Imagine

Thanksgiving and all our great conversations about what it means to be thankful ignited a true exploration of appreciation and gratitude. We began drawing pictures of all these things that mean so much to us and it really never stopped. The children drew and painted their hearts out right onto paper and we saved them all. When Melissa and I started brainstorming about what our holiday gifts would be this year it actually turned into a kind of no brainer. We just had to figure out how to execute our plan and involve the children every step of the way. So these pictures depict our journey. Weeks of work went into this endeavor from the pictures themselves to the front and back covers, to the titles and the final product.  The children were so very proud! No matter what you believe this time of year I think we can all agree ( no matter what metaphors we use ) that love, birth, returning of light, and holding on to the things we find dear are the reasons for the season. Whether we loo...

It started with my friend wanting to know what the “middle” of something was. This is the kind of opportunity that as an educator I live for.  We talked about it and we “eyeballed” it but something wasn’t quite satisfying him. I brought out a tape measure to help. The tape measure allowed us to explore a number of basic concepts. This measuring for “half” allowed for some simple addition to be introduced.  This initial interest by one child sparked the interest in many children and soon they were all negotiating taking turns using the tape measure to measure everything they could find on our playground. The initial idea of finding the middle was lost by the group but all this measuring allowed for great opportunities to count and to introduce measurement vocabulary words. We also talked a lot about what was “longest and what was “shortest”.  For the younger children in our class I provoked a size activity using leaves on our playground. Some of our friends really go...