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Showing posts from March, 2010

Just add gravity

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The children have been building ramps. One day this week I put large cardboard tubes in the classroom to see how they would use them...I asked the simple question "how can I use these tubes?  I am a big fan of Jean Piaget and his thoughts on constructivism. He believed that knowledge is constructed and not given. Children build on prior knowledge to formulate new understandings of the world around them. I've added these two links if you would like to know more about constructivism and Jean Piaget.   http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index_sub2.html http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/constructivism.html

Peace flags

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We did a lot of  thinking about peace this past week.  We talked about kindness , and how in a word where people are kind to each other there is peace. The children drew pictures on fabric of peaceful or kind things. Each child sewed two buttons to attach their drawing to the flag.   We hung them in our preschool over our kitchen. They are a lovely addition to our classroom.

Opposites/ Numbers

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We love opposite week because we get to read one of our favorite books called "The Opposite". We drew opposite pictures. The VPK kids practiced their letter writing. Basic Numeracy Rote learning may be a handy tool to teach the names and order of numbers, but it needs to be supplemented with hands on activities so that children can gain an understanding that each number refers to a set amount or group of objects. In order to perform higher order calculations such as addition and subtraction, children must first be able to recognize and create concrete examples to represent numbers. Conservation of Number One important concept that young children often have difficulty understanding is conservation. Visual cues are very important for young children. If a tightly clustered group of objects is spread out they often believe that the number of objects has become greater. It is important to teach children that no matter how many times the layout of a group of objects is changed