Two poems inspired by Langston Hughes

Rain by Claire, Charley, Cody, & Preston

Pssh, Pssh

Water falling down from the sky

Getting wet

Running away before you get soaking wet

Pitter, Patter

Pitter, Patter

Rain by Elijah, Griffin, and Marissa

It pours down the clouds

Lightening!

It gets things wet

Thunder!

Tap, tap, click, click

Smell the rain.

Farewells

We have several student assistants going off to clinical practice next semester - Ashton, Katherine, Anna, Michelle, Caroline, we wish you well and thank you for your hard work and dedication to our program and families!

Self-portraits

We find it incredibly interesting to document children's comments, thinking, and products over time about self-image. We have made considerable efforts over the past three years to encourage study of portraits; the children make at least one visit each year to the Gibbes Museum to view their collection of portraits and participate in their workshop for children. With frequent, ongoing opportunities to study their images with mirrors and photographs, and minimal structural information about facial anatomy and placement of features, they have created a series of self-portraits using high quality watercolors and large papers that is endlessly fascinating, revealing, and quite beautiful aesthetically. Negotiating the fine line between providing just enough information to satisfy their desire to locate features proportionally, but not so much that creativity and spontaneity is compromised has been challenging. More on this effort later....

Architecture interest

We've noticed our 4/5's class has a particular interest in building with large boxes this year. They started with a school bus big enough for four children, and learned a lot about how strong it needed to be if they expected to play in it for any length of time. A few weeks later they got another idea and spent several days working on plans for and constructing a much sturdier, and very cool haunted house, complete with surprises behind the shutters on each of the many windows, and roof shingles patterned after the ones on the historic house across the street that they really liked. In a few days they will begin developing their blueprints and starting construction of a large gingerbread village. During morning meeting, a great idea emerged to see if, as part of that project, they could convert the haunted house into a big gingerbread house. Extensive remodeling is now taking place out in the hallway; every day something new gets added. In the meantime, we continue to collect and keep on hand a ready supply of boxes in all shapes and sizes as we never know when another idea will surface -

3's make quilt!!!

Our 3's class recently completed a study about babies - appropriate timing as we have several children in this class with new siblings - many of the babies (including the twins) made visits to the class so the children could learn and practice how we take care of them - feeding, changing, bathing, and playing - bath time was especially fun - One of our moms then brought her sewing machine to school and helped the children decorate fabric blocks and assemble a 'baby' quilt right before their eyes. It will stay on permanent display so when the babies are old enough to come to ECDC, too, and their big brothers and sisters are in kindergarten, they can tell them all about it.

Uploading photo problems

Just a note: we're experiencing problems uploading images, so in the interest of not continuing to postpone posting information about our program activities, we are just going to resume posting news without pictures until this problem is fixed! Stay tuned - we will add photos to these narratives when we can.

Goo, Oobleck, and other mysteries

Our four/fives class has been very interested lately in the curious physical properties of some of their favorite play materials - while most children love to manipulate 'goo' (in this case, green slime) and 'oobleck' (corn starch and water), the teachers and one of our chemistry department parents have been helping the children organize their thinking, observations, and questions using venn diagrams, charts, and time during reading and writing workshops to communicate their ideas. Here are their words when asked to describe how a venn diagram works - "We made lists firsts of goo and oobleck. We described what it sounds like, tastes like, hears like and felt like. It has a mini-chart that Miss Deanna put on the computer and printed it. We made a chart that says ooobleck, goo and oobleck and goo. We made 2 circles with a mini small circle in the middle and 2 big circles (venn diagram). We used the words from the mini-chart and tried to decide where they went. Miss Mary said the things and we decided which one went to which." The children are looking forward to mixing up more potions and adding them to their ongoing analysis project.

Costume parade

Well, the goblins, witches, princesses, superheroes were out - our annual costume parade was well attended, with lots of onlookers! Thanks to all who took time out of their morning to participate; Public Safety folks were awesome as usual--

Maps, maps, maps

Three's have been very interested in all things related to treasure and pirates! Ms. Phyllis helped them construct a treasure map recently, and provided 'clues' which they eagerly hunted for, found, and deciphered. Low and behold, after following all the clues, a treasure chest for each of them was found in the sandbox, complete with trinkets of all kinds! As we observed their enthusiasm for making the 'pretend' map, we realized they seemed to really grasp the concept of 'birds-eye-view' that is necessary for understanding of how to create and/or read maps. We posed a new challenge to them to create a 'real' map of their classroom, which they eagerly did, only needing orientation on the paper to one wall in the classroom to do so. This was followed with a second map of the playground. We were impressed with the accuracy, proportion, and details included. They are great examples demonstrating the means by which young children begin to translate what they understand about 3-D space to two-dimensional representation.

Going to Caw Caw

The 'big kids' (fours and fives) had a really exciting trip to the Caw Caw Interpretive Center recently. As part of their study of habitats, they chartered a (big) bus and had a wonderful morning with the naturalist. They observed all kinds of wildlife native to the LowCountry, asked great questions, and are busy now following up on their trip with more research and activities related to what they experienced. It was a great day! Thanks to the parents who accompanied us.

The Cycle of Life

In the fours and fives, there has been a sustained interest this year in the study of animals; the children have been particularly interested lately in representing what they know and have constructed a stuffed and painted paper 24-foot python and red-tailed hawk to scale, currently on display in the classroom. They know a lot about how animals live, eat, communicate, and the difference between predators and prey. When they came in on a recent Monday, they realized the big storm over the weekend had knocked over the nest of four baby birds they had been observing on the playground. They understood the babies were dying and there was nothing they could do to prevent that from happening. So they covered them up to make them comfortable, and later conducted a funeral and burial. Patrick hummed 'taps' throughout the ceremony and the children each paid their respects. It was an unexpected and not necessarily welcome event, but provided us a great opportunity to see how they responded with concern and compassion, but understanding that losing the baby birds was also part of the cycle of life.

Green grows the garden

The children have been hard at work planting their garden. Thanks to the College of Charleston Teaching Fellows, we had some great new soil added this year which it badly needed. The fours and fives have planted a sunflower house, tomatoes, and several variety of herbs. They are measuring the progress of the plants and posting updates on their classroom news. When the two's class noticed what they were doing and began watching them work in the garden, the older children were happy to share their work with them and helped them to plant bean seeds in little cups. The garden is such a favorite place that some of the children are choosing to eat lunch in the emerging sunflower house.

Pomp and Circumstance

Our kindergartners graduated officially on Thursday, May 1. We all gathered at the Rivers Green garden. The fourteen children sang a round of one of their favorite songs, were presented their certificates, and then we were finished! (They probably have the shortest ceremony on record). We had many families and friends on hand to celebrate and the family picnic was a great success. Thanks to all who participated and helped out with the food.

Two's go green....

The two's have been busy for the past few weeks re-using and recycling in celebration of Earth Day on April 22. The children have learned to search for the recycling emblem on the bottoms of their empty lunch containers; they even know to only use items that are marked with a 1 or a 2. They almost always remember to rinse their container and then carefully sort the object into the proper bin: paper, plastic, or metal. We actually fill our bins faster than they are emptied, so we often pull items out for other projects.... We paint on paper grocery sacks and newspaper instead of easel paper. We re-use soda bottle caps for fine motor work (transferring from bowl to bowl with tongs) We try to incorporate items like soda caps and tabs, scrap paper, sandwich foil, etc... into our collage projects. The kids had a fun time using our recycling overflow to build a "sculpture." We have more small projects planned for the upcoming weeks, including composting for the 4's & 5's garden!

Play Day 2008

We held our annual Play Day recently, jointly planned by our teachers and the Parent Advisory Board. This year Ms. Deanna took the lead, coordinating activities around a theme of our children's favorite books. Many children (and even one dad!) and the teachers dressed in character. Children were issued passports to make sure they didn't miss any activities on their trip around the playground - it was a wonderful evening, complete with a visit from the birthday bear, who brought surprise balloons for the birthday girl! Thanks to all of our teachers and parents for their hard work, donations, and support of this event.