Preschool and Kindergarten Ateliers 9/20/06

Kindergarten:

Ms. Hitomi's class:
This week we finished up the drawings that the children created last week. We also spent time discussing our human body project. After speaking with the children and Ms. Hitomi, it was clear that there is an underlying interest in the way the organs inside our bodies might feel. The children brainstormed ideas of recipes we could concoct in order to create the same sensations. For instance, one idea was to make the way the brain feels by using Jell-O. This week the groups have decided what the recipes should be for creating these different sensorial containers, and next week we will begin making them.

Ms. Hoddick's class:

After last week's discussion and speaking with Ms. Hoddick, our human body project began to unfold. The children were very interested in what goes on inside our bodies and the way things look there. In order for the children to learn more about what things look like, they traced some of the different systems that run through their bodies on to transparencies. The first one they traced was of the skeleton, which they could then lay over their own picture to see what it might look like if they could see all the way down to the bone....Next week we will continue this project and add more layers to it.

Preschool
This week in Ms. Kazari's class, we continued our in-depth exploration of clay...

This student began creating a stingray when he realized he didn't know how to make a tail. Next to him, two girls were busily making coils and wrapping them into a ball. The student asked the girls if they could make him one for his stingray. The girls began making him a tail, and before long he had more tails than he knew what to do with!

The Avocado Group:
After opening up an avocado during morning meeting, the children discovered that there is a seed inside. What should we do with the seed? CH suggested, "You get some dirt and put it in the dirt and it will make a plant.” At reflection meeting, Ms. Iris said they would try Christopher’s idea, and also that they would try another idea, suspending the seed in water in a small jar. What would happen next? A small group was formed to keep track of the avocado seeds and what might happen to them. The children recorded the first stage by drawing pictures of it. We also asked them to predict what might happen to the seed that was put into the jar: would it grow?
CH: ” It can’t grow because it is stuck inside the jar.”
LF: ”It will stay the same.”
KS: ”Maybe it will grow into a flower.”
BM: ”It will stay the same.”

Water Run:

This week, the water run group met to plan what they can build next.
I suggested to them that we might want to try using pvc pipes because we hadn't tried that yet. Everyone thought this was a good idea, since we wouldn't have to go out and buy all new materials. Then the group set out drawing pictures of how they could build the pipe structure from the classroom to the sandbox. Next week we will try it out. (Above is CL's drawing).

Posted on September 20, 2006 7:33 AM | Permalink