Continued Explorations

We are continuing our exploration of birds, wings and bird's nests.  This week we made bird's nests out of sticks and drew pictures of them.  We are especially interested in the family aspect of the birds.  We always have a mommy bird, a daddy bird and a baby bird.  We want to explore next week what do the mommy and daddy birds do for their babies.

Pathways! We have created giant pathways in our room with rain gutters!  The children had many discussions of where their paths were going, how to get to different places and what happens when there is a gap in the path.  We also have many conversations of what happens when there are traffic jams.  We have practiced negotiation skills a lot this week!

Water and sand - we have been investigating water movement and sand movement throughout the course of the semester.  We know that water flows faster than sand when we transfer it from cup to cup.  When we tried the water and sand in the rain gutters we found that our sand wasn't moving at all!  However, after some further investigation we found out that we could add water to the sand to help it move down the gutter.

Doctor - I need help!

The children have been very interested in caring for each other and babies.  They feed each other in the kitchen, help each other wash hands and spend a lot of time taking care of babies in our library area.  One day, they laid out pillows and took turns being "sick." They would tuck each other in with a blanket, give each other medicine, and rub their friends backs so they could sleep.

 

We pulled out the doctor kit to help extend these ideas the children were engaging in.  They were very interested in learning about the different tools and how doctors use them.  We were very interested in the stethoscopes and the ace bandages.

We researched pictures of doctors using ace bandages so we could see how they were used appropriately.  We saw that they were mostly used on arms and legs.  We practiced wrapping up each others arms and legs with the bandages. 

The children especially enjoyed doctoring our teachers.  At one point, teacher had both her arms in slings and was not able to use her arms.  The children realized she could not do things like hold a book, talk on the phone or feed herself.  They problem solved ways to help her accomplish these tasks.  The children were very caring and nurturing to this teacher and enjoyed finding ways to help her.