April

Week of April 29-May 3

A Sweet Frozen Treat

After the children's hard work in observing and exploring seeds last week, we decided to create a sweet treat out of the fruits that they came from! The children were able to cut up their own apples, strawberries, and blueberries, as well as mash up some bananas. Then, they added yogurt and their cut up fruits to muffin liners. The yogurt cups were put in the freezer and then enjoyed at snack time on Wednesday. Yum!

Arrival of our Caterpillars

This week, we had some new arrivals to our classroom. What better way to celebrate the beginning of spring than to watch the transformation of caterpillars! The caterpillars are currently in plastic cups where we can watch them crawl around and see the interesting webs that they create. Throughout the next couple of weeks, we will watch the transformation of the caterpillars as they turn into butterflies. These butterflies will not be class pets, but instead will be released into our yard when they are all ready.

Outdoor Work Time

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and our large outdoor space to spend a full morning outside! We started our day in the West Yard where the children worked with natural materials to create a burger restaurant and further their connections with the All Day and Primary children. After a picnic on the porch for snack time and our music class with Mr. John, we came right back outside for an outdoor work time!

Observing found materials

"Painting" the fence

Being scientists - using pipettes to move water and mix colors

Making burgers for "Cluck-U" restaurant

Enjoying some stories on the porch

Just "Monkeying" Around!

Our groups are getting stronger and enjoy showing off their new skills on the monkey bars!

More Snaps from This Week

Creating houses out of Lincoln Logs after being inspired by the book "If I Built a House" by Chris Van Dusen

Building rock sculptures

"Say cheese!"

Filling our time capsule to be opened in 10 years!

The capsule will be buried at Alumni+Family Day on Saturday, May 4th.

Week of April 22-26

Plant Progress

As we have been learning what makes plants grow, the teachers read an article that states plants have a better chance at growing when they hear music. The children came up with a song to sing to the plants while we water them.

"Plant a little seed,

Grow grow grow,

Watering the plants,

Mr. Golden sun please shine down on the plants,

We love you."

We observed the sprouts that sprung up this week! Watermelon, cauliflower, and cucumber! The children drew what they saw and the teachers recorded their thoughts. We will create a "Plant Observation" class journal to track our progress.

We have had helpful plant monitors to water the plants, observe the weather to see if the plants have been getting their daily dose of sunshine, and observe for growth.

Paper and colored pencils are open at work time near the plants so the children can freely go up when they would like to observe.

Happy Earth Day!

Some children chose to create bird feeders to show kindness for the animals we live with.

Billie taught us about "humus." Humus contains many vitamins to add in for healthy soil. It is naturally broken down by bugs, weather, and with time. We learned that this log we sat on will eventually be turned into humus. We will keep on creating our own compost to create healthy soil filled with vitamins for our garden.

As a group, we spoke about our planet Earth and when asking where the children live now, a few answers were "A Child's Place School" and "Lincroft." We found New Jersey on the map and continued to point out different places. We spoke about ways we can help our planet stay clean and be kind. The children came up with throwing away their garbage, using the recycle can, throwing our snack scraps away in the compost so it can turn into magic soil for the garden, and turning off the lights.

We have a new job in our groups, Plant Monitor! Growing plants requires the children to learn how to care for something and have responsibility. Observation skills are also being strengthened by studying our weather and plants.

On Monday We Explored Apple Seeds

Children learn through exploration. Experiments let children explore, observe, and improve their curiosity. We continued this week exploring seeds as last week we explored planting seeds to hopefully bloom into flowers and veggies!

Teacher: " Where are the seeds?"

Children's Responses:

"There's two seeds inside."

"I think they will be bigger, very big!"

The children described the seeds as "small", "brown", "hard", and "slippery."

The children explored the inside of an apple using different tools to pull out the seeds.

On Tuesday We Explored Oranges and Cucumbers...

On Wednesdays we Explored Strawberries and Blueberries...

Apple Printing

Have you ever thought of painting with apples? Well, the teachers let the children explore apple seeds in the Math & Science area while we took notice of the interesting shape the seeds were placed inside the apple. One child exclaimed, "it looks like a star!"

More Snaps from This Week

Esme, an alumni student of ACP visited our groups to be a mystery reader and say hello to all of her teachers. Esme read a book by P.D. Eastman called, Are You My Mother?

Bryce, Devin's big brother, surprised Devin's group as mystery reader on Tuesday! Bryce read, Pig the Pug and Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas, by Aaron Blabey.

Collaborating with children of different groups to achieve a goal.

Enjoying a story.

Week of April 15-19

Spring Planting

It's finally starting to feel like spring! This week, we started planting indoors to get our plants nice and strong before we move them outside in late spring. We prepared the children for planting by first bringing all of them into our beautiful garden to read the book "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert.

After reading the story, we came inside for work time where the children were able to start planting vegetable seeds. We looked through some of the book "How a Seed Grows" by Helene J. Jordan, where we learned the three things that a seed needs to grow into an adult plant - soil, water, and sunshine. We hung up a clear shoe organizer on the window and started our planting. The children independently added soil, seeds, and water, and the plants will receive lots of sunlight from being on the window!

A Visit from a Special Gardener

After starting our vegetable planting this week we had a special visit from someone to help us plant even more food and flowers - Camila's mom, Alysa! The children dug up a little soil and dropped a few seeds in. The seeds were tucked back into the soil to "stay warm and sleep" so they can grow big and strong!

Thank you for planting with us Alysa!

Happy 3rd Birthday Reese!

Colorful Carnations

Last week, we placed seven carnations into our colorful water bottles that we used to create the "rainbow bridge". The children made some predictions of what was going to happen to the flowers.

"They'll change colors"

"The flowers will get wet"

"It will make a rainbow!"

This week, the children were able to observe the flowers to see the changes in them. We provided them with paper containing a picture of an empty bottle and different writing utensils so that each child could choose a flower and draw their observations of it. Although it is happening slowly, we are starting to see the carnations change colors!

Ball Pit Bathtub

When we got to the sand area to start our work time on Monday, one child looked in the bathtub, saw it was filled with sand, and said "we need to empty this!" Children from all of the Half Day groups worked together to shovel heaping piles of sand out of the tub until it was all empty. Once it was empty, a teacher asked "should we fill the tub with something else or keep it empty?" Some children said we should keep it empty, but one child noticed a bag of balls in the shed and said we should fill it with them. The children all agreed and now we have our very own ball pit!

🌷Clay Work🌷

In the art room this week, the children have been working individually on their own clay pieces. They used small jars as a foundation to mold the clay around in order to create clay pots. The children then used clay tools to smooth out the inside of the pots and the seams so the pots won't crack when they go in the kiln.

I wonder what we will put in the pots when they are all done?

Rain Walk

We took a walk on Thursday in the drizzly rain to look at some of our school's nature. We found that even in the rainy conditions, we could still find a lot of beauty in our schoolyard!

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain!" -Vivian Greene

Animal Mural

Several groups have started collaborating on creating an animal mural during studio time with Billie. Billie had children use paint and work with textures to create the background of a sky, water, and land. Then, she helped to cut out pictures of different animals from magazines and calendars. On Monday, our groups worked together to pick out different pictures of animals and glue them onto the mural where they thought that animal lives.

More Snaps from this Week

Seeing if our boats float in rainwater

"The Carrot Seed" story board

Tracing our initials with dot markers

Burying a friend's legs in the sand

Week of April 8-12

Rainbow Bridge

The children were led in a colorful science experiment after some talk about all that rain we have gotten over Spring Break in Lincroft. On Tuesday, we set out jars of water on the table for the children to observe and gather around. The children were not told about a rainbow, the teachers wanted to hear their thoughts and questions while putting the food coloring in. One child said, "I see myself in the reflection." Another child said, "it’s getting some colors” - where is the color coming from? “From up.” The paper towels were inserted into the jars. One child said, "What will happen? It will turn into a rainbow?"

What happened to the paper towels?

A child said, "the paper towels are changing colors!"

A teacher went around to each child to gather their theories and ask how much time will pass for the paper towels to change colors. Their guesses were from 20 seconds to 2 hours.

Overnight, the paper towels changed colors!

Skittle Experiment

In the fun of making rainbows and testing theories, we put on our scientist caps for a fun experiment.

Predictions of what will happen when we add warm water to the Skittles:

“They’re gonna get wet and a little bit change the colors”

“It’s gonna float in the water”

“It’s gonna go in the middle”

“They’re gonna get soapy and wet”

“It will change into colors”

“Go floating”

Observations after adding water:

“They’re growing”

“They’re glowing in the dark”

“They’re changing colors”

“The middle is turning white”

“It’s turning it white”

“When you poured the water in it became a rainbow”

This week in the Art Room:

We collaboratively worked on sponge painting all the colors of the rainbow to coincide with the experiments going on in the Math and Science area. We recognized each color which brought up a few questions like, "Why is violet the last color of the rainbow?" Many of the children participated and were excited to work on a short term art project where they got to see progress each day.

Updates to Our ACME Model

The children installed more shelving!

The hot glue gun was used with the help of a teacher.

We now have a freezer section and shelves in our representation of ACME.

Spring has Sprung!

Remember the bulbs we planted in October of last year? They have sprouted up into beautiful, colorful tulips! The children interacted with the garden this week by spying some new growth, pulling "the bad plants" also known as weeds, and putting leftover fruit into our school's compost to create nutrient rich soil and learn to not waste our food!

Puppet Stories in the Studio

The 5 day children colored a background for our assortment of animal puppets that they have worked on for the last few weeks. They collaborated on a story with Billie using their imaginations.