Properties of Pasta

Wrapping up our last Ski Friday, we had a special guest to welcome as Ezzie's dad Dan led us in pasta making! We were lucky enough to have Ezzie's entire family join us as we made pasta together, enjoying it with a delicious homemade tomato sauce. As we approached that special date, we prepared by opening a pasta restaurant in our dramatic play area and exploring pasta's properties in different ways. We were able to build with pasta, paint pasta, make pasta collages, and combine pasta with other materials like play dough. In the pasta restaurant, the cooks were busy preparing pasta for hungry customers who were ready to order. Finally, on Friday, we were able to learn the process of pasta making, by combining only two ingredients: eggs and flour. Dan also brought special vegetable and fruit powders that enabled us to turn the pasta different colors. We worked in small groups to make enough pasta to feed us all!

The days when we had enough snow (and little to no ice) were big days for celebration as the sleds were open! While sledding is lots of fun, it is also provides opportunities to practice:
- teamwork as we share space and navigate the sled together
- patience as we wait for a turn
- listening skills as we pay attention to a teacher if we need to "bail"
- risk taking and risk analysis as we decide what feels safe for our bodies
- gross motor skills like core strength and balance

We even got a chance to sled down the hill like little penguins, on our tummies! As the snow began to melt, we were no longer able to sled, but we were able to explore the "rolling" aspect of sledding, connecting with some of our earlier ramp work in the fall as well as Slope Day in the winter. Ramps were reintroduced with new objects for rolling, including golf balls and plastic ornaments. The children quickly made the connection between those objects and their own winter experiences. One child exclaimed, "Silly Millie [the ball] is going so fast!"

With the older students back on campus on Fridays, we were able to restart our Buddy Links. The Hummingbirds had heard that we had a special tea party while they were skiing, and they were sad to have missed it. We decided together to have another tea party to enjoy with our Buddies. First, we started our Buddy time by sharing snack, and each Hummingbird gave their Duckling a personalized Valentine's card, sharing one thing they like about them. Then, we had a shared choice time. The Hummingbirds surprised us by making sugar cookies for Buddies to decorate and eat together! Other choices included play dough with heart gems, a card-making station, friendship bracelets, Lincoln Logs with sap buckets, and, of course, sipping tea by the cozy fire. The Ducklings absolutely love spending time with our Hummingbird Buddies! 

As the children returned to school each day after a snowfall, they have been excited to discover a flurry of activity, as the animals that share our outdoor spaces with us have been leaving tracks. The children are interested in identifying the tracks, wondering what kinds of animals made these marks and what they were doing when they made them.

Noticing the children’s interests in the tracks, the teachers brainstormed different opportunities we could offer that would support further exploration. We pondered the question, “how do you leave your mark?” Outside, children used existing materials like trucks in new ways, observing how the tires left their own unique marks in the snow. Materials typically used indoors, like markers, were featured in a new way, with snow and ice as a drawing surface. 

Merging the interest in tracks with our current maple sugaring study, we attached CDs to markers, offering large paper upon which to “spin,” in a similar way to how we use the hand drill to make the tap hole. The choice to leave this exploration open to children’s interpretation provided space for play to unfold in unique ways. First, the children noticed the shape that the markers were making: lots of circles! These circles slowly took on different forms as the children made connections with real-life objects. A teacher positioned herself nearby to take dictation as it occurred, adding another form of mark-making, and observing the children’s excitement as their words became part of the artwork.

Weaving together the different threads of our recent investigations, we have embarked on the project of making a book, filled with some of our favorite subjects, like animals and mysteries. We don't want to give away too much, but ask your child what animal they chose for our book! We will share more of this project work as it unfolds. We are also looking forward to hosting all of you for Maple Fest on March 14th!

We had several journal prompts during our skiing experience reflecting on our time at the mountain: 

-What do you think skiing will feel like?

-What is a ski goal you want to work on?

-What is something you enjoyed about skiing?

-Did you accomplish your ski goal and if so, how did you do it?

Meet Lindsey, the newest member of the Upstairs Neighborhood! Lindsey is a painted turtle who used to reside with teacher Jerome but was previously a part of the Lab Nursery school at Dutchess Community College. Lindsey is 19 years old and we are in the process of figuring out her birthday as the kids are interested in knowing. Having Lindsey in our inside space is equally exciting and a great opportunity to begin caring for and learning about her.  What does she eat?  How many times a week does she get fed?  Tank maintanance, water temperature and rules about her care were all discussed in a big group meeting.  Kids absorbed it all and took to heart what this means for us to be the ones looking after Lindsey. Using a quiet and calm voice, not touching the tank or heat lamp, keeping our hands away from the top and when feeding her, placing the food close to her so Lindsey can find it are the ground rules we have set together. Journal opportunities and observational drawings have already begun as we dive into the study of turtles!

Another way we’re keeping track of the daily temperature is through our Temperature Tapestry. These new knitters are joining a movement of knitters around the world who are bringing attention to climate change by knitting average daily temperatures into something beautiful and sometimes useful. Sometimes folks knit a blanket or scarf. In our case, we’re knitting a wall hanging using a kit we bought from a locally owned fiber arts and climate activism business called Tempestry Project. Here’s how it works: Each day we check the previous day’s high, low and average temperatures on the computer. We fill in the date and temperatures on a data table we created. Using the key provided in the kit, we find the color that matches that day’s average temperature and write the name of the color on our data table. Then the knitter writes their name on the table and knits that day’s row. So far every child has knit at least one row, so we’re starting to take second and third turns! We’re getting very excited to move from all the cool blues and teals this winter to the greens and yellows of spring. We’re wondering if we’ll get to knit the warm oranges and reds of the summer before the school year is over. It’s been such a beautiful, fun way to visualize our local temperatures and use our artistic and scientific skills!

In addition to this group work, The Hummingbirds have also been working on their own individual Maple Projects. These projects allow students to choose from one of four choices: 

• Lenape Maple Sugaring Process Comic (People and Places) - Students that chose this project watched two informational videos, took notes and then turned those notes into entertaining, yet educational comic strips teaching the readers how the Lenape People collected sap and made maple syrup.

• Life Cycle of a Maple Tree (Science and Stewardship) - Students that chose this project watched an educational video about the life cycle of maple trees, took notes and then used those notes to write facts to go along with observational drawings of a maple tree in each of the four seasons.

• Maple Tree Circumference Graph (Mathematical Reasoning) - This group went “out in the field” with the help of Evan to measure and record the circumferences of the maple trees we tapped this year. They recorded data, then decided what type of graph they wanted to create to represent their findings. 

• Maple Dream Stories (Literacy and Storytelling) - Students that chose this project worked through the five stages of the writing process to create fun, imaginative stories about what a maple tree dreamed about during its dormancy. The added challenge of this project was that they also had to incorporate true facts about maple trees. 

Giving kiddos a choice of projects allows them to gravitate towards their interests and be more invested in their work. 

No matter which project students selected, all have spent time planning, drafting, revising, editing and are now finally getting to the “reward” of a finished, final copy! After many weeks of hard work, the completed projects will be on display at our much anticipated Maple Fest, for all to see!  

Celebrating Contemporary Black "Kid-trepreneurs" for Black History Month

Since making the scarf for Grandmother Maple, the Hummingbirds have been busy knitting, sewing, weaving, and crocheting all winter. At this point, they have quite a stockpile of handmade items piling up! As they’ve been making things, the Hummingbirds have also been musing about what to do with their handmade items. An entrepreneurial spark was born and ideas started popping up around selling their items to make some money for different fun activities or important projects we have in mind for the spring, or ways we could give money to helpful organizations or charities in our neighborhood to better our community. (More to come on this in the next It Happened!)  This gave the teachers our inspiration for how to celebrate Black History Month this year! 

There are a plethora of thriving small businesses and organizations that have been created by young Black entrepreneurs, also known as kid-trepreneurs, who are making history right now! This February we’ve been reading books about, listening to interviews, and checking out the websites of some interesting Black kid-trepreneurs. We wanted to take a moment to share some of the websites of these Black kid-trepreneurs, so that you might take the opportunity to support them. Here’s a sampling:

• Treandos Thornton, founder of T&N Bowties

• Gabby Goodwin, founder of Confidence (formerly Gabby Bows)

• Zandra A. Cunningham, found of Zandra Beauty

• Makaila Ulmer, founder of Me & the Bees Lemonade

• Kierra Perkins, founder of Kandles by Kierra

• The Yummy Brothers, founders of Yummy Brothers Cookies

We hope you take a look and support some of these businesses and causes!

To help us celebrate Black History Month, DeeArah (ever generous with her time and energy) visited our classroom to teach a lesson about the history of Cooperatives, Community Land Trusts, and Mutual Aid Societies.  After defining terms and sharing historical examples with us, we moved on to explore contemporary examples, and discussed potential ways in which the kids could imagine themselves participating in this kind of work. We ended the lesson with a reimagining of the classic group game “Zip, Zap, Zoom” that emulated a core principle of mutual aid and cooperation. Below I have included resources connected to the lesson. Happy Black History Month!

• Brooklyn Packers website (Steph, Savion’s father, works with BP)

• Co-op Hudson Valley website and we are part of the larger Seed Commons Community Wealth Cooperative (DeeArah works with SCCWC)

• Interview with Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard who wrote Collective Courage: a book 

• about the Black legacy of cooperatives in the U.S.

• Bilingual Co-op 101: Co-op HV w/ Rock Steady Farm and Gentle Time Farm |

• La Co-op Lab

• New Economy Coalition