Looking outside of our windows and being mesmerized by the snowflakes falling has become our shared interests lately. We take a few books to understand how do snowflakes form? Does it come from the rain and when it's cold enough, then it turns into snow? The book informs us that snowflakes start out as a round or spherical, water droplets in the clouds. When the temperature cold enough, the water droplets freeze, they now take a hexagonal shape. Yoyo works with elastic bands and push pins to form a hexagon shape with 6 sides to create a symmetrical pattern. The hexagons are our starting point to make connections with the snowflakes. Brooks and Elie work together to experience a snow volcano science experiment. We love the excitement of building the volcano from snow and then making a baking soda and vinegar volcano eruption. Brooks comments how "it's melting, it's melting super quickly" when he notices the powder form of baking soda melts into the mixture below. As the vinegar reacts with the baking soda our volcano will erupt! We indeed enjoy pouring extra vinegar and watching the volcano erupts as the scientific effect of this experiment. When we observe snowfall we have noticed that sometimes snowflakes can be small and other times they can be big and fluffy - depending on the temperature outside. We think it is important to capture our interesting observation onto an art experience using a toothbrush as our painting implement. It is very fun! We dip the toothbrush into the white paint and then using fingers in our other hands, we pull back the bristles and flick paint all over the blue horizon scene. Of course it takes some practice and control so that the snowflakes are not too large but it is pretty easy to learn! Wondering about our everyday moments provides us an opportunity to cross to poetry this time round. Working with poetry as one of the hundred languages enables us to build a shared understanding on what's taking place around us. "The storm is coming over here", Felix comments on the visual illustration. Elie adds, "Hurricane" to the thick, billowing cloud outside of the "Windows" poem. We try to connect our environmental awareness to our abilities to feel our own emotions by asking ourselves, "How do we feel when we give (something) to others?" Luna shares how she feels kind when she gives the cookies to the garbage collector. This may give us opportunities to interpret and internalize the impact of our and others' generosity - for example, noticing the positive emotions that giving may encourage in the giver and the recipient. Our growing interests in recognizing the names of letters and their sounds make connections to our plan to cook some Alphabet Soup. This time round we plan to give to another friend who we usually observe through our windows whenever we enjoy our lunches. It is going to be the postman who delivers mails into the mailboxes daily. We call out the names of the alphabets and sound them out accordingly as well as add some vegetables to be part of our pretend alphabet soup. The more props we add, the more suggestions we can think about. Elie suggest to add, "Cheese as mom and dad do that". Luna can recognize the feeling of nervous such as we will be under pressure when we have not prepared our ingredients in time. It is time to gather our ingredients - carrots, potatoes, onions and more - and work with some cutting (using children's friendly knives), adding alphabet pastas, adding spices, and stirring it to mix the ingredients together. Hudson takes part in stirring to ensure the soup will be ready in time upon the arrival of the postman. During our discussion time we take a chance to create an awareness about collecting pre-loved resources a way of giving to others in need. Elie makes a connection between "It is Christmas and a friend is thinking of giving a gift". Of course this process of giving gifts to others make us ponder upon a deeper question, "Why do we do what we do?" In other words, why do need to give them to others? Why can't it be for me instead? Sometimes our learning creates some wonderings within. However, through listening to others, it helps us making sense to ourselves. Without realizing it we may internally nurture positive impact to ourselves. Lastly, we would like to wish all of you and your loved ones a lovely Merry Christmas! Sending all of you lots of hugs and love! Kindest,
Children & Friends.
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