It is the time of the year to study apples!
We began the week with small groups demonstrating an apple dissection.
The children hear the names of the different parts of the apple and place the real piece on the black card.
Once they have had a lesson, they may take this work out and match the parts whenever they choose.
This three year old decided to paint an apple on the art table. In the first photo he had remembered the leaf on the apple that he saw.
Later, when he returned back to do it again, he drew the “blossom end” as seen on the bottom in the second photo.
The Kindergartner/afternoon group took a field trip to Wasem Fruit Farm. http://www.wasemfruitfarm.com/tours.html
Here they learned about a few varieties of apples, took a tour through the apple washing and storing process, had a snack of cider and donuts and then picked their own apples. This is a wonderful way to get the children to experience how food grows and where it comes from.
We then made a fun activity of washing the apples. Many children watched the multistep lesson on how to wash an apple and wanted to try it for themselves!
After you put on an apron (and have someone tie it in the back), you place out all of the items and fill up the water pitcher.
Pour the water into the washing bowl.
Place an apple in the bowl.
Scrub!
Dry.
Place in colander.
After this the child walks through the classroom with a clean and sparkly apple and places it in a bowl.
Most children are very attracted to this activity and want to repeat it over and over.
We will use these clean apples to cut and make into applesauce next week.
Another art work was apple printing.
Here the child paints on side of an apple and pushes it on the paper to create prints of apples.
At the end of the week, we had an apple tasting. Dr. Montessori stressed the importance of sensorial education at this age.
Here, we educate the sense of taste.
We looked at six different types of apples:
ginger gold
gala
red delicious (picked at the apple orchard)
honey crisp
liberty
courtland
We looked at the differences and similarities in the exocarp, mesocarp and the endocarp. (Some of the children remembered these names from the apple dissection lesson.)
Tasting them and deciding the favorite was the best part for many! We look forward to our applesauce next week!
After spending the Fall studying the five types of vertebrates, we like to review what we have learned.
This is a very fun work! The children categorize the animals in the basket under the proper categories. They have fun working
together to make sure there are five animals in each category.
Reptiles and mammals are the tricky ones! A fish almost always looks like another fish and birds look similar too.
We then schedule a visit from our friend Paul, the Critter Guy!
He brings as many animals as he can! This year, we didn’t have birds or a fish but three other categories were well represented!
We began with Woody, the tree frog!
A snake is always a hit! We have had several different ones over the years.
This reptile was a new visitor for us. He was REALLY slow! He was a Fat Tail Gecko!
The Blue-Tongued Skink is always fun and entertaining! He really does have a blue tongue!
Mammals! We seem to enjoy the fellow mammals the most. First up was a mouse!
She left many “presents!” The children thought this was really funny!
Then, our chinchilla friend. The softest animal ever!
But the BIG hit this year was a European Hare. This guy is so cute and cuddly!
He likes to be held and rocked like a baby!
The children were gentle with all of the animals but especially this guy!
Almost everyone held and rocked him.
We had so much fun with the Critter Guy!
Thanks again to Paul for coming! We will see you next year!
We recently studied our third type of vertebrate- the reptile! Some characteristics of reptiles include: They are covered in scales. They breathe with lungs.
Most lay eggs. Almost all are cold blooded.
The afternoon children took a field trip to the Great Lakes Zoological Society to check out more reptiles. http://www.glzszoo.com/
We were able to see many types of reptiles! After our experience with the guide, we walked around the zoo and completed a scavenger hunt.
The younger children were also able to experience a reptile when one of our students (and dad) brought in his pet snake Sly! Sly happened to be molting and was slightly duller in appearance than normal but he was as good sport. All of the children were able to take a close look but we didn’t touch him. We were also able to match reptile cards and read many reptile books.
We decided to take a small group of afternooners on a field trip to the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology as we have been studying Africa and most specifically, Ancient Egypt.
We hopped on the bus and headed into campus. Our stop was right by the cube so we decided it was necessary to give it a spin before the trip inside the museum.
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/kelsey/
First, we read the rules! When our Docent arrived, we were well prepared to answer her question of
“What are the rules of the museum?”
We saw many, many interesting artifacts. We even saw a child mummy! Jean our Docent helped to explain this in a very gently, age appropriate way!
We saw many masks that were put on people who had died as a way to identify them.
Here we were fascinated with a cat and hawk mummy!
Children in ancient Egypt played with many recognizable toys! After our tour, Jean read a book to the children called “Temple Cat.” http://www.amazon.com/Temple-Cat-Andrew-Clements/dp/0618111395 The children enjoyed the story and the whole field trip!
Thank you Kelsey!
As part of our classroom study of Ancient Egypt, many children have decided to make pyramids out of sugar cubes!
We also used hieroglyphic stamps to write names as well as various words.
s we have been studying types of transportation, we decided to take some of the afternooners on a bus trip to the library!
They wrote out a list of books they would like to check out:
Book about mercury (the element – not the planet!)
Space
Dinosaur Skeleton
Book about sharks
garbage trucks
We took bus 5B to the library! It was VERY fun to wait (although hot on an 80 degree day) for the bus and to sit in the seats!
When we arrived at the library, they were very helpful and listened to the list of books. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a book on mercury the element at this library (it has been ordered and picked up at the downtown branch), so this child chose a book about batteries instead.
We had some time to read the books in the nice cool space and then some children played at the table.
Here are the books! Sideways….
We had a great field trip with the afternooners to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens! We went on one sunny, hot day. We were so lucky to see some wildlife in the gardens. The children saw geese with new babies, and Egret, a baby turtle and many birds flying around. We also went inside and saw the huge Koi! Here are some photos…
This was a very fun trip for the children (except the part where the sunglasses fell in while looking at the turtle). We were able to talk about characteristics of birds and reptiles (having learned about the five vertebrates earlier in the year.)
http://www.lsa.umich.edu/mbg/
