Outdoor Explorations and Tie Dye
/Our week has been filled with fun explorations and artistic endeavors! This week students did sharpie line drawings of themselves on watercolor backgrounds. Students learned how to care for our watercolors and paint brushes. Now that we've taught students how to care for painting materials, our watercolors are available during project time each day for students to use independently. This week we also got to do tie-dyeing with Mr. Mark. Folding and putting rubber bands around our garments in preparation for tie-dyeing was challenging fine motor work and was an excellent opportunity for students to practice their fine motor skills. We are excited to see how our tie-dye garments turn out!
This week we finished our Matilda read aloud and began reading Flat Stanley in preparation for our upcoming social studies unit. We've continued to add questions to our investigation poster and discovered the answers during our morning meeting. Students had many questions about hornets, yellow jackets and wasps. Through our research we learned that hornets and yellow jackets are actually types of wasps. There are many different kinds of wasps. Some wasps are solitary and others live in communities. We also learned how rubber is made and about some of the properties of rubber.
This week we got to observe the construction crew working in our outdoor classroom. We observed huge new structural pieces being added and cement being poured. We also played in our outdoor classroom in the areas that are not currently under construction. For our outside choice times this week, I divided the class into two groups. Half the class goes on campus to run and play in the green space, while the other group visits the outdoor classroom. We have two outside choice times each day, so students get time to play on campus and time to play in our outdoor classroom daily. I intentionally designed the outside groups to be a mix of returning and new Otters. This has led to students developing some new friendships! Students had terrific opportunities for problem-solving, collaborating, and regulating their emotions in the sandbox as they grappled with how to share the space and discussed what to create.
