Traveling Around The Globe!

Our Exploratorium has been transformed!

The Bear Cave has been a popular spot for dramatic play lately.  Remember those bears I told you the children traced, cutout, and stuffed last week....here they are to welcome our little "cubs" into fun play and learning activities.  Ziad wrote the introduction about brown bears being found in North America, Europe, Asia, and Northern Parts of Africa.




Saying G'day to Australia!

Among the many lessons about animals and plants living in Australia, the children learned this week about the Aborigine People of Australia.  They learned about Aboriginal art and even were encouraged to add their own art using stencils of animals and other nature (As Aboriginal Art is based upon what they see around them in nature) to a makeshift paper replica of Uhluru...AKA, Ayers Rock located in Central Australia and a sacred place for Aborigine People.

The sand table was filled with sand and red clay.  The clay was to represent Ayers Rock and the children  ROCKED it!  They molded and stacked it right in the middle of the table, added some eucalyptus which we learned is the choice food of koalas in Australia, and put in some of the creatures we learned to be uniquely Australian.
We read books of fiction and non, looked at videos, played games, sang songs, and filled in our KWL chart for the animals we "know", "want to learn about", and "learned about".  Our chart and brains were filled with koalas, kangaroos and opossums, which are marsupials and carry their babies in a pouch. Emus, the strangely tall birds that run very fast but do not fly, frilled dragons that have a frilly flap that flies out around their head and neck to scare predators away, dingos (wild dogs), and much more!  The children learned about the official Australian tree called the Golden Waddle and used a math lesson to make one to display in our Exploratorium.  The Golden Waddle is a tree with fluffy golden flowers.  We decided that cotton would represent the fluffy and yellow "dotters" would make them golden.  The children took turns and rolled some dice, added up the dots, counted that many cotton balls and glued them on.  Once glued the cotton was dotted to look like the flowers on the Golden Waddle.  We combined our flowers with those of the other two JK classes to "grow" the beautiful Australian tree in our Exploratorium.  Stay tuned for pictures later this week.

This week we will "travel" to the rainforest of South America and the freezing Antarctica. We're ready! Take a look!

South American Rainforest

The frigid cold of the two poles (combined for the purpose of fun) brings a lot of cool fun to Florida kids!

Exploring our world is great!

This Wednesday we will explore the beautiful international gardens of Botanical Gardens Florida.  We are very excited about this trip.  It is our first full morning trip where we will take sack lunches and picnic in the lush gardens.  I have two parent volunteers already signed up and we are ready to go!  We will leave school at 8:30 am and return after lunch in time for rest.  Please be sure to send your child with a bag lunch and disposable containers on Wednesday.

Planning Ahead!

We would love for you (Adults only please) to join us on Friday March 9th for the JK Activity Day.  It's sure to be a blast! We will travel the seven continents and experience life around the globe.  The children (and you) will engage in crafts, socio-dramatic play, cooking, eating, singing and so much more. Come and be a part of the excitement. We ask that if you'd like to be a volunteer (and we sure could use you) you arrive early, around 8:15 or so.  If you'd simply like to come for the show and the food, please arrive by 11 am.  Either way, we'll be glad to see you!

Have a happy week!