The children of room 3 observed and discussed a book, "The Colors of Us," by Karen Katz. As we read the story, we discussed our differences and similarities, focusing on all of our varying, unique beautiful skin-tones. This led to the class comparing our own differences with the many different characters in the book and beginning discussions on how we could create these very specific colors! Next, the students began work within a provocation of mirrors, chalk pastel, white colored pencil, and black paper to be used in creating detailed self-portraits. The chalk pastels blend wonderfully, allowing the children to really work on creating their own, unique shades.

Members from the Civic Theater visited our students in Room 3 last week. Ms. Susan read books to the students that discussed various emotions and how to portray emotions in a healthy and safe way. After she was finished reading the books, the children enjoyed acting out the various emotions discussed in the books! 

We have been celebrating each child's uniqueness in Room 3 throughout various projects and explorations. The students have been reading several books that help to better explain and create understanding for each individual's differences and similarities. They have learned how to identify similarities, such as physical attributes, while finding ways that they are difference such as hair color, gender, size and the languages that they speak. They then had the opportunity to create self-portraits of themselves in the art studio with Mr. Bryan! 

As our light project progresses, we decided to get the children out into the community to learn about what different kinds of lights there are and what they are used for. We took a walking field trip to the Theater at the Fort where the children got to see how the lights work and dance on the stage. They also got to go to the makeup room and see where the actors and actresses get ready and prepare for a show. During this field trip they incorporated many different topics from Social skills, English/Language Arts, Art to Social Studies.

The students in Room 3 were very interested with lights! They explored outside to see how many different kinds of lights they could find. 

The students were asked to think about and explore all of the different places we could find lights. 

Thomas: "I see lights on the car."

Ms. Carolyn: "What do you see?"

Jaretssi: "Shadow!"

Ja'Niyah: "Me!"

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. )