Documenting our Documentation

We often take photos of the children in action.  Why do we do this?

(Above, Annabel paints 15 Condo Skyscraper.)

    

Here are a few of our reasons . . .(Parents and friends, you may think of even more!)

• When the children look back over their photos, they use expressive language to retell the action, thereby increasing their language skills,
• By reviewing past activities together, we notice our physical and social/emotional growth,
• By sharing our experiences with our friends, we reinforce positive relationships with our peers. We form a more cohesive group when we have shared experiences.  

     We have certainly taken many, many photos of our Construction unit.  We are now involved with including some of our photos in a Big Book.  The Book itself is a form of documentation--and, along with our blogs, it tells the story of our Construction journey. 

     We are including additional photos here, to further document and share our investigation.  

Above and below:  Shane, Ezra and Shayan add their "apartments" to 15 Condo Skyscraper.

 

 (Above) Our Big Book of Building contains documentation beginning in January and ending in May.  The Morahs began jotting down the children's dialogue.  When we noticed the interest in building, we went outside to investigate an actual construction site.  This continued for a few months.

  When we flipped over our finished  pages of our Big Book, we discovered that there was not a single page left to write on!  At that point, all of us had chosen our own "apartments" in the condo.  Perhaps we were "finished" with this project?

  But, there was one more concept we wanted to document:  asking questions.  Curiosity is important for many reasons.  "Learning to learn" means we are ready to absorb information, integrate the new information with our previous knowledge, and ask questions.  All of this guides us to form our opinions, and to create strategies for the next step.  What were our questions?

      Here are some questions about the house:  Avraham Chaim:  Is there a carport?
                                                                          Dalia:  Where are the bathrooms?
                                                                          Shane:  Is it a warehouse?
                                                                          Rafi:  Is there a cement floor?
                                                                          Harper:  Are there laser lights in the house?

(Below, the cover of our Big Book. Above, the builder of "our" house at 625 Cooledge, Jarrett Macintosh.)

Here are the answers, directly from the builder:

There's no carport, but there is a 2-door garage,

There are bathrooms throughout the house--one is on the roof!  (The builder called it a "powder room.")

This new construction is a home, not a warehouse.

There will be wooden floors, except for the garage, which will have cement floors.

The lighting is LED, to conserve energy.

So, now we know the answers to our questions!

(Below, Annabel and Dalia stage a tea party at the Condo.)

And, what about our trays?  How do they reflect our interests in building?

  (Below, Asher and Shane build together.)

Below: Eliza experiences construction with clay and golf tees. 

 Below:  a group building activity with loose parts.

 Harper drives a construction truck through the dirt.

 Below:  Rafi, Ezra, Avraham Chaim and Asher involved with the building trays.

 Below:  a close-up of one of our trays.  Yes, these are real tools--we can do it!

Below:  wait, does this pic belong in a cooking blog or a building blog?  What's it doing here?  Oh, Eli is leading us as we make edible bricks a/k/a brownies--super delish!  

Come join us at our Siyum tomorrow, Wednesday, to see our Construction Gallery and enjoy our brownies!  

The Kitah Gimmel Morahs

Preschool Paparazzi

PRESCHOOL PAPARAZZI

Have you even gotten down on the ground to take a picture? It's something I see professional photographers do ALL of the time.  They're constantly striving to get a better picture at a new angle and interesting angles. Who else gets really good views at new angles?  Our creative little ones, of course!  They experience the day like no other so we asked them to help us document what life is like here at IJP.  We had SO MUCH FUN capturing our day to day, can you see how much fun we are haivng?!

Annabelle got a close up of our Rosh hashana sensory bin.  Look at those oats, apples and the worker trucks!

Ari E found an artsy angle at one of our flower beds.  Maybe she was looking for lady bugs too!

Ari S. loves taking pictures of his friends.

Cassie is always cooking up something in the kitchen, here she may be adding to her very own food blog. 

Dovid is always thinking of others (and how to get the most friends in one shot)!

 Evan said he wanted to take a picture of Yannai and his water bottle.  Nicely done!

 Freeda took a picture from on top of the ship after a fun birthday celebration. 

Hannah takes great close ups!

 Henia gave us a glimpse into our Aleph Bet bayit! We use this to learn all of our letters!

Izzy is giving us a glimpse into yoga!

Lily took lots of photos of silly faces...

Noa took pictures of Ari climbing up the slide... 

 And then she got a close up of his star wars underwear...too funny not to post.

Pearl is giving us a view of the long walk the little ones take up to the next level of the playground.

This is what Ruthie sees during Ivrit.  Morah Leah always tells the best stories. 

Sammy couldn't resist this smiling face waiting for a photo opp. 

Shaya is a great action photographer. Here he caught not one but THREE of his friends going down the slide at the same time. 

Nobody loves Yannai's mommy more than Yannai! 

Ladybugs Galore in KDH

KDH chose to order ladybug eggs to grow in our classroom. We waited patiently for the package to arrive. During that time we read books about ladybugs, their life cycle and why they are so important to have in our garden.

Pikes Nursery was giving out bags of ladybugs. I brought a package into school and we all gathered around to put in them in our vegetable beds. We were advised to put them on leafy plants and to spray the leaves with sugar water to keep the ladybugs attracted to those plants. Even the younger classes got in on the action.

When our package arrived with the ladybug eggs we looked at the vial carefully.  Where were the eggs? They had already developed into the grub/larva stage. We put them into the ladybug domed home and gave them water. Each day we look to see how much they have grown. 

"Are they moving?"

"Are they in the pupa stage yet?"

All the children are making their own scientific log, drawing and writing what they observe.

 Ladybugs were the topic of Show and Tell this week. We were delighted with the drawings, projects and books the children brought in and shared with the class.

 Ladybugs are so much fun that we are also reading non-fiction about them. Morah Chana Liba read The Grouchy Ladybug and everyone was mesmerized.

Discovery, Science, Literacy, Sharing....... all wrapped up in...........

 ladybugs.

Morah Ruth