Tree Activities to Celebrate Tu B'Shevat

This week, the class did some different tree related activities to celebrate Tu B'Shevat, the birthday of the trees. In our first activity, the children acted out the parts of a tree. Ben is the heart wood. Colin, Will, Zach and Dylan are the bark. Alex, Evie, and Iya are the roots and Jack, Lilly and Norah are the branches.  Each "part" had a different sound effect too!

After being a tree, we took the children outside to lay under a tree. We did this activity so the children could look at a tree from a new perspective.  We received some interesting answers as to what the children saw from this view!

When we came inside, the children were able to explore and build with all sizes of branches in the block area.  The children had some definite ideas about the kinds of structures that they could make with the thick, thin, long and short branches.

  When the children came to school on Thursday, they signed in by using cubes to measure their branches. Looks like Reese is ready to join in the Curious George fun!

Ben and Calvin are checking to see if Ben's cubes are equal to the length of his branch.

Norah counted her cubes to make sure she could tell us the length of her branch.

Alex's branch had a small curve,but using problem solving skills, she weighted each end with her hands in order to measure her branch.

Jack and Ben were using the skill of observation as they watched Dylan measure his branch.

Iya used the skill of estimation as she put together the number of cubes she guessed that she would need before actually measuring her branch.

Lilly's branch was the only one that had leaves.  She could have removed the leaves before measuring her branch, but she decided that her branch would be longer if she measured the branch to the top leaf.

The children joined us on the rug were we ordered their branches by the number of cubes each child counted. The children had to remember the number of cubes that they had counted, and then place their branch in order from longest to shortest.

We took the children in to the hall and asked them to stand where they thought the length of the cubes would end. After that we brought all the branches and placed them besides the cubes to see if the length of all the branches would equal the length of the cubes. The children were very proud of their math skills!

Our final math question. We asked the children if they laid beside the cubes would they be longer than all   twelve branches.  They guessed the answer, but it was fun to confirm their guess!

All the activities with the trees and their branches provided the children opportunities to celebrate Tu B'Shevat through exploration and discovery. When you walk into our room, you will see that we even connected the birthday of the trees to art, as we made a unique mobile with all our branches! 

Sharon's Half Birthday!

What a wonderful "half birthday"!  Our terrific Curious George parents surprised me with a delicious Oreo Cake, beautiful roses, sweet cards, fun plates (Aged to Perfection), Apple juice and  North Park Gold. I am  ready to shop!  A big thank you to Karen and Janet for arranging the party ,and to all the parents for bringing everything.  A birthday is so much fun when you celebrate with the Curious George children and their families!                                                                   

                                                                                  Love,
                                                                                 Sharon

Our Guest Speaker

We want to thank Alex's mom, Karen, for coming to speak to the pre-k classes about photography.  Karen began her presentation by explaining to the children how to properly take care of a camera.  Then Karen showed the children the different ways to hold a camera in order to make their pictures more interesting.  She showed them photographs taken from various perspectives, which we hope will give the children some good ideas for their own photography assignment! We know that Karen's information will help our young photographers take fabulous pictures

Making Stained Glass Art LIke Marc Chagall

     To teach the children about the artist Marc Chagall, we took them on an "art walk" to the Olan Sanctuary. In the Sanctuary, the children studied the stained glass windows,  We explained that a very famous artist named Marc Chagall made wonderful  stained glass windows, just like the ones in our sanctuary.  The children were able to see how the light from the sun streams through the stained glass and makes Olan Sanctuary such a beautiful place to pray.  After studying the stained glass, we went to Tobian Auditorium and viewed a wall of Chagall's paintings.  One of the most intriguing paintings was of a face which from one angle looks like a woman and from another angle like a man.  This painting prompted an interesting discussion amongst our children.
     To make our own windows, the children first tore various colors of tissue paper.  Then they arranged the tissue in patterns, stripes or their own design idea..  As a final artistic touch, they placed thin black paper strips on top of the tissue paper.  When you are in our room, you will see the light stream through our lovely stained glass art!

Flowers by Our Little O'Keeffes

After a short art walk through our hallway "galleries", the  girls wanted to know if we were ever going to learn about a female artist.  Good question!  The very next artist we introduced was Georgia O'Keeffe with her large, abstract flowers.  Each child chose a flower to paint and then examined their flowers under the magnifying glass to see the many shades of color each one contained. We talked about warm and cool colors and how Georgia O'Keeffe used both in her paintings. As they studied their flowers, the paint brushes flowed and our gallery of flowers came alive! 

Sculptures in Art

Using different sized wood pieces, the children created their own free standing sculpture.  Susan suggested looking at the sculpture from different angles to make sure the pieces were where they wanted them to be.  Some kids got down on their knees to see the sculpture from underneath, while others very slowly rotated the wood to get a different perspective.  Once the children were satisfied with their wood placement, they could glue down the pieces.  This was easier said than done since the kids had to really think about how to balance some of those bigger pieces.
 Look for these creative sculptures to be part of our art show in February!

Welcome to a new year and a new blog!

New purple playdough for a new year....did you know that the muscles the children use when they are rolling, pounding and shaping playdough are the same ones they use when they are holding a  pencil and writing?

New natural material for the science center too.  The children are intrigued by the shapes and colors of the  seed pods, rocks and flowers.  You can see Norah is happy with the freeform design she made while Alex and Jack used magnifying glasses for closer examination.

The class is decorating containers which we are using for Tzedakah this  year. 

Our Curious George kids build everyday!  Building in a smaller area requires more precise placement of materials and more cooperation.

And the girls want to dance and make music!

To introduce the art unit we hid some thought provoking material in the green packing peanuts.  How could each of these objects be used to make art...the children really brainstormed with each other and gave us wonderful responses.  We were so pleased with the huge jump in their vocabularies but also in the way they listened to their classmates' ideas.

At the end of the lesson we let the children explore the packing peanuts.  Of course we had some green "blizzards" but very quickly we saw the children use this material  in unique ways.  Here you can see that Colin and Zac decided to build different structures with magna-tiles and see how many peanuts would fit inside each one.