Creative Writing

Creative Writing

To encourage creative writing with some of our Kindergarten aged children, we paste a picture a the top of writing paper.  He is a fluent reader and is not actively working on additional reading skills.  We keep him challenged with reading comprehension and are now asking him to produce more writing. 

Thank You

Thank you to all the families who stopped by during the Preschool Expo!  It was great meeting all of you!  If you would like to schedule a visit please send us an email at annarborchildrenshouse@gmail.com or come to our open house on February 23 from 2-4 pm. 

Come and Meet Us!

Ann Arbor Children's House will be at the Preschool Expo tomorrow from 1:00-4:00.  This will be located at:  Palmer Commons on U of M Central Campus http://palmercommons.umich.edu/directions/

We are also having an open house on February 23rd from 2:00-4:00.  If you would like to schedule a visit another day, please email us at annarborchildrenshouse@gmail.com

Vertebrate Puzzles

We have recently received some new puzzles in our classroom.  There is one puzzle for each type of vertebrate.  Some of the children have been very interested in making their own vertebrate page.  They take one of the puzzles to a table and trace each piece.  This is tricky and requires strong fine motor skills.  Some children are not at all bothered to have extra large wobbly pieces for their puzzles but others like a teacher to assist in the tracing so their piece looks like the wooden one. 

After they are done tracing, they cut out the pieces and glue them to a piece of paper.  Once dried, the child retrieves a control card that has the names of the parts of the particular animal.  They use a ruler to make a line and then write the name of the part.  One child decided to make all five pages in one week and assemble into a book! 

Rivers

One of the afternoon children had a question. Why does all of the water in rivers not sink into the ground? We decided to help him see the answer by making it a concete experience!

We made a small model of a river by gluing and taping styrofoam pieces to make different elevations into a plastic tray. We then put a layer of modeling clay over all of it.

 We then poured water with some blue food coloring in it on the top and watched how the water flowed quickly down. We talked about where water comes from that forms rivers.

In addition to the hands on experiment, we made our own parts of a river booklet to take home. 

Packing and Unpacking a Lunchbox

This is really practical!  On our practical life shelves this week we offered an activity that will help the children for a long time to come!  We packed up a lunchbox with various containers that would mimic what the children bring in for lunch each day.  For our lunch, they unpack their whole lunchbox and place it on a plate that we provide along with all of the necessary silverware. 

 The most difficult part of the lunch process for the children is opening the containers!  

With this work, the children can not only learn how to unzip the lunchbox but to open each of the containers and then pack it back up again. 

Electricity!!

This past week we studied electricity in some of the afternoons.  The children were given a balloon and shown how to create static electricity.  Rubbing the balloon created static electricity because the balloons become negatively charged and have taken some of the electrons from the hair, thus, leaving them positively charged.   The hair (positive) then rises to meet the balloon (negative) as opposites attract. 

We then showed the children our circuit board.  Here they were able to see how to light up the bulb by creating a circuit.  Many children were very interested in the circuit and ended up experimenting with ways to change the circuit.