Butterflies and Yogurt

This morning, Mimi and her daddy graciously brought in new visitors into our room! They brought in caterpillars, which for many children can seem creepy and crawly. Yet these little insects go through a truly remarkable transformation and become some of the most beautiful creatures in the insect kingdom. Mimi's family thought the Owls would appreciate being able to witness this transformation, so they brought their friends into the class! Along with the insects, they brought in a caterpillar pavilion and lots of food for the little guys to eat. In order to take care of them, we transferred the caterpillars (which originally came in a container that housed all of them) into individual cups filled with food so they can have space and provisions to form their chrysalises. Thank you Mimi, Jenny and Tony!

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Penny's family also brought in special treats for our class! To help with the garden growing study, Penny's family brought in seeds. But what will the seeds be put into? They thought of that as well! Yogurt was donated, and after the contents were consumed, Owls washed out the cups so that we can use them as seed sprouting containers. Thank you Penny, Lasha, and Brent!

Other Owlings:

Why, a butterfly parade of course!

Bean Counting

Friends got a hold of the camera, and became strangely focused on photographing mouths...

"Me! Take a picture of my mouth!"

We are getting sprouts!

And it was a lovely day for an outside lunch.

A Garden Grows in the Owl Classroom

Out with the old, in with the new! That's what we say!

 Today, we converted the dramatic play area so that it reflects our seed study. We removed all of the materials in the area that did not pertain to a gardening focus, and brought in a slew of new materials, including fabric flowers, picnicking items, butterfly headbands, and more.

 At morning meeting, we had a discussion about what kinds of things that we can play in our new "dramatic garden" area. Friends came up with ideas for planting, being superheros that need to stop animals from eating the pants, picnicking, being garden monsters, suggesting creating a garden play production, and more.

Our excitement towards seeds and gardening is also starting to extend towards bugs. We've been noticing ants and other insects on our playground, so we brought out Eric Carle's "The Very Quiet Cricket Game". Remembering our board game study, small groups cooperatively played and were very respectful towards the other players.

Other Owlings:

"I'm a taco!"

A Little Catch Up

All apologies for the lack of a blog on Friday! Tamara was leading the Early Childhood Peer Network, which is a conference that brings together E.C. teachers from many different Friends schools. Mike was attending the conference, which made for a very busy day for just about everyone in the Owls room! So, let's catch you up:

Jason had a mystery moon in the center of circle! What was inside?

What does the hidden object feel like?

"It feels like string..."

It's the little man who lives on the moon--Aiken Drum!

Press play to enjoy our lovely singing and rhythm-making!

Today, the complications with blogging continued! The camera was missing for a large portion of the day, so while we had a busy morning creating observational drawings of the seeds that we had planted last week, it was impossible to take pictures of most of the amazing happenings! Over the weekend, the many of the seeds began to sprout small roots (or as Kevin called them,  "legs").

We will be continuing to document the progress of the seeds with observational drawings as time goes by. I wonder how much they will grow!?