Explore the changing colors of fall with a light table! Before school began this year, I finally decided it was time to invest in a new light table. I wanted a table that could stand alone, be large enough for several children to work on at one time, and have good lighting that worked well even
My quest this year was to create a more organised environment in my classroom. A space that allowed for natural expression through various forms of play as well as a space that was organised and wa…
Los rincones o ambientes de experimentación son unos espacios delimitados en la clase. En los que los niños trabajan de manera individual o en pequeños gru
One of the things I’ve noticed about inquiry projects is how everlasting the learning is. Our projects never really end; though we may “shelve” our thinking and ideas for a time, …
In this lesson we’ll be learning about seeds, talking about how they grow, and investigating seeds with our senses. Investigating seeds spring nature study Investigating Seeds Do you remember the video we watched of the chicken embryo growing inside its egg? A seed is a plant embryo, inside its own protective covering. We’re planting […]
Exciting play for curious young minds...
This Montessori nature tray for spring has a simple STEM bird-themed nest building activity and a John James Audubon bird print for art appreciation; perfect for preschoolers at home or in the classroom!
I updated this post HERE with freebies and more bird ideas! Enjoy! Thank you for stopping by!
Our little Stompers' imaginations and creative energy flourished during our cold and wet February. They filled their time with us by exploring, socialising, climbing, jumping and balancing, with an energy that is always surprising to us no matter how challenging the weather is. I heard they were making apple pie in the wheel barrow....Yum! See you in April. Thanks for Stomping by!
Educators, need ideas to set up your indoor learning environments for children? Find all the inspiration you need in this blog post!
Love drawing things? Learn how to draw a tree!
As part of our Math and Science Investigations (M.S.I) time in Kindergarten, our students explored a tower inquiry (In a previous post I wrote about Math and Science Investigations (M.S.I.) and how…
Do you know what Fall is perfect for? Some fun seed activities for kids! All of our plants have gone to seed, so we are finding so many treasures outside. It is amazing to see all of the different types of seeds. I thought I would compile a list of some seed activities for kids
After a nice Spring Break, we gathered to continue our Music Inquiry. The kids continued to explore creating sounds in different ways. We loved how they would bring us random objects from both inside and outside to show us how hey could create sounds, such as rubbing a stick through a handful of grass or striking a stick against a log and other surfaces, noticing that different surfaces created different sounds. Some also used their artistic talents to create instruments using paper! They loved how they could feel the vibrations when striking the chimes, reinforcing the fact that sound is caused by vibrations. The children choose a way to make sound to become an expert in. Each group organized information by creating a circle chart to show different instruments that create sound in the way they were exploring. I forgot to take photos of the finished charts. I will try to add them to this post on Monday. Each expert group chose what instrument their group would make. The shaking experts decided to create rain sticks to show that you can create sounds by shaking. The striking experts wanted to create cymbals to show that you can make sound by striking. The blowing experts created harmonicas to show that you can make sounds by blowing. They had to measure he straws to create different lengths to show different pitches. The strumming/plucking experts are still working on creating guitars to show that you can strum and pluck to create sounds. They used different sized rubber bands to show the different pitches. We are in need of paper towel tubes for them to finish! If any of you parents have any, please send them in. The rubbing experts will be creating their instruments on Monday. They will glue sandpaper to blocks (and of coarse paint them so they are beautiful) to show that you can make sound by rubbing. They will have different grades of sandpaper to show different pitches. As a whole class, we created kazoos! They loved how they could feel the vibrations when when they used them! We practiced creating different pitches with them. It took some strong finger muscles to work the rubber bands and thread ribbon through them to decorate them. We also created maracas by taping 2 spoons around a plastic egg filled with rice, beans, or sand. Each created a different pitch. We had kids model a rythym with them and we all echoed their rhythms. Now that they have investigated, the next steps are for each group to present to the rest of the class about their way of creating sound. We then need to take the information they have learned through exploring and investigating and work on answering our driving question: How can we create an area for kids at our school to explore sound? That journey will be shown in next weeks post. Meanwhile, here are a couple other things going on in our class! In Writer's Workshop, we are discovering that we are all amazing poets! They are being exposed to all kinds of poetry and working on their own poetry treasuries. When we are done, you parents will be invited to a poetry tea so we can share our amazing poems with you! I found these beautiful flowers and couldn't resist sharing their beauty with the class. They are displayed for them to take a closer look and paint. One of our friends brought in a nest with egg shells in it! We set it out for the kids to explore and built this provacation around it to invite further exploration for those who are interested. Mrs. Garrabrant brought us grocery bags to decorate for Kroger for earth day. They will use these bags for their customers groceries! I found some girls trying to plant some dead trimmings from our butterfly bush in our garden plot. I then knew it was time to dig out our gardening tools! The kids were very excited! They weeded, took out the sticks and turned the soil for us. I noticed that we need more soil so I will be looking for resources that could help us get some! They are very interested in planting something, but we haven't decided what yet. Stay tuned to see what will happen next!
Inviting learning opportunities across Reception
A Montessori child is introduced to colors using the color tablets, and starting with the primary colors. My daughter started with the prim...
Discover what loose parts are and why you need them in your classroom. Download a FREE list of over 150 loose parts resources you can use to set up age appropriate investigation areas and learning invitations in your early years setting.
DIY nature sensory bottles are a great calm-down tool and science teaching aid. They also make it easy for babies and toddlers to safely investigate natural items without the risk of choking on them.
Children love exploring with magnets, and these magnet mazes and pathways let them experiment while working on coordination & problem solving.
Below are some pics of random crafts I have done with my toddlers over the past 2 weeks. The giraffe for Zoo Animal week. I drew the giraffe on big yellow paper and then let the kids use my brown dot-to-dot markers to make the spots. The eggs in the grass for Easter. I cut up green streamers and tissue paper in to small strips and then different colored eggs. Then I let the kids glue it on to look like the eggs were in the grass (or floating above as in the pic lol) The lion for Zoo Animal week. I took a paper plate and let the kids glue on yellow strips of tissue paper around the edges for the mane and then they glued on the orange face with hoodoos eyes. I drew the lion face on according to where the eyes were placed after I asked the child of the lion was happy or sad. Usually it's happy. :)
Visiting The Nest, Virtual Tour For the health and safety of our community, The Nest will not be offering any tour for the foreseeable future due to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]
The kids had been showing interest in clouds so I asked them if they wanted to investigate the sky. They did so I found out what they knew and wondered so that I could see what direction this inquiry could go. For the past two years, our sky inquiries led to the sun, moon, stars and planets, but this year the kids went in a different direction. Most of our initial discussion seemed to revolve around the colors of the sky, clouds and rainbows. I started out by putting out invitations to explore sky colors in our art area. We read "Sky Colors" by Peter Reynolds and I put out pictures of the sky around them for inspiration. They created some beautiful Sky Colored art! Each day, one of the kids gets to look at the sky and mix paint to try to match it. They then paint a stripe on our canvas to show the color of the sky that day. This art piece will be titled "April Sky." At the end of the month, we will use it to figure out which color the sky was the most during the month of April. This is a perfect mix of art, science and math. The kids started talking about how rainbows were made, but were not satisfied with the answer of rain and sun. Some started wondering how rain and sun created rainbows. We watched a video on youtube that told us the sun's white light is made up of all the colors mixed together. When they all mix they look like white light. A prism will bend the light and separate it into its separate colors. The kids thought this was pretty cool, but I could tell they wanted to explore this further. I set out a prism, box, CD, and flashlight for them to explore and see what they noticed. They loved exploring with these materials. They were fascinated and made the connection about the raindrop being a prism and bending the light! We also saw an experiment where if you painted all the colors on a circle and then spun it really fast the colors would blend into white to show that all the colors mixed together make white. We created one, but could not get it to work. This was a good lesson to show us that not all experiments go as planned! Of course they wanted to paint rainbows so some friends helped set out all the colors and we invited friends to come paint. Our room became a very colorful place! After we learned all that we could about how rainbows were made, I took them outside to see what they noticed about the clouds. We laid down and discussed what we saw and noticed. Some kids from other classes playing outside laid down with us and joined in on our discussion. Through the week, we observed the sky and the clouds and learned that there are three main types of clouds: Cirrus, Cumulus, and Stratus. We did an activity where each child created each of the three types of clouds and showed which were the highest and which were the lowest. We started to discus the project for this inquiry and came up with a teaching mural in the hallway to show what they had learned. Part of our group wanted to show the order of the colors in all rainbows. We found material from a cloud a previous class made and used that for the our raincloud. A couple friends decided to paint raindrops directly on our mural while others wanted to make some that were more three dimensional so they strung blue beads onto yarn and hung them to our cloud along with some blue fabric and ribbon we found in our fabric drawer. Some wanted to show the raindrop acting as prism and bending the white light into the colors of the rainbow. The kids were noticing the different types of clouds as we watched the sky each day. We explored them through some books and the internet and showed what we learned by making the three main types of clouds. Some kids wanted to show the three main kinds of clouds on our mural so we found some materials and they got to work! We made some and added them to the top. Here is the finished teaching mural! I wonder what they will explore next?