C.H.R.I.S.T.M.A.S.

Since we had so much fun wrapping birthday presents together, I wanted Z-man to be part of prepping Christmas, too. Inspired by this pinner's classroom activity, I made little Christmas tree light bulbs from construction paper and wrote letters on them. Z-man searched for the first letter of each name from the pile of letters. Then, I pulled out the rest of the letters and he tried to find the next letter as I told him what it was. I'm thankful for family members with short names! And very thankful for every minute with my guy. 

Allergic to Skrimp

 

When my Z-man was a little over a year old, we learned that he was allergic to shrimp. I fed him ceviche at a family party and immediately noticed red bumps racing up his stomach. Since then, I have soaked up as much information as I can about food allergies. One of my favorite resources is http://www.foodallergy.org/resources/parents. I found this the perfect starting place when I really had little information on how to make sure Z-man stayed safe and I stayed informed.
One thing I've learned from all my article browsing is that really young children with food allergies may know what they are allergic to by name ("skrimp" if you ask Z-man), but often don't know what it actually looks like. This has really stood out to me. Because shrimp isn't as prevalent in our diets as nuts, milk, or wheat, Z-man might really not recognize it if he were offered it, like at a church coffee hour or at a family party. At this point in his life, there are few times when he is exposed to food I did not pack for him when I am not with him, but I know this will change as he grows. I want him to be prepared. When talking about food, Z often says "I don't eat skrimp and crab. I'm allergic." (A recommendation from the doc was to tell Z-man that he is allergic to seafood in general until he is able to differentiate between types of seafood and until he is tested for other allergies.)
I purchased a play food set that has pretend shrimp included. Z-man and I play with all the parts of the kabob set, but I point out the shrimp intentionally as we play. I say things like "On my skewer I'll put some steak, some peppers, and some shrimp.". In the grocery store, I often avoid the seafood section because it tends to smell ocean-y. But today, we passed by a restaurant that had seafood in the window. Perfect. I pointed out the shrimp to Z. He knows what shrimp looks like and even offered me some wooden shrimp to eat at a children's museum this weekend! I'm really proud of his awareness.
I still feel fearful sometimes, especially in restaurants that serve lots of seafood or when I notice that something I've been feeding him says "may contain traces of shellfish" (like every brand of Snapea Crisps I can find-BUMMER!).  Although, I check ingredient labels, don't serve shrimp in our house, and always carry his Epi Pen, I feel so much more confident knowing that Z is becoming equipped with the knowledge to be appropriately careful, too.

Mimicking Matisse

This month, my students are learning about shapes. Our favorite activity has been spying shapes in famous art! 

Using orange frames, contact paper, and scraps of paper we tore during transition times that day, we made these great Matisse look-a-likes!

 

 Can you even pick out the real The Snail in the middle? They are pretty similar!

We also looked at Auguste Herbin's work Composition on the word "Vie", 2. I pre-cut the shapes in matching colors and sat with each child individually as they did their Herbin, encouraging them to put shapes on top of shapes.

Also, I reused my idea from last year, looking at Kandinsky's work. As my teaching becomes more process focused (instead of product), I find that I am tweaking things I've used previously to more thoroughly teach concepts and better support my learning objectives. This year, each child contributed one or two squares to our large piece of art, instead of making their own. We focused on discussed the sizes of the lids we used (big, bigger, biggest). 

I just hope my students remember to invite me to their gallery openings when they grow up to be famous artists!

Halloween Happenings in my Classroom

Holidays are so fun when you are a preschool teacher. There are endless craft ideas, silly songs, and creative books. I'm eating it up.  This year in my class, my students did some of the same activities that my students did last year. But, I also added a few new ones.  Here are some of my favorite Halloween picks (and pics)!

Today, my students help cut a pumpkin open and then reached their arms in to scoop out the pumpkin goop. Then, they each drew their ideas for how we should carve the pumpkin. We picked one feature from every students' drawn jack-o-lanterns. 

This is what we ended up with!

All month we have been singing a spooky song about witches' brew. Stirring and stirring and stirring my breeeeewwwwwww. Stirring and stirring and stirring my breeeeeeewwwwwwwww. Tip toe, tip toe, tip toe....BOO!  We've talked about brew and the cauldron we would stir it in. We've brainstormed what we would add to our potions and discussed how this is all fictional, not factual. Today, we used the ingredients they suggested and made our own brew to stir! 

Ingredients? Assorted bugs, spider rings, lizards, one gold fish, one frog, two small pumpkins, witches' hair (some black stringy decoration I found), eye balls, and ghosts. Mix those disgusting tidbits with some cornstarch, water, and yellow and green paint and you get WITCHES' BREW! My students played I Spy in the cauldron, practiced scooping things up with the spoon and filling the small pumpkins, and talked about which items sink and which float. This one definitely exceeded my expectations. 

I saved my favorite for last. We sing a silly holiday song about five pumpkins on a gate that roll away. My students started asking questions about how the pumpkins would roll: Bumpy or smooth? Fast or slow? Does every pumpkin roll? So, we tested it out. First, we built ramps. Some steep, some with small inclines, some horizontal (not ramps), and some vertical. We roll small pumpkins down these ramps to answer our questions (and to unearth another slew of investigations)! Another teacher built upon my idea and offered my kids gourds to roll down. Some rolled and some didn't. We made guesses using what we already knew as to why this was true. So much fun!

Happy Halloween!

The Many Faces of Z-man

Z-man and I like to play a game that we call "The Faces Game". We usually do it to keep him entertained like while we are waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting for someone to meet us or when he is getting grumpy and I want to make him laugh. I make a face and then makes a matching face. Then, its his turn. We end up giggling--or as he says "wiggling"--like crazy.

 

An added bonus? We also talk about the faces and how we are probably feeling. Its really insightful to see what he thinks I'm feeling when I make different faces. He says "Happy." "Lovey." "Frust-ur-rated." "Silly." Its like a mirror for me and glimpse into how my guy views me. Also, the three seconds or so that it takes him to move his face to match mine, trying to move different parts...priceless.  

Creepy Crawly Things

As I've mentioned before, bugs aren't really my thing. I'm trying to embrace them, or more truthfully, I'm trying to not freak out when I see them. Z-man's teacher, who is a true nature lover, has reminded me several times that he will learn to react as I do and she has encouraged me to react curiously and without fear. Blah. Easy for her to say. And truly it is. She feeds the class crickets daily with meal time in the class. She brings in walking stick bugs that she has caputred with her own hands. She brings slimy slugs, furry caterpillars, and cockroaches into her class in various containers for observing.

I'm trying to embrace the creepy crawlies. I had white grubs in my classroom for a while. We found them while digging for worms and put themt in with grass we were growing. We watched over about two weeks while the grubs destroyed the grass by eating the roots. Cool stuff.

Then, one of my students brought in a woolly bear caterpillar she found on her way to school. Next thing I knew, I was Amazon Prime-ing a butterfly house, complete with five painted lady caterpillars to keep our Woolly Bear company. Today was the first day with all the caterpillars in the classroom. Before I knew it, I was scrapping my lesson plan and embracing my students' questions about caterpillars and worms, our other class pets.

We read books about worms, caterpillars, and butterflies. Then, my students looked at the books in small groups and my assistant and I led them in conversations about similarities and differences between worms and caterpillars.

We poured out our worms and pulled out the caterpillars (my braver assistant took on this task). The students made observations about what they saw.

Finally, my students told me about the observations they had made and the facts they had learned. We made this awesome Venn Diagram!

Rolling in Colors

This month, my class is learning about colors. We started by learning about the primary colors and moved on to secondary colors last week. Each day, the children experiment with color mixing using different mediums. I set up a water table with two sides, one side with red water and the other with yellow. As the kids poured, scooped, and drizzled the water, it turned orange. 

 

Using a projector, we overlapped red, blue, and yellow blocks to make the secondary (and tertiary) colors.

The children combined yellow and blue shaving cream to make green shaving cream. 

My favorite way that we have experimented with colors so far is with rolling pins. I streaked large butcher paper with blue and red paint and my students rolled the pins back and forth in different directions to make purple.

We used these neat textured pins to make unique prints!

 

Its been a colorful month so far and its only the beginning!