Tzemach Class 2016: Apples, Apples, Everywhere!

Hello family and friends!

We are off to a great start with our apple exploration! We've been able to answer several of our questions and have even found new questions to ask. We were able to find tons of books about orchards, apples, honey, and honeybees at the library. That has been a great way for us to start finding some answers to our questions. These books have been used during morning meeting, small groups, reading workshop, center time, and even quiet time. As we read, we talk about new words that we've found. We also explore real apples as we read. For example, we found a book that showed us the different parts of an apple so we got one of our real apples and cut it open. We found that it matched the pictures in our books perfectly. As we did this, we were learning different parts of the apple, how they are formed, and why each part is important to the life cycle of an apple tree.

We have also been incorporating apples into the different centers of our classroom. We put some real apples in home living for the kids to use during dramatic play. We've also added some to science for the kids to dissect and explore. We added apple seeds to our art center for the kids to add to their creations and we put several in our block center, along with the book, "Ten Apples Up on Top". The kids have been using them in blocks to build structures and buildings, as well as trying to stack them like in our story.

We've also been learning about the different varieties of apples. As we've been exploring them, we've noticed the difference in size and color. We've been doing a good amount of comparing and sorting. We even spent one morning trying different types of apples! We sampled Granny Smith, Gala, Fuji, and Envy apples. All of us, including me, had never even heard of or tasted an Envy apple so this was a new experience for all of us! After tasting each apple, we wrote our names on a piece of paper and glued it to chart paper under the name of the apple that we liked the most. After our chart was complete, we counted and totaled each column and then added the numbers together to learn how many of us participated in the survey. The majority of us favored the Envy apple. It was delicious! I found them at Trader Joe's if anyone is interested in trying them. We learned that they are a cross between a Gala and Baeburn apple and are from New Zealand. We also learned that this combination is what gives them their yellow and red colors.

We also became builders and engineers this week! We used toothpicks and chunks of apples to create whatever we wanted to make. As the kids made these structures, they were counting and problem solving. Many discovered that they could make shapes and letters with their pieces. As they made these shapes, they learned that a triangle can stand upright much better than a square, as the squares always seemed to collapse. This taught us one of the basic structural concepts of engineering. They were also working on their fine motor skills as they fit the small pieces together and worked the toothpicks to make their structures sturdy. As the kids worked, Michelle and I sat with them to see them work through the process. We took notes on our conversations with them as well as the process of completing their structures. This activity, along with a conversation with Ms. Kelly, has really got me interested in making a "tinkering" station for the kids. This would be an area full of loose parts and opportunities for imagination to run wild. Kids are natural inventors and scientists and explorers. This would be a great way to let them express these traits. I'm currently reading some books and doing research on the topic, so I'll keep you posted on this idea in a future blog post!

We also did a science experiment this week. During our taste testing we noticed that our apples were during brown quickly. Many of the kids were hesitant to eat these "brown" and "rotten" apples. We talked about the effect of oxygen meeting the apple skin and causing it to turn a brownish color. We asked the kids if they had any ideas on how we could slow down this process and make the apples last longer. They had some great suggestions for us to try! They suggested leaving the apple in the fridge, putting it in a bowl of water, covering it in plastic, wrapping it in a dry paper towel, and wrapping it in a wet paper towel. After we wrote down our suggestions, we made a hypothesis on what we thought would work best. We let the kids set up these different suggestions and we left the apple slices in our science area to be observed throughout the day. At the end of the day, we met together and discussed the results. We compared each apple slice and found that the one wrapped in a wet paper towel had the least amount of brown. This has really gotten the kids excited about science experiments so we can't wait to try some more in the weeks ahead.

As we've been researching orchards, we've learned about the importance of honeybees to apple trees. This has gotten us talking more about honey, so we will be incorporating those ideas into our exploration next week. We've been having a blast exploring and playing!

Love,
Ms. Rachael

Approaches to Learning

Reason about events, relationships, or problems.
Demonstrate growing ability to predict possible outcomes based on prior experiences and knowledge.
Demonstrate increasing ability to use prior knowledge to understand new experiences.
Represent prior events and personal experiences in one or more ways.

Social & Emotional

Interact easily with familiar adults by engaging in conversations, responding to questions and following directions.
Participate in group life of class.
Demonstrate strategies to join play group with adult support.
Display emerging social skills of trying to take turns and talk with others during play.

Language and Literacy

Explore books independently.
Begin to distinguish between real and make-believe in stories read aloud.
Begin to ask questions about the causes of events they observe or hear about in books.
Contribute to small group or whole class dictation activities.
Makes some upper case letters without regard to proportion or placement.
Combine some letters with pretend writing.

Mathematics