Dramatic Play: School

I set up a school for dramatic play last week.   I chose to do this kind of dramatic play early on in the school year because for all of my students this has been a new experience to them and has been the biggest new change in their life.  Now they can take on the roll of teacher.  Our school in the dramatic play was more like a n elementary school - with desks and flash cards - all of my kids have older siblings - so they knew just how to fit into the rolls in this type of classroom.  I plan on doing this station again later on in the year when they are more familiar with the school process.  I am very interested to see their new level of play. 

 

After a little bit of help in conflict resolution they all were very good about taking turns being the teacher and being the student.

Easel painting

Open easel painting.  Always a favorite. 

This time I only gave them several thinner brushes to choose from - this way they would have to be more focused on detail and what they were drawing.  When given a thick brush their impulse is to fill the whole paper with paint - which is fine  - but we have already done that several times - so today I gave 5 colors with thinner brushes.

Senory Bin

One day we added apples to water with tongs and a bucket.  They got REALLY good at this by the end of the day - they were picking up 2 and 3 apples at a time!

Since I was putting off fall I decided to add in a unti about seeds.  So one sensory bin was different kinds of beans.

It hardly stayed separated for long... but I guess that is the point... right...

Many of our kids use the ice cube tray to sort and gently fill up.  Jackson likes to fill the whole thing up... every time.

Harold and the purple crayon

After apples I had planned on going right into my fall curriculum.  Problem: our leaves hadn't changed yet - and most days it was still 80 degrees.  So I put it off two weeks and spent those weeks doing some fun activities. 

 

One of which was reading Harold and the Purple Crayon.  I read the whole book once and talked about how he was drawing his own story.  Then I gave each of them their own paper and clip board with a purple crayon to draw their own story.  Then they each came up on front and shared with us their "purple crayon story".  One of my goals for my students is to be able to present in front of a group and also be able to give a good narration.  I intend to accomplish this through activities like this, also through a very intentional show and tell (where the kids ask and answer questions - I also want them to be able to ask purposeful questions, and through "author of the day" - I will share that with you later)

 

The stories and pictures were wonderful and many were very extensive and imaginative, others were simple and sweet - all were great.

 

Then during center time I put a large piece of paper on our white board and I drew a few purple lines on it and invited the class to add to my mural to make a class picture.  At the end of the day we told a giant story about our class picture.  It built a wonderful sense of community.

Baking in preschool: Apple Crisps

We ended our study of apples by baking our very own apple crisp.  I was so excited for this activity.  I knew the kids would LOVE it - and they did. 

 

It was a simple procedure - but duplicate it with 7 4 year olds and one adult - I didn't get pictures of the process. 

 

They each got a small tin pie pan - which we first wrote our own names on.  I had a large bowl of apple pie filling I had prepared the night before.  They all got to scoop their own filling into the pan.  Then they got to sprinkle in as much cinnamon as they wanted - then stir.  Then they got their own bowl that already had oatmeal and flour mixed in.  Then they poured in sugar and melted butter and stirred with a fork.  Then crumble the mixture over their apples.  Each step they all did thoroughly and perfectly.  I was amazed at how good their were about smoothing down their apples and making sure is was even - and covering all the apples with the crumble.  They were so proud.

 

Many of them watched the oven the whole time.

 

And some of our final products.  I sent them home to share with their families.  I plan on doing some sort of baking or cooking with them about every 4 - 6 weeks or as often as it seems to fit.  I would love to get them their won apron or hats or something.  hmmm....

and they were delicious - I may or may not have eaten some of my girls' while they took a nap.

Apple math and science

It was our fourth week of preschool and I introduced our first science experiment and our journals.  I was nervous to introduce journals.  I didn't exactly know how, or when, or what I wanted our first entry to be.  I still hadn't (and maybe still haven't) decided exactly how we are going to use journals in our classroom... I have several ideas... but only experience will help me know what way is best.  So I had to get over the fear of messing up and just introduce them.  The kids loved them and have asked several times since to do work in their journals. 

 

Back to apples... and science.  We wanted to see what would happen when apples were left out.  We cut two open, left one plain, put lemon juice on another, cut another into slices, and left a fourth whole.  On our first day I hadn't introduced journals yet and hadn't decided too.. so we took our observations on a clipboard.

 

Then we left them on our science shelf for a week and a half... observing often as we went.

 

Finally after about a week and a half we got them out, got out journals, and really observed our apples.  I wrote down word on our white board  that described our apples, some words they come up with were, "brown, small, mushy, soft, wrinkly, fuzzy (we got mold on one of them).  We looked at them with magnifying glasses and had some tweezers and knives to observe inside. 

Then in our journals we drew pictures and wrote down one describing word.  It was a fantastic way to introduce our journals. 

 

 

 

On another day we took a poll about "what apple do you like?"  We walked around my neighborhood taking our poll.  Then we came back to the classroom and did a group bar graph of our answers.  The kids were so funny - making the graph was very intimidating to them.  Many did not want too... but once we got in the process and I broke the whole process down.. they loved it and came up with a million other things they wanted to graph.

 

I made an apple sticky table - with contact paper facing up so the apples would stick and could be rearranged.  At first I couldn't decide if I wanted this to go on and easel, a wall, or a table.  In the end I chose a table because I wanted it to be a collaborative experience, and I wanted a sense of "work being done" that a table provides - I also wanted it to be a quite place they could come sit and work  and not feel rushed.  This of course has an element of math in it - engineering an apple, patterns, spatial decisions, etc - but this is also great fine motor skills, an element of art and creativity. 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end all objectives were met! 

 

 

 Sometimes at the end of an activity I can say (like the one above) "all objectives were met" and sometimes... they don't go so well.  This was one of those.  One day at large group I pulled apples out of a bag and sorted them onto the correctly colored paper.  Than we made some patterns.  The kids loved this part - participating and learning. 

 

Then when I excused them for center time I told them about our pattern table.  They seemed interested during the explanation - but in the end it was a rarely visited center.

 

On the paper strips are colored circles giving different patterns (aba, abc, abba, aabb), and then the second half of the paper strip is blank for them to finish the pattern correctly.  I am puzzled as to why this center was not more popular.  I know it can be, I have seen it work with other kids before.  I think it had mostly to do with all the other things we had going on (apple store, sensory bin etc)

 

 

 It had a few kids stop by, but not for long. 

 

Apples trees

During large group we read a book called "Ten Red Apples".  Then we cut out apple trees and wrote the word apple on a red piece of paper.  Then we glued it all onto a white paper (using Elmer's glue straight from the bottle - we talked about making lines all around the edge of the tree rather than blobs).  Then we added red apples using a cotton ball and some paint. I really wanted to hang them in our room - but the kids really wanted to take them home - so of course I let them.

Dramatic Play: Apple stand

WE read a book called "Apple Farmer Annie" who has an apple orchard and sells her apples at a farmers market.  TO follow up on this book I set up an apple stand in our dramatic play area.

 On the first day we just had apples.  I put out a 2 scales, calculators, a money drawer, and some clip boards.  There was also bags and baskets for buying and shopping.

 

Boy was our booth busy.  It was the most used dramatic play set up to date.  Especially considering the "role playing" that was going on. 

 

 They all took turns selling, buying organizing, cleaning, and setting up. 

 

 

On the next day I added a fancy new scale I ordered on Amazon that didn't get here in time (it is the red one on the far left", I also added pears to our mix, and an "open and close" sign.  Most days I change my centers or add something new to the mix.  Sometimes it is to add something more complex to the play, a new level, if you will.  Sometimes it is just to spike new interest.

 

 

It was just as much fun the second day as it was the first.

Apple water droppers

On another apple day I had this set out at our art tables.

I showed the kids how to draw with marker on their coffee filter and then drop water onto it to make the color spread.  They were fascinated by the procedure and loved seeing their coffee filter fill up with beautiful designs.  There was red, green, and yellow markers - for apples, obviously. 

Then we did our first weaving project.  I helped them quite a bit on this one - but half way through they each got the hang of it.

And there are our apples.