Our Fabulous Foray to France

Every year I do a long unit focused on a country.
We approach it as if we were taking a trip.
Students are exposed to the language, music & major attractions.

Some of the books we read to learn about France.
I also used videos from Discovery Ed. to supplement the learning.
They were an engaging way to learn about daily life and culture.

We read "Camille and the Sunflowers" to get students inspired.
Even though Van Gogh was Dutch, his paintings of life in France are iconic.
His use of color is also very appealing to this age group. 

Students selected wallpaper for their own unique vase.
Mrs. Seiz was a great resource as she was born in Lyon.
She shared many games and books.
One on castles was particularly interesting to the class.

The students' versions of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

Team 5 learned about Matisse's art work.
They traced me as the model for their mural.

Mrs. Wheelihan, our art teacher, is a wonderful and willing collaborator!
Here is the final product from Team 5's Matisse project & their Eiffel tower paintings.

Another main focus on our learning about France was food, of course!

I read "How to Make Bread" in Richard Scarry's "What Do People Do All Day?"

It was a perfect introduction to our learning about one of France's great contributions- bread. 

Parent Mrs. Staloff very generously came to help our class.
She showed us how to grind wheat into flour.
They were encouraged to use their five senses during the process.

Our class ground a very impressive amount of flour in 45 minutes!
Students compared grains of wheat and rye.

Miss C. on the right was very proud to share the flour making expertise.

Student sifted to separate the bran from the flour.
They liked how it smelled.

Using a recipe with picture clues adds a literacy element
to the math and science work involved in any cooking project.
Click here for a copy of my recipe.

Making butter is a great way to learn about states of matter.
The students observed first hand how the fats in the cream separated from the buttermilk.

The butter would never have been made if it wasn't for this young man.
He shook and shook until the butter was done.

Our bread and butter.  The whole class tried and loved it!

One student contemplates which is her favorite grape... green or red.

The class also tried brie and saucisson sec.
Almost every student tried a bite of something.
The saucisson was the favorite. 

Some other work to share:

Summer's Nana came to share about St. Patrick's Day with our class.
It is an important part of their family heritage.
We looked at where Ireland was in comparison to France and VT on a map.

The class loved the goodies she brought:
a cookie, coloring pages, a story, even a hand-made tee-shirt!
Thanks again, Nana!!

Team 3 students have now become masters at running our Circle Time. 

 A great block creation.

"Months of the Year" Song

Our awesome class sings "The Months of the Year".
Team 5 students have been singing it since last year. It is a class favorite.

We learned it by singing our YouTube channel songs at Circle Time.
The Special Helper of the day picks out 2-3 songs for the beginning of Circle Time.
Older students will sing the song as a strategy to remember the name of the month we are in. 

Space Odyssey

We spent several weeks learning about
our place in space. The focus was
the Earth, our sun (stars), the moon & gravity. 

We experimented growing grass seed in trays.  

One was kept in the sun and one in total darkness.

We took photos each week with our document camera to record the changes.

Students noticed that the grass with no sun was a yellow green.

The grass that did get sunlight was a deep green.

This helped students to learn about photosynthesis

and the importance of the sun.

Students were soon able to identify the earth when ever they saw it.

"The blue is the oceans and the brown and green is where we live!"

We watched some of Commander Chris Hadfield's videos
of experiments for students taken
on the International Space Station.  

Water in zero gravity is amazing!!

This 48 piece floor puzzle was a great opportunity for teamwork
& problem solving while learning about space.

Our sun print experiment showed the power of the sun's rays.
Pattern blocks were put on black constructions paper in our window.

We took photos each week to record the changes.
Here is a sun print after four weeks. 

I made a space check list for the Dramatic Play area.
 This builds early literacy and writing skills.
Students pretended they were in the space shuttle traveling the solar system.

The class was also very interested in learning about rainbows.
I brought in a prism to help them learn about this concept.
Here is one students work with excellent attention to detail.

Team 3's Space Facts:

CS- The sun is hot.

TB- The sun is bright. 

CA- I see the moon shine when it's dark.

GaM - The sun stays in one spot.

GrM- The sun is really big.

Some Team 5's Space Facts:

ElC- The planets spin.

LC- In space stuff floats all the time.

EV- The earth spins around the sun.

MS- There's no gravity in the space ship. 

We always do one paper mache project in Pre-K every year.
We dipped newspaper into warm water and flour and laid it on balloons.
Using the water table helped control the mess.
We used low, wide plastic cup so the balloon wouldn't roll away.

This year we kicked the planet project up a notch...

We painted them with puffy paint!!

The project took about 4 weeks from start to finish.
Most students were very interested in making them.

Students had to decide if they were making a sun, moon or planet.
We discussed whether it would be warm or cold.
Students chose colors accordingly

Our finished display.
Special thanks to Mrs Seiz for making the idea become a reality.
She is fearless when it come to supporting children with their art!

One Planet

One Sun

This planet looks rather familiar...

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Winter is coming...

A little "Game of Thrones" reference for the adults out there :-)

Team 5 students enjoyed making snowflakes for winter decorations.
We also so watched snow and ice melt in to water during our morning.
Students predicted how long the transition from solid to liquid might take.

Then we turned the dramatic play area in to an ice skating rink!

Students had pretend hot chocolate & cookies for break time...
a.k.a. waiting for a turn to skate.


The students sold/bought tickets to enter the Dover Ice Rink.
Of course I had to digitally design our own personalized tickets.

I visited a children's museum and was inspired to make home made Cloud Dough.
Team 5 mixed it themselves for the whole class in our sensory table.

I found the recipe here: PBS.org Cloud Dough Exploration

They played with the Cloud Dough for weeks and it's reusable!
It was so easy to make & it moisturized their winter hands (added bonus).

Mrs Seiz made us little winter sports people to mold mountains for.

The students loved using this obstacle course.

During the winter we're lucky to have the gym to play in...

but we love our outside time too!

Building a snow fort is even better when a grader is working right nearby.

These were some of the books we read for our winter unit.
This year's focus was on people and winter sports.
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