The children arrived back at school excited to tally up the results of our 'School Poll' research project to discover what the children at PJS call their mothers and fathers. The first thing we needed to do was to create a larger grid on which to write our final tally results. Next, the children used unifix cubes to add up the information from each category from every grade. We created a bar graph and counted up the total number of tally marks for each category for mothers and for fathers. Finally, the children wrote the final tally totals on our large grid so we can easily share our information with the entire school. This was a long, engaging project that taught the children how to conduct a simple research project in order to answer their thoughtful question. The results of our poll are now hanging outside of our classroom. Please be sure to take a moment to look at the product of the children's hard work. As we wind up this unit of study, I want to thank all of you who returned our Family Traditions Questionnaire and sent in a family photograph. If you have not yet had a chance to fill out the questionnaire (included in the last blog update) or send in a photo, please do so as soon as possible. Thank you!
The joy of painting! Several children independently choose to paint with watercolors last week. Returning to a favorite medium encourages children to experiment with new techniques and to further explore color and design.
It was delightful to finally be able to play outside for long periods of time! The children practiced new climbing skills, played tag, created roads in the wood chips and reached for the sky on the swings. They also rediscovered the large hollow blocks on the playground and they built a succession of different structures to play in and climb on.
We went for a walk during Learning Through Landscapes to look for signs of spring on our campus. The first things Mrs. Z showed the children was a praying mantis nest that was hidden in a bush. It was fascinating! The children looked around carefully and spied several more nests on surrounding bushes. Next we went to the pond to look for frogs but we did not see any. Afterward, Mrs. Z showed us how to clean out the old nests from the birdhouses on campus. In some of the bird houses we found nests that mice had built! Finally, the children had a chance to explore and play on the bridge and watch the stream running through our woods.