Building, Team work, and Letter 'K'

Last week all the Purple Room friends got super interested in playing and building with "Magna Tiles." What was more special about this play was that it gradually built from solo to more of a collaborative and team play style. It felt good to see them pass tiles to each other and hear them invite a friend to join in or welcome a friend who seemed interested to join.

From solo...








to team...













During the week, we took out many such activities to build up on teamwork.

Puzzles...
Lot of teamwork was reflected while we did puzzles. Teachers usually refrain from helping them with floor puzzles, and rather suggest them to invite a friend who might be interested in working together. This has opened doors to more playing and collaborating with new friends beyond the friends they usually are comfortable with.








Class Collage...
It was fascinating to see them work together in a limited space on the poster board collage where many hands worked at ones.

They squirted glue all over and the glue left tracks. Some choose to randomly put the materials on the board, while some chose to put them one by one following the glue track. Pretty neat. Check it out on the easel at the purple room doorway!







This week we did a science experiment about "What level is it?" where we used honey, water and oil to make three layers/levels in a clear bowl. then we took out random materials like nuts and bolts, dried pasta, grapes, blueberries, shells, marbles, etc and discovered at what level the materials would sink or float. It was interesting to see how different liquids have different density and we saw how honey settled at the bottom layer, water in middle and oil floated on top. We made our own guesses and explored the results.




For letter 'K', we made K collages using pictures of kiwi, kangaroo, key, and koala bear.










Teacher Kristina got her inflatable 'K'ayak for show and tell!

Friends got a chance to pump it up and see it grow. We also talked about the different parts and some of their own boat experiences.

Pumping with one foot...









Pretending to go Kayaking...



We also sang the rhyme, "Row row row your boat" and added some silly version of it filled with utmost expressions! The most loved ones were,
"Row row row your boat,
gently down the stream,
if you see a crocodile ,
don't forget to scream!" and
"Row row row your boat,
gently down the shore,
if you see a lion,
don't forget to roar!"







Later we made fruit 'K'abobs.
It was wonderful to see some make patterns with fruits or divide their stick into three different kinds of fruits; others simply made them in their own unique ways!













We did a fun activity with locks and 'K'eys where they discovered their expertise with different sizes of keys. It was an activity where they had to match the key with the lock. They tried different combinations and then BINGO! The right key would pop the lock and our friends would cheer. They were so so excited to see the lock click open!













Few other highlights and creative exercises:
G making letters on monkey bars...
letter 'D'!


letter 'T'!




D rolled a golf ball on the water table outside and saw how it followed and swirled according to the tracks that the table had!




February calendar and newsletters are in the Parent Pockets to be picked up :)
Hope you all had a great week! Enjoy the weekend!

Warmly,
Rashida.

Science and letter 'Z'

Hope you all had a relaxing long weekend!

Recently, the kids in our room found a book on science experiments and while we walked through the book, some experiments looked really facinitating. At their request, we decided to do some experiments every week. A couple of those we did last week were volcano eruptions and static electricity.

Volcano eruptions were super fun to watch. Knowing more about the materials (baking soda and vinegar) we used in the experiment gave the children an idea about how certain things react with each other.
We spoke about baking soda and its different uses...




Then we added water colors...



Last we added vinegar while we spoke about what it is and its uses...we even smelled it to distinguish it from water (since they said it looks just like water).









The result of the reaction was "a volcanic eruption!"
All the expressions that came on their faces were worth seeing! :-)




We repeated the experiment many times, each time adding some more baking powder, a new color, and vinegar which led to new color eruption every time!

Static electricity...

They wanted to know what static electricity is and so we chose the following experiment from the book that needed simple balloons and some smalls bits of paper.

We rubbed the balloon and saw how bits of paper just clings to it due to a static charge...physics in action!




Finishing our Jack-in-the-boxes.

Putting the box together...






Putting the Jack 'in' the box...









For letter 'Z' we brainstormed words, made a 'Z' collage using zamboni, zucchini, zebra, zipper, and followed a pattern of black n white while coloring the zebras.







Some other activities we got involved in were...

Play dough...



and trains...






Have a great weekend!

Warmly,
Rashida.

Happy new year! and letter 'J'

Hello Purple Room Families,

I want to wish you all a happy new year and welcome everyone back to school. It was so exciting to see all my smiling kiddos' faces eager to have fun and reconnect with friends and teachers. I hope you all had a joyful and relaxing break!

Last week they were wanting to make ice creams but the playdough was not working out because it was heavy and didn't stand up on the paper cones. So, I introduced them to "floam," a new kind of play dough which is foamy and slightly sticky in texture. They used that material in making food, landscapes and islands (science), sculptures, and even did some math with it. Check it out!

Food: Ice Cream ..U scream...we all scream for Ice Cream ;-)









A volcano...




Making land and water and creating habitats...




Island with tigers and big trees...



Making snowballs as they thought the white one looked just like snow!


Sculptures...
A Bird!


An ooooo face!


People!



We did a little treasure hunt and then they counted how many treasures they found...

Hunting...








Counting...



Last week we also opened up a little grocery store and got involved with a lot of buying and selling using coins that I tagged with numbers from 1 to 5. We used those coins to count how much the item was for and paid money at the checkout. We came up with many equations like how we could pay $5 using two $2 coins and one $1 coin, or we could even pay 2, 1,1, and 1. Some choose to just pay using all $1 coins. We also came across how to greet the customers and answer their questions.

Selling...


Buying...





Shopping...



Some of the children were upset that they were not getting any mails, so we opened a station about writing letters to each other. They wrote letters, posted them in the mail box, and after lunch our mail carrier (which is one of our new jobs) delivered them to their respective mailboxes. Luckily I could capture the picture of A and S getting super excited on receiving mails!







Some highlights of their creativity using different shapes!

B said, "Its a Christmas tree!"



D, totally engrossed in making a Bee Hive!



Last week was letter J week. I tell you it was one of the most Joyful and a reuniting week. We Jogged over the week doing many fun J letter activities and to my surprise they came up with sooo many J words too. The best and most loved one was 'Jelly Beans.'
So later, we worked to make our own Jelly Bean Jar.









Some counted them while some just guessed...




We made letter J collages using Jelly fish, jack in the box and jelly beans cutouts.







This led us to making jack-in-the boxes and jelly fish.

Making the jack-in-the-box was a long project where we started with tracing our hands and cutting them. Next we swirled the pipe cleaners on a pencil to give it a spiral shape. That was the most loved part. Adding a body and attaching our own faces with a silly hat added to the excitement.






Jelly fish...







We also practiced doing Jump rope and Jumping Jacks outdoors.







Making Jello Jigglers with Jelly Beans was an awaited moment since Monday.

Discussing the transparent red liquid...



Watching it get darker and darker red as we kept adding the powder...






Guessing if the Jelly beans will float or sink! (Well, I got to confess, I didn't know either :0)
We all shouted together when we saw the result, "It sinks!!!"







Feeling the texture before eating...



Finally, enjoying the most desired moment...yum!



Dear parents, you are more than welcome to come and read a book in the morning at drop off or to do some hands-on activities in class. Kids love to see either their own or a friends parent come over and do fun stuff with them. Feel free to discuss how it could work at your convenience.

See you around!

Warmly,
Rashida.