Sharing Time

Throughout the "Full Day Learning Program", the children are assessed in many areas over the two year program. One area that is assessed is Social Development. In Social Development we look at their ability to express their needs as well as their interests. We find that a "Sharing Time" is a perfect time to assess this. The children sign a board and depending on the day, there can be 3-5 spots to sign up. The children first present their idea to the teacher, then may have a chance to sign up for that day. We decided to challenge the children and have them represent their item with a picture and words once they were finished building.

The finished creation was presented to a teacher. 

Working on drawing their finished creation.

Adding some words to their drawing.

Reading and excited to share with their peers.

When the children present during sharing time, they are encouraged to share three interesting facts about their creation.

Here are more examples of children that represented their sharing creations with a picture and words.

This student presented her car.
She said her car goes fast and takes pictures.
She also shared that the camera is on the tallest part so she can take pictures  far and close.

This student presented her picture and speed boat.
She said it can float on the water and also fly because it has wings. She also told the class that it can carry all her family and friends too.

This student decided to paint a picture of his car. He said that painting would be easier then drawing. When he presented, he told the class that it was a car now but could turn into anything. He also told the class that it was a transformer and was very very very fast. It was so fast because it has an extra wheel on the back.

Lema the Praying Mantis

What happened in Lema's Cage?

On October 17, when we came in from outdoor learning, there was a group of children that discovered that something had changed in Lema's cage. Some of the responses were:

"I think someone split something on the top."

"What did Lema do? Gross!"

"Is she sick?"

We decided to go and research it on the classroom computer and found out it was an egg sack. We also found out that in the Fall, a mother Praying Mantis lays an egg sack. We also found out that sometimes it is empty and other times there may be up to 200 babies in it. When we researched it further, we found out we needed to put the egg sack safely back in its own habitat and it would not hatch until Spring. Therefore, we gave it back to the students family that donated it to our class.

I wonder what will happen to the egg sack in the Spring?

Our New Classroom Pet

We would like to thank this student and her mom and dad for letting us have "Lema"  visit our room. Lema is a beautiful Praying Mantis. We were very excited to learn how to take care of a Praying Mantis. We learned that they can live in a small container as long as you provide them a place to climb and hide. You also need to keep the environment they live in moist and they love to eat crickets. We also learned that they live during the summer and spring months and part of the fall.    

The first time Lema came to visit us she was living in a recycled fruit container. The next day we were excited to see Lema in a new house. Dad also came by during the day and fed Lema several crickets that she enjoyed throughout the day.