Did you know that your child can read? When your child recognizes different signs and labels, they are reading environmental print!
Because children have a concrete connection to environmental print, ("I've been to Mc Donald's before!" "Oh I love to go to Target!" "Frosted flakes- that's my favorite cereal!" etc.) it bridges the gap between the functional print of school and the print outside.
We practiced reading today in our new literacy center! We read different signs and labels. This not only lays the foundation for future learning, but also builds the children's confidence that they are successful readers!
Now that you know that your child can read, did you know that your child can also write? Even if your child is making scribbles and adding meaning to the scribbles ("This says mommy!"), he/she is understanding the connection between spoken word and written print. This is a fundamental concept of reading and writing!
We played 'wheelie' (the name of the game the children created together) again today. We ran into some issues with whose turn it was to be the roller. The children worked together to figure out whose turn it was and who was going to be next. Problem solving and conflict resolution are two social skills that will benefit the children throughout their lives!
We had a fire drill this morning. The children did a fantastic job listening and following directions!
We also went to chapel where we learned that God has a wonderful future planned for us in Heaven!
We then returned to the classroom to investigate different parts of the a car together.
Children need to discover and construct their own ideas, therefore it is important to provide active, hands on learning for young children. It is through their investigations and inquiry that children are able to learn!
We investigated brake pads, a muffler, a tire, an oil filter and much much more!
(A HUGE thank you to Bruce over at Gray's Automotive in Richmond Heights who donated all of the items you see PLUS more for us to investigate throughout the project!!! What a blessing! For more information on Gray's Automotive, click HERE)
We discussed how we have to be so safe and gentle with the parts so we don't hurt anyone or ourselves. :)
As we were investigating, one of the friends asked, "Where is the muffler on the car?"
We looked in our car book to see if we could see where a muffler was.
We then looked at my car outside to find the muffler!
The second small group of friends wanted to bring our muffler out to my car to compare the two. We noticed that the muffler on my car was turned differently than our muffler. We also noticed that the pipe on the muffler on my car is longer than the pipe on our muffler.
When we came back inside, we were curious if the toy cars had mufflers. We started sorting the cars by muffler and no muffler. As you know, sorting is a foundational math skill!
Brian wasn't sure if what he saw on the car was a muffler, so he compared it with the real muffler.
As we were sorting, one of the friends asked, "Does a race car have a muffler?"
We again looked at our book to see if a race car does have a muffler. We then looked on the SMARTboard to see if a race car has a muffler. We discovered that a race car does not have a muffler. One of the friends said, "That race car must be really loud!"
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