Category Archives: Play

What Can We Do with a Leaf?

This is a wonderful time of year for collecting diverse materials from nature for play and education. The “loose parts”* that we can find all around us offer many diverse opportunities for sensory play, focused observation and exploration. We concentrate on color, shape, symmetry and other properties, and research into where these items come from, grow and change over time. And when we encourage the open-ended creative and imagination-rich exploration of these materials, children can show us eye-opening and varied ways to use them to realize their ideas.

Most recently the children have been especially interested in using leaves. How many ways can we use a leaf? Can we combine them to make something new? Can we sort them? How are they the same and how are they different? Do we enjoy their textures when they are fresh and when they dry out? Have we watched them falling from the trees or blowing in the wind? What sounds do we hear when we walk through leaves? What else can we notice about our leaves?

By watching the children and listening to their ideas, teachers can get a window into the children’s thinking and motivations, and can extend opportunities.

Books can be sources of inspiration and information. Here are a few that have been in the classrooms recently:
A Leaf Can Be by Laura Purdie Salas
Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber
Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert
Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert
We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger
Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins

*There is a growing conversation among educators about ways to incorporate “loose parts” – materials that can be used by children in their own unique and open-end ways – in support of play, divergent thinking, problem solving and learning that is child-driven.

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Ice and other Investigations of the Properties of Basic Materials in Nature

This year we have been even quite intentional across the whole school as we encourage on-going investigations of the properties of basic materials like sand, mud, water and ice, and to encourage children to think about changes in these and other materials over time. We’ve also been thinking about ways to make connections between our investigations indoors and outdoors.

We decided to set up an area specifically for mud play outdoors. This is very basic – two big containers with garden soil are near the sandbox along with a work surface and a variety of buckets, scoops, pans and other tools. If it’s been dry, we bring water over to the space as well – otherwise we encourage children to notice the changing texture of the soil as the weather changes.

Indoors we’ve made a point of using both kinetic (moldable) and fine sand in a variety of ways along with our classroom water tables. We’ve thought together about what we need to be able to mold sand, and children have enjoyed using a variety of tools to create shapes, sand castles and more. They have been interested in cutting kinetic sand into pieces, and have made the connection between all these materials and the natural clay we’ve introduced for art projects.

When the weather first got cold, children were excited to find ice outdoors, and there were many investigations of ice and hard sand and mud. How can we break the ice? How can we get things out of the ice? What makes ice melt? Why is the sand hard to dig hole in when the weather is cold? Each day children have been checking for signs of ice or water. Some children have been quite convinced that it is the light of the sun that makes the water. Others associate melting with warmer weather and think about how the sun brings light but also warmth. Many were unsure about where the water came from on days the ice was gone, and one child said “The sun came and made all the ice go away up into the clouds! I don’t know where the water came from.”

On another very cold day children excited to discover that in a bucket of ice, they could seeing mud and water moving under the ice! How could that happen? Why is it that when we try to reach the water we only feel the hard cold ice?

One day a small bucket was frozen inside of a bigger bucket. Children pulled and pulled until one child pulled it out, and found he had a circular piece of ice with a hole n it where the bucket had been!

Indoors there have been many ways we have investigated ice. We froze a variety of plastic animals into containers of ice and children worked to “free” the animals, concerned for their ability to get pretend food and care for their babies. We used shape molds to create 3 dimensional shapes of ice at our light tables, noticing how long it took before water was on the table too, and noticing which shapes could spin or slide best as they melted. We added liquid watercolors to the molds so that we could better see ice crystals form and other textural changes in the shapes as the ice melted, and enjoy he resulting “rainbow puddles” that formed as the ice melted. We froze paint in ice cube trays so that we could paint with ice as it melted.

Outdoors, we’ve been investigating plants, including a pumpkin, over time and children have been fascinated watching the changes in texture as time passed and as the weather changed. Our pumpkin went from a hard shell, to a soft, flat one, to a frozen disc that was softer or harder depending on the weather. We are still watching as it breaks into smaller pieces.

We’ve encouraged children to share their theories about what they are observing, and this led to small group discussions when children devised some experiments to check their theories. In one class, where some children have been convinced that it is light not warmth that leads to melting, children suggested 2 different experiments which we tried:

– Take 2 shapes, and pour warm water on one and cold water on the other. Would using warm water melt more of the ice than using cold?

– If we left our light table on all day (instead of turning off the light when no one was using it as is our habit) would the ice melt faster from the light?

All this science requires is access to some very basic materials indoors and out, time to observe, a willingness for adults to listen and then encourage further questions, and enthusiastic investigation!

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Play, Projects and Curriculum

At LCP, we believe that children learn best in a playful joyful environment having a wide variety of opportunities for hands on, concrete learning and engagement with materials that are personally meaningful to the children.

We teacher’s experience and knowledge of development guides curriculum, and the curriculum is different from year to year, reflecting the diversity of interests, learning styles, strengths and challenges of the particular children in the group. We seek to prepare a rich and stimulating environment with many possibilities and open-ended materials. We then observe and listen carefully to the children, and make classroom decisions in partnership with the children.

Teachers are also partners in learning with the children, and model the curiosity, research and documentation skills, ability to ask questions, and engagement over time, that are features of deep learning. Diverse experiences, learning styles, and interests are all valued as children and teachers cooperate together to create a “community of learners”.

Documentation of children’s work, of plants or other elements from nature, of classroom collections are at both child and adult level whenever possible. Why do we document? As children and teachers get to know each other, ideas for curriculum unfold and develop. Curriculum includes everything that happens in our program – from finding a cubby for the first time, exploring a new space, getting to know new people, learning a new skill, to investigating a theme or project together. Documentation gives us a way to organize our thinking about what happens, gives us something to show the children to trigger memories and conversation about our time together, and gives us a way to share experiences with parents, who are looking for a “window” into their child’s experience and are often looking for ways to deepen their understanding of learning and teaching in early childhood.

We keep this documentation available over extended periods of time, so that children can share memories of common experiences, deepen their understandings, share perspectives, and re-visit experiences.

There are unlimited paths that can be taken to develop skills. It’s important that we join children “where they are” to establish trust, and to assure that children know they will be listened to and appreciated for their unique qualities and contributions, and so that we can encourage each child as they “learn how to learn”.

Projects can provide a structure through which children can share perspectives on a common theme and learn together. Projects include opportunities to discuss, revisit ideas or common experiences, research an area of interest, develop skills, develop theories or solve an intellectual problem. They can last a day or several months, and may involve the whole class or a small group of children who share a common interest.

Projects typically are begun by teachers based on observations of the children’s interests, and have three parts:
1. First, there is discussion. Children talk about what they already know, what they are interested in, and may identify questions they would like to answer about the topic.
2. The second phase of the project may include activities, opportunities to research the topic, opportunities to talk with “experts” or participate in presentations about the topic.
3. Projects typically end with a culminating event or product that brings closure to the shared experience. This could be a presentation for family, making a book or participating in a performance, or deciding how to share information about the project to another class or to other teachers. Children typically help decide the best way to represent their new knowledge about the topic, and participate in evaluating the experience as well as their participation.

Project questions might include:
What do we know already?
What would we like to find out?
How will we find out?
How will we document or show what we are learning?
How can we share our new knowledge and our work with others?
How did it go? How do we feel about our work?

What projects will develop in our classrooms this year? We are in our first few weeks of school but already have beginnings.

Project Beginnings about our Gardens, Plants, and Seeds
As children investigated our playground gardens his fall, they discovered the wide variety of seeds and are beginning to think more about how plants change and grow. We found seeds together outdoors, planted seeds indoors to watch for changes, look for seeds as we cook with vegetables through our early sprouts curriculum, and recently opened a pumpkin to see and feel what’s inside.

Teachers imagine that this beginning may develop into an on-going investigation of seasonal changes on the playground.

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Volcano Project in the Nuthatch Class
Many children expressed a strong interest in volcanoes in the nuthatch class and teachers followed their lead, offering opportunities for children to draw what they know, research books and photos, and opportunities to create three dimensional volcanoes.

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Ocean Project in the Chickadee Class
After reading a classroom book called An Ocean of Animals children directly asked for more time to talk about “the deep deep ocean”. Teachers asked children to describe more about what they were interested in, and created a board with their questions. Then teachers asked “what would we do?” Children asked to draw, paint, create ocean scenes representing the variety of zones they are interested in, and make a variety of animals out of clay. The documentation of this planning process is posted in the classroom so that children can continue to express their interests as we begin.

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Water Project in the Goldfinch Class
Children asked the question, “Where does water come from?” on a rainy day. This led to beginning discussions of water and rain. After drawing their theories, teachers introduced a book called All the Water in the World.

In another discussion, one child asked about the word absorption and children shared their ideas. Follow up investigations have been on-going in the water table, where a variety of materials have been available to explore absorption. Children also used liquid watercolors on paper towels as an extension of this investigation.

Conversations about water then led some children to questions about sinking and floating, an investigation at the water table currently in process.

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First keyboards

Before the Thanksgiving break, children began exploring My First Keyboard Book by Sam Taplin. This book has scales and songs composed using color dots, and each key has the corresponding color on it. We noticed many children playing these books with a lot of interest and concentration.

We made the keyboards available for the children to play upon returning from the break. Children were spending more and more time playing these songs, so during a meeting time, teachers invited the class to compose a song.

We teachers displayed drawing tools that matched the colors of the keys along with paper that had both lines and open space. We then asked if anyone had an idea for the song, and many children started saying colors. After teachers recorded the colors requested, the class was asked to listen to how their song sounded. Teachers played the notes from the colors drawn, and this lead to conversations about high and low sounds.

We then asked the children if hearing the song made them think of anything. Some children responded that they thought of scales, so we drew stairs. Others responded that they thought of the ABC’s, so we made some letters to illustrate the song.

We invited the children to compose their own songs if they were interested. There were many different approaches to their song writing. Some children decided to play a few songs from the book before writing their own, while others chose to start their own idea right away. When writing, children would sometimes start by using colors to draw their notes and then illustrate a picture to go along with it. Others would start with a picture idea and then compose a song while thinking about their picture. A few children decided to find a song from the book they really liked and copied it onto their own piece of paper. Some even thought of songs that were not in the book and transcribed their own versions onto paper.

The children eagerly participated in this project, and some have composed multiple songs. Many have proudly played their own pieces for peers and teachers. Some even sung along as they played using their own invented lyrics or those of a familiar song. The focus these children have demonstrated while reading and playing the songs from the book and their own creations has been inspiring! Teachers are working on laminating each child’s first compositions so they can continue to play their own songs and each other’s songs. We will also support this interest by having pianists available for children to listen to and look at on the iPad.

A photo gallery of the children’s exploration of the keyboards is below, followed by some videos of their keyboard play.

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Planning a Grocery Store

We have an active pretend area in our classroom and decided it was time to encourage children to think together about how themes might be expanded. Every day children choose between home and family themes like cooking dinner or caring for babies, setting up a restaurant to going out to eat, or opening a doctor’s office. What else would be fun to pretend about together?

After some false starts, we all agreed on shopping at a grocery store. So the next question was, “What do you need to shop in a grocery store?”

Children quickly agreed that we’d need a cash register and money. But one child added a new element. She said that “the register has to be near the thing that moves”. When we asked “what thing that moves?” ideas like these developed:

• The register is on one end and the food moves to the register
• You have to turn it on – we need a switch
• The part that moves is black
• There’s a stick you have to use to keep the food apart
• We’d need many many bags
• The bags are on a hook that can hold lots of bags
• We need that machine with knobs and buttons for money – the bank so we can get money (atm machine)

Rather than rush the process, we returned to the conversation on multiple days so that we could judge what was still important to the children. It became clear we needed to build a conveyor belt. But how could we do it and what would we need?

• I have tools at home that I can bring in so we can build it
• We need a piece that’s black about this big (children showed the necessary size with their arms)
• It should be this high (showing height)
• To make it move it has to go around like this (showing the movement of a handle) – yes we need a handle!
• We need the switch to turn on and off to make it go
• The atm machine needs 5 knobs – blue, green, black, red, and purple
• The money can go through the slot

After looking at the children’s list of ideas, a parent who is a carpenter built us the conveyor belt you see in the photos below. When children first saw it, they recognized many of the features they described realized. Every day we’ve had many shoppers arranging their produce on the belt, and thinking together about how conveyor belts work! It has been exciting for teachers to see such young children come together to share their common experiences in the grocery, and then plan, problem solve, and design their own tools and space so successfully.

Use this Grocery Store to see some videos of the conveyor belt in action:

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