Downstairs: Transition to Winter

We kicked off the week by creating our very own bear cave!  We used a large cardboard box and decorated it with natural colors and materials.  We moved it into our loft and added cozy pillows, blankets, and twinkle lights for our very own "hibernation station."  We are so excited for our opening ribbon cutting next week!

As we discussed the change in months and the arrival of winter, the children's curiosity was piqued regarding animals and what they do in winter.  After reading a silly book about Bear's winter plans, Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep! (Wright), we talked about hibernation.  We started wondering what other animals hibernate and realized that we could find out the answers to our questions by using the library.  That afternoon, we checked out a few books that featured the specific animals we were wondering about - foxes, tigers, and squirrels.  The next morning, at Morning Meeting, we read portions of the texts to answer our questions about hibernation.  Other children also shared that some animals migrated while others adapted to the winter weather.  We started a hibernation/migration/adaptation chart that we will continue to add animals to as we learn more about their wintertime habits.

This week, we were invited to join the Elder Guardians, half the class at a time, for a collaborative leaf project.  The Elder Guardians had already worked with evan to learn about the parts of the leaves.  Each Elder Guardian paired with a Fungi Friend and went on a leaf hunt, picking out a leaf of interest to them.  Then every pair created their own leaf poster, gluing their leaf and then labeling all the parts - petiole, lamina, midrib, apex, base, margin, tooth - as well as the type of leaf.  [See the end of this page for a "cheat sheet" on the leaf parts, if anyone is curious :) ]  The Elder Guardians helped us play "Leafy Larry says...find the ______" to practice the parts of the leaf.  After working on our posters, we walked through the spiral on the backfield to sit together and enjoy a story: Spiral by Spiral one day and an indigenous story about Squirrel and his acorns another day.  We love partnering with other classes, so a big thank you to evan and Amy for setting this up!

"The wider the range of possibilities we offer children, the more intense will be their motivations and the richer their experiences. We must widen the range of topics and goals, the types of situations we offer and their degree of structure, the kinds and combinations of resources and materials, and the possible interactions with things, peers, and adults." 

The quote above was written by Loris Malaguzzi, an Italian early childhood educator who was instrumental in the creation and development of the Reggio Emilia approach, a child-centered approach to education that is based in the belief that children are capable individuals, with the right and ability to construct their own knowledge.  Elements of this approach influence our learning and teaching philosophies in the Downstairs, including our use of loose parts.

In our classroom and in photos, you may notice that we have included many open-ended materials and you might see children mixing those materials as they play.  We call these materials our “loose parts.”  Loose parts is a term coined by British architect Simon Nicholson in 1971 to describe open-ended materials that can be used and manipulated in different ways.  Why do we use loose parts in early childhood environments?  They invite imaginative possibilities, support the dynamic nature of children’s learning, deepen critical thinking, and support learning and development across the domains.  Every child, of every developmental stage, can use loose parts successfully as they explore, examine, hypothesize, and investigate.  

We added some new "loose parts" to our outdoor materials this week: crates and funnels.  While we had a few funnels before, we were fortunate to receive a large donation of more.  We "came into" a large amount of crates as well, collected by Katie from a local store, with their permission, of course :) This week alone, we have seen the crates used as bridges, shelters, caves, chairs, nests, ice cream parlors, and more.  The funnels and crates have also been used together.  We can't wait to see what other ideas the children explore - the possibilities are endless and that is exactly the point of loose parts!