Room 3 at the Gilliatte building is doing a project on dogs.  Today, we visited the Fort Harrison Veterinarian.  The children learned about the instruments the vet uses on the animals, the scale to weigh the animals and got to meet and pet the resident cat!  Thank you to Fort Harrison Veterinarian! 

We invited families to come decorate a Christmas ornament with their children and have lunch.  We had a great turn out! 

Children have been experimenting with different kitchen tools and creating their own recipes.  We have been using various wet and dry ingredients together to see how the ingredients change when mixed together.  Whisks, manual hand mixers, oats and water were put out to test today. 

Here are some of the things children had to say while cooking: 

"You guys are going to love it! I’m making oatmeal.  I put a little oats, they started to mix.  Then just a little water and I start baking it.  I bake it for this minutes" (held up one hand meaning 5 minutes) -Vivian

 “I am making soup.  It’s with cream cheese, baked beans and mashed potatoes.” -Raegan

“A rainbow cake. I used water and lots and lots of oats.” -Celia​

Since the children were curious and had loads of questions about the kitchen and how it works, we decided to take a “Field Trip” to the kitchen today to see what types of equipment is needed in order to make the types of foods that Ms. Joanne makes everyday.

The children were very excited to see how an oven heats up pizza and how a dishwasher works.  When we returned to class we did memorial drawings of what we saw and discussed each of their favorite parts of the kitchen.

What has room 3 been up to? 

The children in room 2 have really taken an interest in manipulating, creating and talking about play dough.  We cannot wait to see where this will lead the children to explore and learn.  So far we have created silky and bubble dough. 

Children have also decided to create slime.  When making the two different recipes we discussed how they are the same and different.

What will happen next? 

We have decided to take a field trip to Walmart to buy all the ingredients we need to create and experiment with making a new playdough.  Children  first voted on 5 different recipes.  When looking at our chart we counted 8 votes for the “Marshmallow Playdough.”  This was the group with the most votes. 

When looking at the recipes and planning our shopping trip we found that a lot of play dough recipes have similar ingredients.  With this said we can probably use multiple recipes with just a handful of the same ingredients. 

(The pictures attached show the children creating tally marks when placing their vote on the play dough recipe to make.  Other pictures show them playing and manipulating the slime we created. ) 

The children in room 3 have really enjoyed shaping and manipulating play dough.  They have really taken an interest in talking about how to make it and decided to make slime.  We compared how slime is the same and different. ​

Statements made by some of the children: 
“It looks like playdough, but when you touch it, it is sticky” –Mark

“It would be different to make playdough, like different ingredients.” –Raegan

“Stretchy!” -Sarahi 

"It jiggles!" -Larissa

Children have been continuing creating art collaboratively.  Recently we used salt, liquid water colors and pipettes to produce some amazing art.  The salt and liquid water color created a variety of vibrant colors. ​The results of our salt art were incredible! ​

Over the past weeks children have thoroughly enjoyed creating beautiful art together. 

Collaborative and collage art with found materials collected near the duck pond.

Using beads and wire on a wreath.

Sharpie markers were used to make a puzzle.

Children have begun to explore light and shadows.  We experimented with putting flashlights together. When  put together and turned on children discovered they could see shadows.  We found that when we use flashlights with mirrors we create reflections of the light.

Building towers has been a strong interest in our classroom. We are reviewing architecture books to get additional ideas as we build our towers.