling their scents. Below you can see some friends steeping their custom blend.

While the tea had us feeling calm and cozy, we easily ramped back up for a 100 Apple Core Celebration!  Table top games was the intent but the marble run somehow made it's way in as well.

Back in the regular flow of the things, the children have been enjoying the grocery store set up in the pretend area.

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Dramatic play was a part of literacy learning last week too.  We've been having fun reading different versions of "old favorite" stories like The Gingerbread Man, The Little Red Hen, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  Below you can see friends teaming up to act out the story with popsicle stick puppets on bridges made of blocks.  All the puppeteers received a round of applause!

Constructing our Knowledge

On Tuesday the 8th, my Kindergarten colleagues and I participated in a professional development workshop about Literacy Learning Through Play. I thought I'd use this blog post to show you a bit of what that looked like in our classroom this week.  Below you can see some scenes that the children constructed using wooden blocks and natural materials.  They then labeled their scenes with the use of the snap words this, is, and a  and phonetic or inventive spelling.

On a larger scale, we've turned our pretend area into a mini-library modeled after the Orchard library complete with a check out desk, a table for activity pages, and a lego wall.  The children have been practicing keeping the book bins organized and making sure the books are stamped before checking out.