MULTI-SCENSORY LANDFORMS

Our learning about landforms started with a discussion about landforms…some that we already knew and some that were new to us. “What’s a doom (dune) anyways?” It was lots of fun creating a game to help us remember the different types of landforms. We drew pictures of landforms and wrote labels, which together make up the cards in our matching game. It’s sometimes tricky finding the words that match our pictures, but looking at the beginning letter really helps!

After learning about the different types of landforms, we were ready to create landform art! We each chose two landforms to include in our art, one in the foreground and on in the background. We then chose to add a sun or moon, and added stripes, stripes, and more stripes! We reviewed warm and cool colors and chose one family for the landforms and the other for the sky. The results are quite beautiful and VERY colorful!

Playdough is always fun! There were many innovative ways to create landforms (check out the elbows!)…some of us even tried sitting on the playdough to make plains!

Some landforms are even fun to run down!

CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE SPARKING VOLCANOES…

Week of March 7, 2011
Theme	*Everyday uses of rocks and minerals ~ We have been learning about many ways that rocks and minerals are present in our everyday lives, and created books to illustrate some of our favorite. Many of us were surprised just how many items really are made from rocks and minerals…it was interesting to imagine a world without any of these products! *Brainstorming ideas for our next theme!
Math	Subtraction ~ Making and Illustrating Subtraction Equations with simple pictures; Practicing subtraction through games: Subtraction Tic Tac Toe or Subtraction 5 in a Row, subtraction board games that we created, Empty the Bowl, Grab Bag Subtraction
Language Arts	Writing workshop, Phonics groups (beginning consonants, sm/sp/st/sk, __ck /__ke word sort), Reading groups, Handwriting (A,I,T,J)
Investigations	Lots of art, dramatic play, and board games this week.

3rd Annual "Snowshoe" Trip!

What an incredible trip! Every year is amazing as the children share in an memorable community experience while developing their awareness of the incredible strength they possess. This year was special in that many of the children were in kindergarten the first year I took the kids on this trip. The last two years they have been anxiously waiting for their time to come and go on THE snowshoe trip. I will always remember one child saying as we were driving out of the parking lot, "I can't believe this day is here! I can't believe I'm going on the snowshoe trip!"

What also amazed me about this group of kids is that they were a younger group than in the past, carried their own packs the entire way, AND did an extra three mile hike on our second day up there, totally their mileage at 12 miles! WOW! And that's not counting all the sledding and climbing up hills! Since there was little snow this year, we left the snowshoes at home and hiked in. The kids still like to call it the snowshoe trip. No blisters or frozen toes but we did leave with a stronger connection with our friends and nature, an opportunity to persevere and accomplish something great, and oodles of memories!
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Here are a few photos of our experience together...

And we're off! Four and a half miles to go! Some of us did a little math along the way as we checked our mileage to see how far we had gone and how far we had left to go. And what does 3.2 miles really mean? Well, let us discuss fractions and tenths...

It's so great to have good friends by our side.

We saw lots of animal tracks!


We love sledding together...

...on each other...

...and getting a little extra push!

Who needs sleds?! At every moment you could be sure there was a kiddo scoping out the terrain for potential sledding spots!

Occasionally we took breaks to eat, sleep, and play games together in our cozy hut.

And the whole crew! What a beautiful group of people!