Sun Prints

Part of any study of Creation is awareness of light and dark.  At the preschool level, experiences provide the scaffold for learning about light and dark in ways beyond simply noticing which is which.

The Bunnies learned about the effects of the sun by making sun prints.  Each child chose an ordinary object and placed it on a small piece of dark construction paper.  We placed the papers out in the sun for a day.

The next day we had fun discovering what the sun had done to our papers. We used the terms "light" and "dark" rather than "faded" to describe what happened. 

This is a super simple science experiment that can be repeated at home.  Try gathering random objects and even larger paper to make little collages.

An Important Ritual

Here is our first fire drill.  Look how nicely everyone is positioned on the yellow line.  Yay Bunnies!

Science - Preschool Style

There are so many important science concepts that very young children can grasp.  Discovering and labeling attributes of objects is a major one.  It's a skill children will use throughout their school lives.

We started with the attributes of hard and soft.  Seems simple, right?  We began with just two objects - a wooden stick and a cotton ball.  Each child got to have their own and squeeeeeze them as tightly as they could.  Then they decided which was hard and which was soft.  Easy!  Then we had a whole bag of objects.  Each child got one and had to decide if it was hard or soft and put it in a ring to create a set.
The photo above shows the next day when the children got to practice independently.  The blue bin on the left had all the objects.  The blue ring was for hard things and the yellow ring was for soft things.  You can see the boys are successfully sorting.  There is a wooden bead and a cork in the blue ring and a cotton ball and a sponge in the yellow ring.  Way to go, Bunny boys!

We'll do much more of this type of activity throughout the year.  Next up: sink and float.

Block Play

Are you surprised to know that block play has some very well defined developmental steps?  The ability to build horizontally, vertically, and to build enclosures are all steps in spatial development.  In our class, we have children at all levels.

I will say that already this year, we have more children building vertically than we've ever had before.

By the time spring rolls around, this group is going to knock our socks off with their structures!

Opportunities

Many of the toys we have at school at just like the toys families have at home.  At home there is typically only one or two children playing with a toy at a time.  However, at school we may have five or six children playing with the same toys at the same time, and that presents opportunities - opportunities to compromise, opportunities to take a lead, opportunities to be led, opportunities to become friends, opportunities to negotiate and opportunities to resolve conflicts.  We take advantage of all of those opportunities!

Creation

During the fall semester, the Bunny Rabbits will be learning about creation.  One of the best ways for children to learn about creation is to allow them to be creators.

The Bunnies had the chance to play with colorful, translucent objects on a light table.  They were able to observe how the light shone through various colors and shapes and they created many different ways to arrange them on the light table. 

We have other ways to explore light and dark in our class, including the day and night lights God gave us - sun, moon and stars.

The Beginning

The first few days of class are about exploration.

We have new materials to learn how to use and we also explore the ways to put them away.

We have new toys to explore.  Some of our toys are games and we learn the simple rules.  Our games aren't competitive and when there is no winner and no loser, we are free to explore ways to work as a team and ways to persevere.

Exploring is one of the key ingredients to learning through play.

Welcome

It's a new year in Bunny Rabbit Class!

Mrs. Magee and Mrs. O'Connor have had fun getting to know the newest little bunnies.  We're going to have fun!