As we turned the calendar to December, we began a new unit about Construction, Buildings, and Architecture!  I’m so excited about this unit, because it’s a collaboration between the teaching staff and a parent volunteer, so it exemplifies one of the amazing benefits of a co-op program.  Parents have a chance to influence their children’s education, while teachers have a unique opportunity to learn from our students’ parents in a very hands-on way.  It’s a win-win!  In this case, one of our parents is an architect and was very excited to share her career with the Tugboats.  She built a list of ideas that she thought would be important to share with the children, and with that, the staff began building our December curriculum.

This week, we focused on the different types of buildings in our neighborhoods:  houses, apartments, schools, libraries, police stations, grocery stores, restaurants, and more.  We took a close look at houses and found that they are composed of shapes we recognize, like squares, triangles, and rectangles.  Some of our students were given an opportunity to practice recognizing and recreating these shapes, while others practiced strengthening their fine motor skills by drawing their own houses and paying special attention to details.  We revisited a classic activity that we like to call City Build, in which we turn our entire classroom floor into a city!  The Tugboats were split into pairs and groups of three to focus on specific types of buildings that every city needs, and each was assigned a building material based upon his or her challenge levels.  We also enjoyed an activity inspired by literature.  After reading If I Built A House, by Chris Van Dusen, we imagined all sorts of fantastical rooms we would build if given the opportunity!  Finally, we used a literacy exploration to create our own imaginary city skyline.  Each child was given colorful letters to compose his or her own name.  Some children cut out their own letters, while others colored their letters with crayons or traced the letters written by adults.  When we stacked them up vertically and arranged them next to each other, it looked a lot like a row of city skyscrapers!

In addition to all of this construction fun, we were thrilled to welcome the newest member of our teaching team, Nora!  The Tugboats have enjoyed getting to know Nora and are fascinated to learn that she speaks both English and Spanish and that she teaches Spanish to students at another school.  We’re excited for all the wonderful things we’ll learn from Nora!

Finally, we took a break from our building unit this week to welcome some furry, fuzzy, feathery friends into the classroom: Barn Babies came for a visit!  Check out our album on our Facebook page (and Like us while you’re there!)  for some major cuteness overload.  Kerri and Vanessa brought puppies, kittens, bunnies, chickens, a piglet, and even a goat that wears a diaper for us to snuggle and enjoy!