Tuesday, March 6th

Yesterday was a drizzly sort of day; muddy shoes means sock feet on the calendar rug and lots of shoe tying for me. The letter of the week is Y and we have started our unit on animals; this week's poem is about giraffes and their silence. It's a nice, relaxing week after the craziness and eventfulness of the last few with President's Day and Dr. Seuss Day.

One of our parent volunteers couldn't be there to help, so I took over her center and the kids at my typical center had floor puzzles with animals to work on instead. At Center 3 we worked on a cutting/pasting and matching activity. Each child had a piece of paper with 10 animals on it - 2 mammals (a boy and a girl), 2 insects (a ladybug and a grasshopper), 2 birds (an eagle and a flamingo), 2 reptiles (a snake, and a tortoise), and 2 fish - all mixed up. Their assignment was to cut up these 10 pieces and glue them in the correct categories on a second piece of paper. *Side note, the general rule is "Cut one, glue one" to prevent students from cutting all ten at the same time and undoubtedly losing one or more. Great rule, but not fool proof - we still lost at least one animal per rotation.*

We worked on it as a group, talking about what qualities define animals as mammals or reptiles, why birds can fly but humans can't, and how different animals move. I love being able to have these open ended discussions with them where I can pose a question and they can take off with it, relating it to things they already know or have experienced. They feel so much more eager to learn in discussions like that, not that they aren't eager to learn always. But it makes me realize how beneficial it can be to make information relatable to students in later grades, where eagerness may not be as common. I read about it in all my text books all the time, but it's different to actually see it in practice. It feels more real that way, you know?

Favorite part of the day? Blowing five year old minds when telling them flamingos aren't born pink. And then hearing Ethan say, "What if when kids became grownups, their normal hair turned pink?" and all the other kids getting wide-eyed and grabbing their hair…so imaginative. Love it.