“Oh, I like your mosaic, Avery!” says Claire, who has wandered over to look at the mosaic that Avery has just created with sidewalk chalk and tape. “Yours only had triangles. We did squares and triangles and those long skinny squares.” “Oh, you mean rectangles! I want to see it!” Avery exclaims. He jumps up […]
“When we drive to school in the morning, the sunflowers are facing one way and when we drive home after school they are facing the other way. That’s because they always want to see where I am going!” brags Melania to the other children on the bus. “That’s not true,” grumbles Roberta, who is clearly […]
It’s another 90-degree morning, and we’re going deep into water play to keep our budding mathematicians as cool and happy as possible on this humid, sultry day. I glance over just in time to catch three-year-old Tahin playing with one of the small watering cans. It’s obvious that no one has mentored him […]
“Fingers, fingers, 1-2-3…how many fingers do you see?” We are playing one of our favorite finger games. I hide one hand behind my back. When I bring it forward, I hold up some fingers and the children shout out the number of fingers that they see. “Three!” shout the friends playing the game. […]
“I-am-a-robot! I-can-do-anything!” squeaks Terrell in his best four-year-old robot voice. “Oh, I like that you used that octagon for your robot’s head,” says Michaela. “I am going to try that!” We are deep into robot construction this month and robots are popping up all over our play spaces. We are constructing robots from clay. We […]
A pair of four-year-olds in my classroom are happily playing “dice wars,” a simple but fast-paced game. To play, each child rolls a die and the player who rolls the highest number wins. No one is keeping score today—and nobody seems to care who wins each round. I watch as Juan shakes the die between […]
James bounces into our early childhood center on a gloomy March morning and asks, “Can we make muffins today?” “Yes! Muffins!” the other children shout, jumping up and down in what just moments before had been a calm, quiet and sleepy classroom. We cook a lot, and over the years I have learned to stretch […]
Today is one of those magical winter mornings when snow blankets the ground and clings to the trees around our center. The sun is shining and the world looks so sparkly and irresistible that we head outside in spite of the freezing temperatures. “Hey! Who has the smiling boot?” Jacoby calls out to the […]
“Five green and speckled frogs…sat on a speckled log…eating some delicious bugs. Yum yum!” I hear a chorus of voices singing in our outdoor classroom as three young friends hold hands and frolic around in a circle When we sing counting songs such as “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” or “This Old Man,” we […]
“Five green and speckled frogs…sat on a speckled log…eating some delicious bugs. Yum yum! I hear a chorus of young voices singing in our outdoor classroom as three young friends hold hands and frolic around in a circle. When we sing counting songs such as “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” or “This Old Man,” […]