Friday, February 17, 2012

A Quick Look at Centers

Here is quick look at a couple of centers.




This center is called SEE, SAY, SPELL, AND WRITE IT.  The children have cards with pictures on them and letter tiles .  They look at the pictures.  Say what it is. Spell it with the tiles.  And then write the word on their paper.




This center is a lotto game called The World Around Us.  It is a game of matching pictures to the same setting.  



This is a game of estimation.  The children scoop up bugs in a clear cup.  They then estimate how man bugs are in the cup, and write the number on their paper.  The next step is to line the bugs up on their card and count them,  then write the correct number of bugs on their paper and determine the difference in the numbers.





And here we have the good ole classic game, Chutes and Ladders.  this is a great game for counting, and working together.  









Friday, February 10, 2012

Build It Festival

Each year Vestavia East has an enrichment festival.  Each year the subject is different.  This year we had a BUILD IT FESTIVAL.

Our class was invited to the festival yesterday.  We first watched a short video in our classroom about different styles of building, and working together to build something unique and great.  We then went to the festival.  It was held in the music room.  There were many volunteer parents there to help.  The class discussed the role of the architect and the builder.  Then they did an activity.  The children worked in pairs.  The children were lying on the floor with a divider between them, . One was the architect and one was the builder.  With the same pattern blocks, the architect would build something and tell the builder what he/she was using.  This was done block by block.  The builder would listen to the architect and without being able to see attempt to build the same on his/ her side of the divider.

Notice the people standing in the background.  These are people from the Board of Ed. who work with the curriculum of Vestavia Schools.  They came to observe our class and were quite impressed!


The divider would then be lifted to see if the architect and builder built the same structure.

This activity is far more difficult than it looks.  I was so excited to see that several in our class were   actually able to do this.  This requires the architect giving good instructions and the builder listening and following the instructions. 

Next the children were divided into teams.  Each team had to construct something using news paper dowels.  This too was not as easy at it would seem to be. They had to decide on what to build and do it as a team. Teamwork is not always easy for kindergartners. 







 I was so proud of our class. No one argued or fussed about it.  Every team did a good job working together.







I had such a good time walking around and just listening to what they were saying as they planned the project and began to build.  They were all on task.   Some discussed the importance of balance and stability.There were others who were interested in making theirs the tallest.  One of the groups discussed trying to build an Eiffel Tower.






















 We did have one team that seem to be all Chiefs and no Indians.  However, they worked through their different visions of what to build, completed their project and did it without incident.  I am proud of them all!!!

After all had completed their projects, awards were given.  





What a great enrichment festival!  Than you to all parent volunteers, Mrs. Macnab, our enrichment teacher, and especially to the children for being good team members and great builders!!