Discovering Shapes With The Beetles

This morning during class time the Beetles discovered a fun new way to reinforce learning about shapes.  Katy pointed to her paper and repeated after Victoria, 'triangle'. Zoe new immediately that she had a, 'diamond'.

 After painting over their paper and taped shapes, the Beetles helped Victoria remove the masking tape off their papers. They revealed a an image of their different shapes.

Color Mixing with Red, Yellow, and Blue

The toddlers explored color mixing this morning. Starting with the primary colors; red, yellow, and blue, they made many new colors and shades by mixing them together.



Jena demonstrated how mixing a little bit of blue paint and a little bit of yellow paint together they could make a new color; green!



The toddlers made observations about what they saw. Jena and Victoria provided them with new vocabulary words to help describe what they were experiencing. They enjoyed this painting project so much that they each painted three paintings or more before it was time to clean up for circle time. 

Numbers in Our Daily Life- A Visit to the Post Office

 One of our favorite daily activities on walk is noticing the numbers on the houses, apartments, and businesses that we walk past. Today Jena had a package to mail so we decided to make it a learning experience and head off to the post office on our morning walk. Before we left Tiny Tribe, we noticed that the numbers on our fence were also on Jena's package as a return address.  

Along our walk, we noticed many numbers and called them out together. We also ran into a postal worker carrying a large bag filled with mail. We stopped to talk with her about delivering mail. The kids had lots of questions and observations. At the post office, we learned that sending mail costs money. Jena paid $19.10 for her package. The post office worker gave each of the preschoolers coloring books for them to take home.



Give Me A Stage!

... and let me rock out... and perform for you...for the world is my stage.

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Ercolini Shape Day

In exploring shapes this week we headed out to Ercolini to see and talk about how shapes are used all over.  At the park they were all asked to look for shapes as they were playing.  See where they found them and what they were used for. Take a peak at our smilebox to see what they found:

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Getting Ready for our Classroom Caterpillars

 Kaya and Anna Lee joined the Beetle class as helpers today. During circle time, we read the Eric Carle story of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We talked about how our very own caterpillars are on the way to us in the mail. We will be receiving ten live caterpillars and their food sometime next week.

Kaya and Anna Lee remember our caterpillars from last year so they were able to talk to the Beetles about how they will be very tiny when they first arrive.

 They will eat their food and grow bigger and bigger, just like the caterpillar in the book.  They will then build a small house around themselves, called a cocoon.  

 They will stay that way for a few weeks until they slowly start to come out....

becoming beautiful butterflies!

A World of Shapes

The Centipedes are focusing on shapes this week.  Each morning one of them reaches into our shape bag and pulls out a shape for us to focus on that day. Today's shape was a circle, so we added circles, spheres, and ovals to our shape conversation.  Each day after exploring the shape hands on and seeing how the shape is made; they go to see how they can make shapes, how they are used and where they can be found in our daily lives. 

Take a peak below at our Smilesbox from today: 

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An Ordinary Day

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Urban Neighborhood Shape Walk

Exploring Clay and Cutting with Scissors

  What can we do with these scissors?

Can we open and shut them? 

We can try to cut the clay with them.

  What can we do with this clay?

What does it feel like, look like, and smell like?

Can we roll it, smash it, break it, mash it?

 Can we make things with our clay? 

Can we make animals and pretend to be animals?

Quack, quack! Meow!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

  Cardboard boxes that had been transformed into a pirate ship sparked immediate imaginative play this morning for the Beetles.

 Aaarrghhh! Shiver me timbers!

 

 

Friday Fun Day!

 Our Tiny Tribe alumni (Finn, Grace, and Layla) joined the older Centipedes (Lena, Chase, Myla, and Austin) for a relaxing and fun hike, playground play, and picnic lunch at Lincoln Park this morning.

What a fun day we had together with our old dear friends.