Are You Almost Six?

When is your birthday? 
The children have been interested in this lately.  This interest came from the children talking about time and our calendar.  Jenna was telling us that she is almost six, and then she told us their birthday is in October.  After a little time and discussion, all of a sudden Yama was like, "Wait a minute..." He pointed out that if Jenna's birthday was in October, then he didn't think that meant "almost six".  This sparked an investigation into how many months it would be until that Jenna will turn six.  We got our old calendar out, and our new 2011 calendar and we counted.  Woah!  The friends are really beginning to put this cyclical concept together.  It was interesting too, because after looking at all the months we will need to go through before we will be back in October, Jenna still said that she is almost six.  I guess it's all relative, right?  Maybe she's almost six in comparison to how long it will be until she's old enough to drive?  Or maybe if you want something hard enough, you CAN be almost six, no matter what the facts are!

These types of discussions have stimulated the friends to want to investigate and collect the data of our class.  A group is putting together a poll to find out when each of us were born.  It was interesting because when it comes down to it, not everyone knew when they were born.  So if you would like to extend this discussion at home, maybe share the story of your childn's birth.  What time of year was it, what was the weather like outside?  Were there any special parts of this already special story?  We will continue to talk about this more.

We are really beginning to collect data and assemble the knowledge that we have.  We are also adding many more entries into our "Words we know" binder.  The friends are now collecting these words in an alphabetic order to be a resource for when they are writing their stories and creating titles for their other work.  If your child sees a word they know in their outside life and wants to write it down, please bring it in for our collection!!!

Here are some videos we discussed lately:

Each morning I drink tea and the children have gotten into the habit of asking to see the leaves and smelling it.
They have been asking about this for a while, so we looked into it.  The two vocab word concepts that came up was what is "withering" and also the concept of "loose tea" was intriguing.  Did it "get loose"?  The children are expanding the meanings that they are attaching to words they already know.  These are often subtle and take some time to think about how the term can work in a new setting.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/tea-estate/3c848aa92a481d72c8d03c848aa92a481d72c8d0-415561679637?q=coin%20manufacturing%20video

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/stash-tea-black-tea-production-processes/bc092c4b634b1daacc54bc092c4b634b1daacc54-384078053786?q=tea+production+video&FROM=LKVR5&GT1=LKVR5&FORM=LKVR12

Thanks for all your conversations and connections in coming into the classroom.  There are a thousand things to share each week, so coming in helps me point you in the right direction.  I try to share lots here, but am usually forgetting many great things when I sit down to type.  More soon, as usual.

Enjoy your evening, Jennifer