Taking a Close Up Look Outdoors

The Centipedes were armed with our new magnifying glasses today on walk.

  They were eager to see their world up close.

 

 

 They investigated the flowers and  plants up and down the block, looking for little creatures. Lena found a spider web with stuff in it.

 Eww! We spotted what at first they described as spit but taking a closer look discovered that they were tiny eggs waiting to hatch.

 On the pine tree they found pine cones ranging in size from 'baby' to 'really big.'

  Oh, look there is a lot going on in these rocks. 

 They looked at their world searching high and low.

 We discovered a wonderful smelling plant.

 Everyone was eager to get to sniff the leaf, sharing what they thought it smelled like. 
Many said "Oh so good" or "yummy."

 Kaya recognized the smell - lemon.  We found a lemon mint patch growing down the street.  

 Off to explore some more. 

 We found signs of a caterpillar and then discovered tiny baby caterpillars munching on the leaves of this tree. (If anyone knows what kind of tree this is please let us know.) By reading about butterflies we learned that butterflies lay their eggs on specific types of trees and caterpillars only eat the leaves from that tree. Over the next few weeks we will come back to see if we can find their chrysalis hanging in the tree.  Hopefully we will get to see what kind of butterfly emerges in the next few weeks.

Strawberries From Our Garden

In the yard this morning we noticed that many of the strawberries in our garden had turned from green to red. They were ripe and ready to pick. We counted ten red ripe strawberries. 

After washing them in the hose, we tasted them. Katy and Kate thought that they tasted delicious and wanted more.

Wiley wasn't so sure about eating them but he seemed to enjoy carrying them around the yard and throwing them. Zoe couldn't decide whether to save them or eat them but eventually she chose the latter. 

Growing food and flowers together in our garden, watering them, weeding them, and taking care of them helps children understand the cycles of life all around them. From seed to snap pea, from green tomato to red, or from seedling to giant sunflower, gardening can be a lesson in change and growth. Just like the plants in our yard grow from seed to plant, the children grow from baby to big kid. Our Beetles are no longer babies but have grown into toddlers with budding language and self-help skills, and amazing little personalities, each their own.   

Watercolor Butterflies

At Tiny Tribe we believe that Art is each person's individual expression and interpretation of the world, their own feelings, and their experiences. Art involves creative thinking and problem solving because by creating art, children use their minds to form new and original ideas.

 

We don't do a great deal of "cookie cutter" craft projects or coloring pages because we believe that those projects offer little in the way of creative development. Our art is almost always "open-ended" to allow for freedom of individual expression.

Unbeknownst to the Beetles, the coffee filters that they painted this morning will be transformed into butterflies by their teachers (and the help of a pipe cleaner) this afternoon. The product will be fun for them to keep and show their parents, but the important learning for them was in the process.

Learning About Symmetry

Creating symmetry is a simple skill that connects math to the real world for preschoolers. Recognizing and re-creating symmetry is an important step for children to understand geometry. Symmetry is a lesson in geometry that kids can understand in relationship to things they see around them, like butterflies. By folding paper in half and cutting with scissors, the preschoolers created symmetrical objects like hearts, butterflies, and human shapes.  

 By painting only one side of their unfolded shapes, they were able to experience symmetry again. This process created an identical side to the one they painted! 

Making Homemade Hummus Together

 

 The Beetles were eager to help make hummus with Jena this morning as a class project. They took turns adding different ingredients to our recipe. Together we used all of our senses to observe the textures, sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of our many ingredients. Katy found that the garlic smelled "spicy". Chloe remarked that she eats garbanzo beans at her house.

Grant used his hands to squeeze juice out of the lemon. It was harder than it looked.



 Zoe observed that the blender we used to mix our ingredients was "loud". Wiley's lemon tasted sour and he appeared to enjoy that taste.

 When we were finished blending all of our ingredients together, everyone tried some of our homemade hummus. Some of the Beetles felt that it was too "spicy", but I think that is because we added a tad too much garlic.

 To two-year olds the transformation from garbanzo beans to hummus is magical and they were very proud to share their creation with the Centipedes for lunch today. 

Caterpillars to Butterlies

The Centipedes are studying the life of butterflies.  They read stories and watched some videos of how caterpillars shed their skin to enter their pupa stage (cocoon/chrysalis).  The then enjoyed getting acting out the life cycles, a kinesthetic experience related to what they are learning about.  During class time they had choices to further their hands-on-learning.  They could create their own caterpillars using art supplies to represent the body parts that we have talked about. They could also cut along the line on a folded piece of paper to see how human bodies are symmetrical too.  Please take a peak at our smilebox from today to see them learning through lots of creative play.

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Here is another smilebox of them using teamwork and their listening skills to have a lot of parachute fun.

A digital slideshow by Smilebox

Painting Cardboard Circles

 The toddlers are going to make caterpillars using cardboard circles for the body. This morning we started the first part of our project. Zoe counted out her five cardboard circles.

One, two, three, four, five.... Circles!

 We used many different colors of paint to decorate our circles using paint brushes. Kate tested out some paint on her fingertip but decided that she did not actually like that at all and asked to be cleaned off.

 Chloe was very particular about covering each of her circles completely with paint. She used white paint to change the shade of the other colors and made swirls of color inside her other colors.

 Wiley enjoyed dabbing his paint to make dots of purple paint on his circles and on the table too.

 Jena showed the Beetles how to use their circles as stamps and make more circles on their paper.

Katy was excited to see a painted a circle on her paper after she picked up the cardboard circle!