Texas!Earth Day!Passover!

We have started our final unit of study, TEXAS!  All cowboys need a hat and bandanna, and the children are learning why these pieces of clothing are much more than dramatic play props.

Another buckaroo ready for work.

Painting the Texas flag.....getting the proper position of the colors and the proper proportions is a good visual discrimination exercise.  Painting on the easel strengthens those shoulder muscles too.

Instead of giving the children a star pattern, we made a dot to dot and had them make their own 5 pointed star. This activity provided the children the opportunity to practice number sequence as they made the "Lone Star" for their Texas flags.

Iya is cutting out her star which she placed on her Texas flag.

Another symbol of Texas is the yellow rose.  We brought in some yellow roses for the children to observe.  It was interesting to watch as they tried to paint all the different petals.

After checking to see exactly where the little bits of red on the yellow buds would go, Ben is finishing his painting.

Lilly is standing in front of our new bulletin board.  If you have not seen it, please take a look.  Remember those early still life paintings and our first attempts at cutting---everyone has made huge strides!

Colin was so excited about our Texas flag that he decided to make one he could take home right away!

Another Texas activity--bingo using state and cowboy images.  Texas Bingo gave us a chance to introduce new vocabulary in a fun way, and the children loved guessing which pictures we were talking about.

This year we celebrated Earth Day for our Passover Experience!  Here Zac and Iya are using small shovels to fill old shoes with soil.  They had to work together, as  one child held open the shoe and the other put the dirt inside.  Then they sprinkled in some flower seeds----we hope all our shoes will turn into beautiful planters for our Gan Shalom.

Making bugs out of clay and other natural materials gave the children a chance to connect  Earth Day with Passover.  Pharoah would not have liked all those bugs showing up as a plague!

Finally, we recycled old shoe boxes to make bricks.  We spread putty on the lids and then the children stacked the boxes, just like the slaves who built the pyramids in Egypt. 

Happy Earth Day 2011!