Dad's Night!

Wow!  What a fantastic turnout we had for Dad's Night!  This evening is a chance for children enrolled in the early childhood classrooms to  bring dad or a favorite uncle or grandpa to school and share what they do on a daily basis. 

We had the pleasure of witnessing dad's working on the Sandpaper Letters, telling time on a clock, helping with the 45 Layout, tonging in Practical Life, creating "parts of ___" books and writing 3 letter words.

After all that hard work, they took a break with their child an dhad a chance to decorate a cookie.

Thanks Dads for sharing the evening with your child at school!

 

 

A Day in the Life

 

 

A typical day in the Early Childhood Program at TMA:

• First there is hard work and concentration,

• Then comes time spent in the fresh air playing with friends,

• And next comes a nourishing lunch and good conversation with friends.

Self Portraits

Yesterday the afternoon Kindergarteners in room 3 had the opportunity to read the book People by Peter Spier.  This books talks about all of the different types of people that live on the earth.  Following the story, the children sat down looking at a mirror and drew self portraits of themselves.

Volcanic Erruption in Room 3

Last week the some members of the class were able to help construct a mini volcano out of clay.  Over the weekend, the clay hardened and it was the perfect consistency to use.  The children gathered together; Mrs. Turner carefully demonstrated pouring vinegar through a funnel into the volcano; a drop of red dye was added, as well as a teaspoon of baking soda.  Suddenly, eyes widened and grins appeared as the chemical reaction began to fizz and shoot out of the top of the volcano,  the only part missing was the extream wave of heat that would come with the lava flow.  Following the group presentation, the work was available for the children to work on individually.

The children are also learning about the parts of a volcano through books, puzzles and three part matching cards.

The TMA Science Fair will feature this experiement along with Growing Crystals, Gloop, Sink or Float, and Magnetic or Nonmagnetic from the other early childhood classrooms.

Life in Room 3

Fall is a wonderful time of year to teach children about the cycle of life in nature.  Some of their favorite foods are harvested in the fall.  In our class we learned about the parts of an ear of corn ( the husk, stem, kernel, and corn silk at the top).  We learned about how the apple tree comes to life in the spring to produce buds, then flowers that get pollinated, and finally apples that ripen in the warmth of the summer sun to provide us with delicious juicy fruit in the fall.  It was fun to cut up the fruit and cook it in a crock pot to make our own yummy applesauce.  We also pickled the last of the cucumbers out of Ms. Burns' garden to enjoy at a further time. 

The class  learned about plants starting as seeds with our sunflower tweezing work.  We purchased a HUGE cut sunflower from the farmers market and let it start drying out.  When the flower was fairly dry the seeds were easily plucked out with a pair of tweezers or even bare hands.  In addition to providing an opportunity to practice fine motor control the children were able to think about how this huge flower had started as a single tiny seed.  I even overheard one child wonder aloud if we were going to plant all those seeds all over the world!  We talked about how  the pumpkins we enjoy at Halloween and Thanksgiving also started their journey as a tiny seed.

As the leaves change and as the growing season gets put to bed, the children learn to appreciate the cycles of nature that provide them with so much nourishment and beauty.

Submitted by: Lindsay Turner

Pickles

Do you like to eat pickles at your house?  The children of room 3 and Miss Burns made pickles today. 


The steps involved:

1. Washing hands with soap & water 



Washing hands



2. Scrubbing the cucumbers

Scrubbing the cucumbers

3. Slicing the cucumbers 



slicing

4. Putting the sliced cucumbers in a jar



5. Measure & pour salt in the jar

6. Measure 4 cups of water

7. Measure 3 cups of vinegar



measuring the vinegar



8. Measure dried dill & added it to jar

9. Pour liquid mixture in jar

10 Screw the lid onto the jar

11. Boil water to seal the jars

12. Wait 6 weeks until they are ready to eat



  









The children are ready to count down the days until they get to try their own pickles!