We Love Dinosaurs!

Hello family and friends!

It's been a great week in the Tzemach class! Our dinosaur exploration is in full swing and we're having a blast! We've been asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of research. We've made some pretty cool discoveries, such as learning about the world's largest known dinosaur. We've also been talking a lot about Chanukah. We'll be continuing our study of this holiday into next week as well. You may notice that we've changed out our "Jewish Studies" table. It now contains a menorah, dreidels, and a large collections of Chanukah books for the kids to read and learn more about the holiday.

All the talk of imprints last week, led us to talking about dinosaur footprints and the possible fossils these prints would make. This conversation evolved into us studying the world's biggest dinosaurs. Through our exploration we found out that the largest dinosaurs are in a group called "sauropods". These types of dinosaurs are characterized by having long tails and necks, as well as large tree-trunk size legs. We were amazed to learn that these dinosaurs dwarfed all the others...including the big T-Rex...because in the mind of a 4 year old, the T-Rex is the biggest of them all :) We made some predictions about how big we thought the largest dinosaur footprint would be. After some research we found out that the largest one recorded is over 4 feet in diameter. We decided to get some paper and make a huge dinosaur footprint that measured the same size. We then did some predicting of how many kids we thought could fit into that one dinosaur footprint. The kids also took off their shoes and compared the difference in size between their foot and the dinosaur footprint. We came to the conclusion that 9 kids could fit in that one dinosaur footprint!

One question asked at the beginning of our study was, what do dinosaurs eat? We found information about this from our books (thank you to everyone who brought in dino books for us to read!). We divided dinosaurs into 2 categories: carnivores and herbivores. We spent some time going through our books and talking about each dinosaur specifically. We focused mainly on what they ate, where the probably lived, and their size. We also pulled out some magazines and cut out different pictures of meats and plants. After cutting, we divided them into categories and then glued them to posters of the different types of dinosaurs. We learned that even though the T-Rex was the biggest meat eater, the herbivore dinosaurs were actually the biggest in size! We also learned that many of these dinosaurs were extremely smart and used a lot of skill when hunting for food. We learned that most of the plant eaters had to be larger in size so that they could eat leaves from the tops of trees. The kids even turned some lunches into discussions of whether they were having a carnivore or herbivore lunch day!

Throughout the week, we've been discussing the word "archeologist". To become archeologist ourselves, we did some research on bones and skeletons. We read some boks about how archeologist uncover these bones and how they piece them together. During center time, we made an archeologist station available for the kids. We laid out some recycled pieces from our creation station and even some items from nature. We encouraged the kids to use these pieces to form their own dinosaur skeletons. We let the kids make the dinosaur skeletons however they chose to make it. We did lay out some books for them to thumb through as they chose which dinosaur they wanted to represent. I love how these turned out! This led to discussions about how many bones a dinosaur actually had. After some research we discovered that the T-Rex had around 200 bones! You can find these skeleton creations in the hallway on our bulletin board.

We're excited to see where our exploration takes us next week!

Love,
Ms. Rachael

 

 

Approaches to Learning:

• Reason about events, relationships, and events.
• 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.

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.
• Develop friendship with one or two preferred children.
• Express fears and concerns to familiar adult.

Language & Literacy:

• .Complete a thought or idea when communicating with others.
• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• 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 stories, rhymes or poems.
• Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language.
• Contribute to small group or whole class dictation activities.

Mathematics:

• Sort and classify objects by one attribute.
• Identify the positions firth through tenth using concrete objects.
• Represent simple joining and separating situations through 4.
• Compare sets of no more than ten objects using the terms "more than" or "same as".
• Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations.
• Investigate solutions to simple problems.

Look how much we can fit into one dinosaur footprint!...

 

 

Studying herbivores and carnivores...

 

 

We are archeologist studying dinosaur skeletons!...

 

 

We love outside play!...

 

 

Dinosaurs...ROAR!

Hello family and friends!

It's been a great week in the Tzemach class! We've really enjoyed hearing about everyone's Thanksgiving break. It's been a great week for us to readjust and get back into the swing of things. We had a lot going on this week, including saying good bye to our Math Buddies. As you all know, the kids absolutely love Math Buddy time and we are so thankful to have had a fun semester with Rabbi Meir's students! As a fun good bye activity, the kids made play dough with their buddy using flour, salt, corn starch, oil, and paint. They had a blast! I'm sure they were very excited to show off the play dough. We also got to visit with a 1 year old goat this week. The kids enjoyed petting it and asking questions about the goat. It was a last minute activity that we didn't plan on, but definitely enjoyed!

We also started a new exploration this week...DINOSAURS! Of course the kids have been giddy about this new exploration and it was an easy transition from dirt as we talked about fossils during our dirt explorations. We started this exploration off as we always do, with a KWL chart. The kids knew a lot about dinosaurs but they also came up with some pretty awesome questions. Some questions were about specific types of dinosaurs but the majority covered the species as a whole. Throughout our study we will end up touching on both the individual types as well as the species in general. I'm excited to see what we discover!

One question we had was about fossils. Using books, we were able to find out a lot of new facts about fossils. We learned that fossils were formed over a very long period of time. Throughout that length of time, the dinosaur bones actually turned into stone, which is what we know as a fossil. We also learned that fossils come in different forms. Some insects have been preserved in hard pieces of sap for thousands of years! We also learned that some fossils are actually called imprints. This is when an animal or plant leaves it's imprint in mud, which is eventually filled with sand, and finally turns into stone. We decided to make our own imprints. We have a box full of realistic miniature size dinosaur skeletons. There was a wide variety of dinosaurs so we let each child pick which dinosaur interested them the most. We then made our own salt dough and pressed the skeleton into the dough, in order to make a dinosaur imprint. We then cooked the dough until it became hard (like the imprint fossils found today). This was a great way for us to start our exploration and learn the names of some different dinosaurs. It gave the kids a lot to talk about and many more questions to ask!

After our fossil imprints were dry, we decided to do some research on our dinosaurs. We sat down one on one with the kids and talked about their fossil. After figuring out the name of our fossil's dinosaur, we looked through books to learn more about them. We let the kids search through the books to find pictures of their specific dinosaur. Once they found a page that interested them, we  read through the pages together. Our goal after reading was to have an understanding of a few interesting facts about their dinosaur. After we felt that we finished our book exploration with each child, we let them draw a picture of their dinosaur based on what they learned. The kids talked with us through their drawings, giving details about the different body parts of their dinosaur and their uses. They labeled their drawing with the dinosaur name and we asked them to share some facts they learned about their dinosaur. This will allow you can see both the dinosaur and it's skeletal imprint!

Our research on dinosaurs took a lot more time that I thought it would. The kids spent several days enjoying the books and working with their fossils. This cut out some other activities we were planning but we'd much rather take our time when they're enjoying it so much! We're excited to see where this dinosaur exploration takes us next!

Love,
Ms. Rachael



Approaches to Learning:

• Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
• Demonstrate increasing ability to identify and take appropriate risks in order to learn and demonstrate new skills.
• Show curiosity in an increasing variety of activities, tasks, and learning centers.
• Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questioning and adding ideas.
• Demonstrate growing initiative in selecting and carrying out activities.

Social & Emotional:

• Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers, activities and materials.
• Demonstrate confidence by participating in most classroom activities.
• Follow classroom rules and procedures with reminders.
• Demonstrate with adult guidance simple techniques to solve social problems.

Language & Literacy:

• Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
• Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
• Represent familiar people and experiences through art and language.
• Combine some letters with pretend writing.
• Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language.
• Creates a picture and labels it orally.
• Understand relationship between print and pictures on a page.

Mathematics:

• Use nonstandard units of measure to compare everyday objects.
• Compare the lengths of two objects.
• Show one-to-one correspondence through ten when counting real objects.
• Begin to show an awareness of numbers in the environment.
• Integrate mathematical ideas into personal representations.
• Investigate solutions to simple problems.
• Use appropriate vocabulary to communicate mathematical idea.

Enjoying time making play dough with our Math Buddies...

 

 

Working on our fossils imprints...

 

 

Reading and researching dinosaurs!...

 

 

We got to pet a goat and learn some facts about him...

 

 

 

 



We Are Thankful!

Hello family and friends!

It's been a great week in the Tzemach class! With Thanksgiving approaching, we've been spending some time talking about the holiday and what it means to us. Of course, we are still exploring dirt and having fun with that as well! We started the week by asking the kids what they thought "thanksgiving" meant. The majority of our answers revolved around food and playing. It opened the door for some great conversations about time spent with family and friends.

One of the main things we wanted to focus on through our study was the idea of being thankful. We discussed that being thankful is something we feel all through the year...not just on Thanksgiving. We discussed the definition of being "thankful" and agreed that it meant "to be glad you have something in your life". We decided that we tend to be thankful for the things we love and the things that mean the most to us. After talking and reading about being thankful we made a classroom thankful tree. We had the students make leaves (in any shape they wanted). They then cut them out, and wrote a word to describe what they were thankful for. After making our leaves, we decided that we wanted to use real sticks as our tree. We were able to find a nice branch that had some real leaves and acorns still on, so we thought that one would be perfect! After we finished our leaves, we hung them on our tree. We told the kids that they could add to our tree whenever they wanted to. Anytime they thought of another reason to be thankful, they could make a new leave and hang it up. We have added a hold puncher in our art center for them to use and explore. The kids have really been excited about this activity and have made everything by themselves! Their tree is sitting in the hallway under our bulletin board. If you have time, stop by and read some of their sweet notes!

During our thankful discussion we also decided it might be fun to make our own book. This is something that the kids have started doing on their own during their center time. Many of them pull out paper throughout the day and staple it and draw pictures. I think some of this was encouraged by the kindergarten class a few weeks ago. They came by our classroom with homemade books and read them to us...which the kids loved! Making books has been a hobby in our room ever since. We titled our books, "My Thankful Book". At the top of each page there is written, "I am thankful for...". In our room during read alouds, we talk a lot about what it means to be authors and illustrators. We brought this discussion up again before starting our books. We reminded the kids that they would be both the author and illustrator of this book as they would be the ones to write their thankful words and draw pictures to go along with them. This was a great time for them to focus on the beginning stages of writing. We were so impressed with how sweet and meaningful these books turned out! Several of the children were so proud of their book that they wanted to read them to the class. They chose to sit in the "teacher chair" and read their book to their friends. We made this completely optional for the kids so no one felt pressured. Both the readers and listeners seemed to really enjoy this time!

Throughout these discussions of being thankful, we have also touched on the idea of traditions. We talked about the fact that each family is different and has different ways that they celebrate Thanksgiving. We talked about differences in the foods we eat, the people we spend time with, the languages spoken in our homes, where our families come from, and any other ideas that the kids brought to the table. We found out that we all have some similarities and differences. We were able to share in our similarities and learn through our differences. It was a great discussion that will hopefully have the kids talking at home about your own family life and traditions. If anyone has any special traditions they'd like share with the class, we'd love to hear about them through pictures, artifacts, etc. Feel free to bring some stuff in or stop by to share your traditions with the class.

We also had the great opportunity of visiting the 2nd grade classroom this week! On our visit, they gave us a presentation on American Indians. They have been researching 4 different tribes from South Carolina. This was a great way for us to learn about a different culture while getting to visit the elementary school. We were able to learn so much from these 4 presentations! We learned about the culture and lifestyle of each tribe, as well as their strengths and how they are similar to us. The kids were so engaged! They made comments and asked questions. We asked the 2nd graders to include us in any of their other presentations this school year, as it was enjoyed by everyone involved!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love,
Ms. Rachael



Approaches to Learning:

• Reason about events, relationships, or problems. 
• Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
• Represent prior events and personal experiences in one more more ways.
• Understand a task can be accomplished through several steps. 

Social & Emotional:

• Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following direction. 
• Participate in group life of class.
• Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others during play. 
• Express fears and concerns to familiar adults.

Language & Literacy:

• Represent familiar people and experiences through art and language.
• Use drawings, letters, or words to create narratives about people and things in their environment.
• Combine some letters with pretend writing.
• Makes some upper case letters without regard to proportion or placement.
• Begin to understand the relationship between oral language and written language. 
• Creates a pictures and labels it orally.
• Describe events of personal significance.

Mathematics:

• Organize and represent data with real objects.
• Associate at least two measurement devices with their purposes.
• Use nonstandard units of measure to compare everyday objects.
• Compare the lengths of two objects.
• Understand and use positional words to describe the locations of objects (up, down, in, over, under, behind, on top of and in front of).
• Identify and copy simple patterns.

Making leaves and decorating our thankful tree...

We are authors and illustrators! Working on our thankful books...

 

 

Some of us asked to share their story with the class....

Listening to the wonderful American Indian presentations...