More Chocolate Milk

Hello family and friends!

I want to start this week off by saying how impressed I am with your kids. They are always full of new questions and have really taken control of their own learning. Every day I see them being scientist, mathematicians, readers, and writers! The milk study has really kept their interest so I hope you've been hearing a lot about it at home.

One of the main questions asked last week, was how milk was put into the cartons. We were able to do some research through books as well as watch a short video that took us through this process. We watched them pasteurize the milk and then saw the machines that put milk into the cartons and sealed it up tight to be sent to stores. It was really interesting! I have one classroom observation about this that I wanted to share with you. Later that day, after watching the video, I saw one student playing alone in our science center. He had several baskets out, many of the toys, and some measuring tapes. I approached him and asked what he was doing. He told me he was pasteurizing and selling milk. He was using the baskets as the different cooling tanks that we had learned about. He was also using the measuring tape as hoses that carry the milk from tanks to cartons. He took me through the whole process...even things I had forgotten about! The kids have really extended their learning this week and have been so imaginative in their explorations!

One thing the kids really got excited about this week was our science experiment. We created "plastic milk". First each child took a cup of milk and heated it. Next, they mixed it with some white vinegar and stirred it slowly for about a minute. As the kids were stirring they were able to see the milk separating. Finally, they poured the mixture into a strainer and what was left were small blobs of "plastic". We learned that these blobs were really called casein, which is created when the protein in the milk doesn't mix with the acid of the vinegar. The kids then scraped their blobs into a bowl and allowed them to cool. After cooling, the small pieces can be pressed together to form one big blob. Of course we had to color them with some food coloring as well! There is a short write up in the hallway of what we did, as well as our "plastic milk" blobs, if you'd like to check them out. They are continuing to harden so you may see that some are still a little damp. Feel free to take them home next week, although I wouldn't recommend keeping them for too long :)

Another big question that the kids had, was what could be made with milk. We've spent some time looking through recipe books. Of course we had to make and sample our very own chocolate milk! We've been working on independence, so the kids did their own pouring and mixing...it turned out delicious! One milk product that kids were most interested in making was ice cream!!! Shocking, right? We decided to try something new and make a different type of ice cream. We really wanted the kids to have the experience of measuring, mixing, and getting their hands dirty. We discussed reading the recipes, recognizing different types of measurements, as well as counting those measurements to perfect our recipe. I don't know if any of you have ever tried bagged ice cream, but it was a hit! It might be something fun to try at home. Each kid was able to choose whether they wanted to make vanilla or chocolate ice cream. We started by taking our ingredients and putting them in a small ziploc bag. These ingredients included milk, vanilla, honey, and chocolate syrup (if they chose chocolate). After we had our small bags sealed well, we placed them in a gallon sized baggie and filled it half way with ice and salt. Once both bags were secure, we shook the bags for about 10 minutes. By shaking the bags, I mean more like lightly kicking, tossing, batting, throwing (you get the idea). We told them that the bags could be mixed in any way they wanted as long as their bags stay sealed and no one was injured in the process...success! They loved it! And the ice cream turned out delicious. We did some investigating as to how ice cream is normally made but I'm pretty sure they thought this process was more entertaining.

We ended this week by filling out the "learned" section of our KWL chart. We realized that we have learned a lot! It's hanging up in the hallway if you'd like to check it out. I thought that this week would probably wrap up our milk study, but it looks like it will run into next week also. We're thinking we'll probably be exploring it for at least a few more days. Also, Michelle and I have been working on our ASQ's this week with the kids. We're getting pretty close to wrapping them up. For those of you that are new to this, ASQ stands for Ages & Stages Questionnaire. It is a form of evaluation that we do with each child and then parents are given the opportunity to do one as well. This allows for us to compare our results and talk about them during our parent/teacher conferences. After we finish our ASQ's and get them into the computer, you will receive an email from the website that will allow you to log in and view our questionnaire, as well as conduct your own. I know we're still a few weeks out from this process, but I did want to go ahead and give a quick rundown so you'll know what to expect. If you ever have any questions, always feel free to ask us!

Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
• Demonstrate growing initiative in selecting and carrying out activities. 
• Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
• Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
• Manage transitions positively when told what to expect.
• Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following direction.

Language & Literacy:

• Show interest in informational texts about familiar objects.
• Incorporate favorite parts of literary texts into play activities. 
• begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books. 
• Begin asking "how and why" questions when looking at texts.
• Use drawings, letters, or words to create narratives about people and things in their environment. 
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.

Mathematics:

• Generate conjectures based on personal experiences and simple reasoning.
• Investigate solutions to simple problems.
• Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Associate at least two measurement devices with their purpose.

We are scientist... 

 

 

 

Bagged ice cream was a hit...

 

"Chocolate milk is delicious!"

Look how much we have learned!

Chocolate Milk

Hello family and friends!

I don't know about you, but I feel like this week has flown by. It was our first full week back after the holidays and we've been staying busy. At the end of last week, we gave the kids a choice of what they wanted to learn. We pulled some ideas (from our large list of things the kids wanted to learn about that they wrote at the beginning of the year) and allowed them to vote. They had the choice of chocolate milk, koala bears, and legos/blocks. You should know that the night before giving the kids this choice, I spent the evening researching legos and blocks. I was absolutely convinced that this would be the topic of choice! I was so very wrong. The kids voted to research chocolate milk! I've learned my lesson on assuming I know what they're interested in :) I've had several parents come to me this week and tell me how excited the kids have been about our research so far. I've heard that some of you have already received a full run down of the whole process of chocolate milk from cow to store. I can't tell you how much it means to hear you say those things. It makes my heart so happy to hear that the kids are interested in learning and enjoying what we're doing each day! I'm hoping that continues for a lifetime!

To start off our exploration of chocolate milk we made a KWL chart of what we already Know, what we Want to learn, and finally, what we've Learned. The kids knew a good bit about milk but they had a lot of questions too. We spent a good bit of Monday morning talking about facts and asking question.  Some questions we were able to answer by asking our peers, but most of them were recorded on our chart. We also spent some time gathering facts from books. We found tons of books from the library about dairy farms, cows, and milk. We borrowed both fiction and non fiction and spent some time reading them aloud, picture walking with partners, and even studying them together during reading workshop. We have all of the library books on display in the classroom if you'd like to look at them. We've started putting fiction library books on the book shelf next to the window in our reading center and the non fiction in a basket in our science center. We talked with the kids about the importance of book care (especially those borrowed from our library). We also talked about how to recognize library books to keep them separate from our classroom books. The kids have really taken on to caring for these library books! Through our research with the books, the kids were able to already answer some questions that they had but also found that they had more questions to ask the more they learned...which we love!

We also found a quick video that was able to walk us step by step through the process of milk. We learned about the special machines that take milk from the cows, into cooling tanks, and finally into a truck where it's transported. We also saw the process of pasturizing milk and the importance of doing so. This caused the kids to question what would happen if you put milk in the microwave, which lead to us doing exactly that! We decided to turn that into some taste testing and compared both cold and warm milk. We made a chart of which we liked best and compared the differences. This also got us talking about the different uses for warm milk. Some said that parents warm milk for babies. Other said it's great for hot chocolate. We also learned that there are tons of recipes out there that call for warm milk. This lead us into a discussion of cooking, which we will definitely be doing some of next week!

The kids also thought it'd be fun to do a science experiment with milk (there will also be more of these in the week to come). We decided to make color explosions. This is something you can easily do at home and the kids loved it! They begged to keep doing it, but sadly we didn't have enough milk for an all day science experiment :) We started by covering the bottom of a plate with whole milk. Next, we took food coloring and made different colored drops in the middle of our plate. Then, we dipped one end of a q-tip in dish soap and stuck the tip into the middle of the food coloring. What happened was a sudden burst of the colors all throughout the milk. We learned that the fat molecules in milk run away from the soap and when this happens it pushes the color dye all over the place. It was almost like a little mini firework in our plate! The kids ended up having some questions about fat in milk which got us talking about the differences between whole, 2%, and 1% milk. We'll be bringing some in to compare the differences throughout our study.

I've been so impressed with the kids enthusiasm for research this week and I'm looking forward to the week ahead as we continue our study! Through all of our research, we've been incorporating reading, writing, and math skills. The beauty of inquiry learning is that these always seem to fall into place in the natural learning environment. We've also been taking time to do some assessments with the kids as we approach November. We will be making parent/teacher conferences available in the next month, but we will keep you posted with specific details as the time gets closer. Also, Rabbi Meir mentioned that it would be a good idea to give a brief description of our morning routine, which I think is a wonderful idea because I'm realizing I may not have given details in our first blog post. Each morning, either Michelle or myself go to pick up any children from pre care. We aim to do this sometime between 8:30-8:40 every day. From there, we have each table set up with different activities. These activities are changed daily for variety and focus on skills such as fine motor, social, writing, reading, and math. We feel that the tables give the kids predictability for the morning and also help them transition from home to school before we officially start our day off with morning meeting. We also hope that this helps you as parents during the transition of drop off time. If you have any thoughts about the early morning time, please share them with us.

Here is a list of some standards for this week...

Approaches to Learning:

• Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.
• Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
• Try to solve problems encountered in play.
• Demonstrate an increasing ability to organize actions and materials in the learning environment. 

Social & Emotional:

• Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following directions.
• Participate in group life of class.
• Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others during play.
• Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.

Language & Literacy:

• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs, and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
• Combine some letters with pretend writing.
• Progress in understanding how books are viewed.

Mathematics:

• Organize and represent data with real objects.
• Show awareness of growing patterns in their environment.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Integrate mathematical ideas inot personal representations.

KWL chart on chocolate milk...

 Beginning our research...

Color explosions...

Changing Seasons

Hello family and friends!

We've had a great week in the Aalva class! We've spent most of the week talking about the changes we've started noticing in the weather and our outside environment. Most of these changes have pointed us to notice the transition from summer to fall, such as finding multi-colored leaves on the playground. It's been a fun week of exploration!

Before I get into all the details of our week, I want to welcome Owen into our classroom family! Owen has visited us twice this week and we are happy to announce that he is now starting full time. We are so excited to have him join us! The kids have already started welcoming him by introducing him to our classroom toys/center and helping him transition into our daily routine. Welcome, Owen and family!

To start this week, we went on a nature walk around our school. As we set out we talked about looking for changes in our environment and collecting interesting artifacts for our classroom. It ended up being a great day for this little adventure because it was a cooler morning with a small amount of mist. We talked about the change in the temperature (as some of us have started wearing pants and long sleeves) and how it affects us and the wild life around us. As we found acorns we talked about squirrels and birds making preparations for winter. The change in weather and our environment signals the animals to start collecting food and preparing dens for a cold winter ahead. We also discussed how the smallest of bugs will need to find a place to keep warm. After we spent some time walking and gathering, we asked each child to show us their favorite findings and why they liked it so much. We ended up collecting some awesome nature objects! We put some in science for the kids to explore. We also put some in the art center. The kids have used them to paint with! We discovered that we can make some amazing and creative artwork by painting with leaves, sticks, nuts, and pinecones instead of paint brushes.

As we talked about animals preparing for winter during the fall months, one student suggested that we make a stick den in our classroom. Everyone was on board with this idea! We had a couple of giant boxes so we spent one morning taping, cutting, and then gluing our nature objects to our boxes. It has turned into a dark little nature den that is perfect for hibernating animals (or kids!) and for using as an awesome fort :)

In our discussion last week about apples (from Ms. Michelle's orchard trip), we also talked about other types of gourds, pumpkins, and squash that are in season during the fall. Michelle brought back a pumpkin along with the apples. We finally decided that it was time to investigate our pumpkin. We started by looking at books to research how they grow. Many students discovered that pumpkins grow on vines instead of on trees like they first thought. Afterwards, we decided to dissect it! As any scientist would do, we made predictions on how many seeds we thought a pumpkin held. We got everything from one giant seed to 1,000,000,100.14573 (literally!). After our predictions were made, we cut it open. I wish I had a video of their reactions! It was hilarious/amazing/highlight of my week! The "eeeewwww", "cool!", and squeals that we heard were so fun to witness. We passed the top of the pumpkin around and then let the kids dig into it and pull the guts out. Some chose not to while others were going back multiple times. It was such a fun experience!

As we dissected, we pulled some seeds out and set them aside to roast. We introduced everyone to our recipe and talked about our ingredients and how we follow the directions to get the best results. We went into the kitchen to wash our seeds then we mixed them with some oil and salt. We let them roast in the oven for about 45 minutes at 325 degrees. We set a timer in the room and they jumped into a line as soon as it went off! We went back to the kitchen to see if they baked properly and to taste the results. It was an overwhelming vote of "delicious!". Most said they tasted exactly like popcorn. This will be the first of many cooking adventures we go on this year.

In the science center we have added some different types of gourds, pumpkins, and indian corn. We plan on adding new objects in our centers as we witness the changing seasons. The kids have been exploring these objects through magnifying glasses, measuring tapes, and scales for weighing. Some of our group has asked what the difference is between pumpkins and gourds. Great questions! We will definitely be exploring that question next week. It's been a great week of discovers and we're looking forward to more to come next week!

Here is a short list of just a few standards we worked on this week...

Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
• Show increasing ability to maintain interest in self-selected activities and play despite distractions and interruptions.
• Understand that a task can be accomplished through several steps.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers activities and materials.
• Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time. 
• Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.

Language & Literacy:

• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
• Contribute to small group or whole class dictation activities. 
• Understand relationship between print and pictures on page. 

Mathematics:

• Organize and represent data with real objects. 
• Associate at least two measurement devices with their purposes.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations. 

As a reminder, the school will be closed on Thursday and Friday for the next two weeks. The kids have been learning a lot about Yom Kippur and Sukkot with Morah Devorah during Torah time each day. I encourage you to ask them about it and see what all they've learned! The two shorter weeks also means that there will not be a blog update. However, I will be sending out a brief email to keep in touch about our week at school. I hope everyone enjoys the pictures from our week of exploring!

On the hunt for nature...

We found some awesome sticks...

And a baby tree!

The big pinecones were their favorites...

along with the hickory nuts.

Checking our pumpkin seeds.

It took a lot of washing but we finally got them clean!

Painting with nature...

Preparing a den is serious work. If you don't believe me then check out these pictures...

All that work turns into so much fun!

Diving into our pumpkin...

Counting our seeds...

Their reactions were priceless...

 

Weighing and measuring fall produce...