Outdoor Exploration

Our Pre-K play yard is an Outdoor Learning Environment.  In this setting, children are free to explore, construct, create, and collaborate.  Teachers enhance the children's experiences in the Outdoor Learning Environment by promping inquiry and critical thinking through hands-on mini-projects.  These projects integrate environmental science concepts and Place-based education approaches.  These opportunities are designed to deepen the child's understanding of the major project at work, connect children to their place, and explore seasonal changes and topics.

Farm and Garden

Teton Valley Community formed a partnership with Full Circle Education in 2006 to implement a comprehensive Farm and Garden Program. All children attending Teton Valley Community School participate in planting the campus garden and greenhouse in the spring, composting and mixing soil, selecting, maintaining and harvesting crops, cooking garden meals, preserving food, and caring for the farm animals (chickens and alpacas). A Harvest Party luncheon is prepared by the students in the fall, and preserved garden produce is cooked into a “Love your Garden” soup for Valentine’s Day. Through this program, children gain first-hand experience in sustainable food production, healthy meal preparation, humane farm animal care and ecological land stewardship.

This week we came full cirlce with farm and garden.  We planted potatoes in our garden.  We reflected upon our year with Emily.  We remembered digging potatoes, cooking with potatoes, and reading our favorite book called The Enormous Potato by Audrey Davis.

Emily and the students planted peas in the new raised garden bed.  The trellis will allow the peas to grow tall and be easy to harvest.  She sang a song with them as well as planted and watered the seeds.  We cannot wait to see them grow.  Our job is to water the peas every day.

This week we started filling our raised garden bed with soil.  The students assisted Emily with the "big job" and transported soil and worms to our garden.  We learned about worms and the benefits of worms in a garden.

This week in farm and garden, we started planing flowers to start in our classroom.  The students will transplant the plants once they are large enough to be in the garden. We have new garden boxes behind our playground so take a peek.  They are beautiful!

We will have Farm and Garden with Full Circle Education next Wednesday, April 16th.

Emily joined us for farm and garden this week.  She read us a story called Sunflower House written by Eve Bunting.  The story was about a garden of sunflowers that provided endless possibilities for children in the story.  Next, she asked the students to pretend to be a seed and they all curled up on the floor as if a seed.  Next she asked them to think about what kind plant they would be when they grew.  She pretended to water them and the students stood up and planted their roots into the ground (feet) and reached out the leaves and blossoms.  It was great to hear the types of seeds we have in our classroom.  Many students chose flowers.  Next, Emily showed the students how to plant seeds and each student planted wheat grass and sunflowers.  The seeds are in our classroom and with be sprouting soon. 

We were lucky to have an expert Knitter in our classroom on Wednesday. Last week we learned where yarn comes from and how to create yarn from wool.  This week Lisa Dyer taught us how to use our fingers to knit. Thank you Lisa.

Emily joined us on Friday with some exciting activities.  She read us a story about where wool comes from and how the shepherd made a new cloak from the wool of his sheep.  Emily demonstrated how to card the wool and how to use a drop spindle to twist and wind the wool into yarn.  We then talked about how we use yarn to make cloth.  We have a loom in our classroom that we use to weave yarn into a flat piece. 

Emily visited us for Farm and Garden on Wednesday.  She read us The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and we discussed the preparations necessary for spring and the garden.  We looked outside and it was snowing and blowing so we painted what we thought the seeds might look like underground.  It was great to think of colorful spring pictures.  We look forward to planting in the garden again this spring.

We had a visit from Emily this Wednesday.  Emily handed us each a piece of something soft so that we could touch, smell, and see the mysterious item.  She told us that we were touching Alpaca fur.  It was very soft and the students thought it felt like stuffing from a stuffed animal.  Our entire class put on our outdoor gear and assisted Emily in dragging some hay down to the alpacas.  We entered the alpaca's fence and learned how to be quiet and calm so that we did not scare the alpacas.  They were very curious and came near us when we were quiet and had calm bodies.  We were able to get close enough to feed them a treat. 

Farm and Garden

Emily finished her lesson on bees by demonstrating how to make bees wax candles.  The students broke into two groups and walked around that table dipping the wick into the hot wax.  Each dip in the wax made the candle bigger and bigger.  Some students wrapped the candle and it may be waiting for you under your tree. 

Farm and Garden with Emily

On Wednesday, Emily handed out a tiny, hard, yellow piece of something new.  She asked us to hold it in our hands until after she finished reading the story. No one knew what we were holding.  We smelled it, looked at it, and touched it to try to come up with an idea of it's identity. Emily started reading The Magic School Bus book about bees.  She read the story and it was amazing how much our class already new about bees.  Maggie new some very important information so she is our classroom expert on bees. We learned about the honey, it's purpose, how it is made, and how the bees store it for food.  After the story was finished, Emily passed around a honeycomb and a piece from a bee box.  There was honey and beeswax on the piece from the bee hive. Once we were finished she told us we were holding beeswax and asked if we noticed if it was different from when we started. It was softer.  We molded bees out of the wax and will use the wax again for another special project on the next farm and garden day. We also had a little taste of sweet golden honey on the bread. It was delicious.

Wednesday was farm and garden with Emily.  We read the story of The Little Red Hen by Byron Barton.  We talked about the importance of working together on a project so that everyone works a little and a big project can be finished.  We then made bread from scratch.  The students broke into two groups and mixed and kneaded the bread.  We ate the finished product after rest time and it was delicious. 

We have started using the sledding hill for the first time this winter season.  It held a mixture of snow, ice, and grass but the sleds still slid down the hill.

Please remember to bring snow pants, boots, coat, hat, and mittens every day.  Please put your child's name in his or her gear so that we can return gear to the owner. 

We continued our exploration of seeds this week in our sensory table.  We used tweezers to pull seeds out of various plants so that we could take a closer look and so that we could compare them to other seeds.  It is amazing that some seeds are so small and others are quite large.  Some seeds are multiple colors and others are only brown. We gathered the seeds and put them in our art studio so that we could use them for other projects throughout the year.

We celebrated Harvest Festival on Wednesday and it was an amazing day.  The weather was beautiful and we were able to share the day with many Grandparents.  Our students were proud to share the Gnocchi we prepared last week.  However, many students were disappointed to see the green sauce on the potato pasta.  They were unsure about tasting something new but in the end most were brave and tasted the green sauce.  Some gave it a thumbs down and others gave it a thumbs up so I guess we were successful. It was also a great experience to observe an apple press and taste pure apple juice. Chris and I enjoyed spending the day with our class and I know some of the students enjoyed spending the time celebrating the day with Grandparents. This lovely event will conclude our Potato Project and we are already in full swing with our child initiated project of fire fighting.

We will be starting our Grey Wolf research next Friday, October, 18th when we visit the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone.  Please be sure to bring your child by 8:30 so that no one will be left behind.  We must get an early start if we are to cover that many miles and spend time researching the amazing animals. Please pack a cold lunch, water bottle, and weather appropriate clothing. 

We continue our preparation for the Harvest Festival. We worked with Emily to make real butter from cream.  It was a lot of work and we used strong muscles to shake, shake, and shake some more before we finally had butter.  It will taste delicious on the fresh bread and Gnocchi. 

We enjoyed a cooking adventure this week with Emily.  We made Gnocchi in preparation for Grandparent's Day and the Harvest Festival.  The students smashed the potatoes and formed a potato volcano.  Then they added ingredients such as nutmeg, pepper, flour, and baking powder. We then added the yolks of the eggs and started mixing the gooey substance.  It was exciting to feel the squishy ingredients in our fingers.  Once mixed, we rolled the it into a ball and then flattened it into a pancake shape.  We broke the pancake into pieces and each student rolled a small and thin snake like piece.  We cut the piece into tiny pieces and put it on a pan for Emily to cook.  We can't wait to taste the finished product.

Our potato project continued with our exploration of the numerous ways we cook potatoes. We used some kitchen machines

Class Name:  Grey Wolves

We are now the Grey Wolves!  We used the democratic process to find a name that would meet the criteria set up by the teachers.  Bonnie and Chris wanted to choose a name of an animal that lived in the Teton Valley Area so that the class could learn more about the animal and demonstrate the beginning skills of how to conduct research. The process started with Bonnie providing some books and field guides about animals living in our area.  Then the students each took a turn with the "talking piece" during morning meeting to tell his or her favorite local animal. (The responses were in last week's newsletter.) Bonnie and Chris narrowed down the list to contain four options for the students to choose from.  They were ponies, screaming chipmunks, snow wolves, and big horn sheep. The class then voted by each student placing a mark under the name or she chose.  The wolves won by one vote.  We decided to call ourselves Grey Wolves so that we could research the local animal. Listen for our signature howl the next time you pass our classroom or play yard.