We’ve been waiting so long and it’s finally arrived:  snow!  It may have only been 2 inches and it may have mostly melted by the time we got outside, but snow is snow and we’ll take it!  The Tugboats were so excited to get outside and play in the wet, slushy mess this morning.  We got outside at around 11 AM, but which time most of the snow had turned into soggy, muddy ground.  We did find a large patch of unmelted snow in the shadow of the Route 1 overpass, so we clambered over and let the fun begin!  The kiddos made snowballs (to throw at the wall, not each other) and snowpeople (albeit very, very tiny ones.)  More than anything, they just loved running and jumping with both feet into little piles of snow!  I think the slushy, nearly melted consistency was super soft and squishy, which is certainly appealing to most 3- and 4-year-olds, and was exactly what they wanted.  I’ll admit… it was pretty fun!

Once we returned inside, dried off and got back into our “indoor clothes,” we did a fun project to continue our exploration of the letter N: necklaces!  The children used string and Fruit Loop cereal to make themselves a colorful piece of jewelery that also serves as a delicious snack!  Each child was given a sorting tray of their own while the group shared a large tray of cereal in the middle of each table.  They selected the colors they wanted for their necklaces, sorted the colors on their personal trays, and finally began stringing the cereal onto their strings.  Some children organized their necklaces by grouping colors together.  Others made patterns by alternating their favorite colors.  Others still enjoyed simply placing the cereal at random.  Each child seemed to select their color strategy to their own challenge level, which is one of the wonderful things about projects like this one.  All children benefited from the fine motor development, as lacing a narrow string through the center of the cereal is not such a simple task!

One of our favorite songs here at Harbor City School is “5 Silly Monkeys,” which goes like this:

5 silly monkeys swingin’ from a tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, “You can’t catch me!  You can’t catch me!”  Along comes Mr. Alligator, quiet as can be, and snaps that monkey out of that tree!

With each successive verse, there is one fewer monkey swingin’ from the tree.  At the end of the song, we tickle Mr. Alligator on the chin, which everyone knows causes him to belch up the monkeys he just snapped out of the tree!

Much like other types of “5 Silly ____” songs, it helps the children begin to grasp the concept of subtraction.  Today’s group of Tugboats did a math and art project based upon this song and concept, which was also designed to emphasize the number 6, neglected lately by a few of our students.  Each child was given a picture of a tree with 6 empty monkey-shaped spaces, 6 cut out monkeys, and a paper alligator with a number printed on his belly (indicating how many monkeys the alligator was hungry for.)  Their task was to arrange all 6 monkeys swinging from the tree and the alligator on the ground below.  Individually, and with the help of a teacher, they snapped as many monkeys as their alligator needed.  They could see tangibly how if the alligator snapped 4 monkeys out of the tree, their would be 2 monkeys remaining.  After figuring out how many monkeys to remove, they were able to glue the remaining monkeys and the alligator to their picture to be taken home.

With our more low-key enrollment on Fridays, Peter and I were able to provide one-on-one attention to each child during the project, which was wonderful.  While the abstract concept of subtraction isn’t one they will be expected to master for a couple of years, the connection between the visual project and the song served as a great introduction.  They also practiced pinching and grasping small paper thin objects and, of course, the Tugboats love to use glue sticks! The children loved creating a visual representation of a song that they enjoy singing at school, which helped them to take the song home to share with their families.

What a dreary day it’s been!  The nasty wind and rain kept us from taking much of a walk this morning.  In fact, we made it as far as the corner of Bremen and Putnam Streets before we turned around and headed back inside!  Fortunately, we had the always delightful Erin, Grady’s mom, as our parent teacher today.  She always manages to brighten everything up!

Erin prepared a project, along with relevant books, to highlight how the winter season affects animals, both locally and farther away.  She shared two fantastic books with the Tugboats.  One was a guide to birds of the Northeast, complete with recordings of each bird’s song!  The children loved taking turns selecting a page, studying the bird, then pressing the button to hear what it sounded like.  The second book she shared was called Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson.  It tells the tale of a bear who snoozes all winter long while several other woodland animals venture into his cave to throw a dinner party.  The bear is awakened from his slumber by a stray flake of pepper, which causes him to sneeze.  He is finally wide awake just in time for his new friends to fall fast asleep!  The children loved imagining how brave the small animals must have been to sneak into a sleeping bear’s cave and how frightening it must have been when the bear woke up!

After enjoying some new stories, Erin helped us provide some much-needed food for our local birds and squirrels by making feeders!  Rather than use pine cones, which are a more traditional choice for feeders but could hurt the children’s tiny fingers, she brought us bagels.  Not only are they soft, safe vehicles for the animals’ food, but they are also edible themselves!  We divided the Tugboats into 3 small groups at separate tables.  Each child was given one half of a bagel and a a popsicle stick, while there was a bowl of sunflower butter at each table.  The children buttered their own bagels (trying so hard not to eat them!) with their popsicle sticks.  Once the bagels were thickly coated with sunflower butter, they placed them face down into a plate filled with mixed birdseed.  We strung the bagels with natural twine and the feeders are ready to be hung!  I loved this project because it spanned so many important educational domains.  The children practiced patience as they shared bowls of sunflower butter as well as fine motor skills by carefully spreading the butter on their bagels.  They explored concepts in biology and made connections between themselves and animals by imagining how different their lives are during these cold winter months.  Finally, it reinforced one of Harbor City School’s most important concepts: taking care of our community.  The community certainly includes our local animals!

Because we now have 13 friends on Wednesday mornings, we are able to have up to three small group projects at one time!  This morning, we explored magnets, mazes, and marble painting all at the same time!  The first group worked with Peter at the small manipulatives table.  Peter had strung several paper clips to the sides of the table and filled the mesh basket inside with a variety of magnets from our class set.  Working individually, but also observing one another, the children selected different magnets from the basket and used them to lift the paper clips into the air.  They used the magnets to swing the paper clips, to cling to the paper clips, and even to make them levitate without touching at all.  It was like magic!  After using the magnets to lift the paper clips, the children experimented with smaller magnets.  The smaller magnets didn’t cause the paper clips to float because they were not strong enough, but they were able to use the paper clips to hold up the magnets!

The second group worked with Ana, our parent helper, to explore the maze that Peter taped to the floor earlier in the week.  One child would begin at one end of the maze and another child at the other end and they would try to meet in the middle!  Once they had solved the maze, Ana added challenges like only stepping on yellow squares to move forward in the maze.  Much like the magnets, the maze challenge could be completed individually, in pairs, or as a small group.

While two groups were exploring magnets and the maze, a third group was using marbles for an unconventional purpose:  painting!  Each child was given a plastic tray with a piece of paper taped inside, a marble, and a palette of paint.  Working independently, they dipped their marbles into their preferred colors of paint, then dropped them into the tray and rolled them back and forth.  The resulting works of art were beautiful abstract pieces!  The marbles created variable lines across the page, sometimes making thicker or thinner marks.  Occasionally the marbles rolled in straight lines, but more often they rolled in curved or swerving lines.  While many of our painting projects result in pages filled to the edges with color, the limitation of using only the marble created much more negative space, which really highlighted for the children how they can create very different works of art simply by changing the paint application tool!

As we continue our exploration of the letter M this week, we did a map-reading project this morning.  Peter created a puzzle made up of 6 pieces that, when assembled, was a picture of a mountain.  He then hid all 6 pieces in different parts of the classroom.  Using an enlarged floor plan of the classroom designed by Alden’s mom, Sharon, he indicated the location of one of the 6 puzzle pieces.  We paired the children up and gave each team a map of the classroom.  Working together and with the help of a teacher or our parent teacher, Josh, each pair oriented themselves on the map, identified major components of the classroom, and tried to find their puzzle piece in its hiding place.

What an adventure this project was!  Many of the Tugboats had no problem at all identifying the major areas of the classroom, like the bathroom and the kitchen.  They also interpreted the shapes of things like the cubbies, couch, toilet and sinks very well, which helped them orient themselves on the map.  Although many of them could pinpoint their current location on the map, once they did so it was a bit more difficult to identify where the red star, which indicated their puzzle piece’s location, was in the classroom.  With a few questions from grown-ups, they were able to connect the places they were identifying on their maps with a physical location.  Once they found those locations, it just took some searching to find the missing puzzle pieces!

This project was great for today’s group because it posed a lot of important challenges.  They had to work in specific teams, practicing both leadership and support of one another.  The task we gave them was difficult, so they had to rely on one another’s strengths in order to be successful.  Teamwork is always important here at Harbor City School!