Today’s Blog Post
Written by Lola
“Today our guest, Ms. Katherine, typed stories that we made up. I made a story. We rode trikes. We read The Little Red Hen, and we actually read two Little Red Hens but the second one was different because the mouse and the dog didn’t help but they helped eat. We also grinded seeds into flour. You can make bread with flour. We also had music today and we played really fun drums and sang songs.”

It was a beautiful fall day today.  It was crisp and cool with the sun shining.  We decided to take advantage of the weather by having an outside center today: trikes.  We used our gross motor muscles and our problem-solving skills as we navigated around our trike track.

At inside centers we typed elaborate stories on the computer and created illustrations to go along with our stories.  We also played a reading game with Ms. Sarah. 

This afternoon we had a music making session with Ms. Shelley.  We sang lots of songs including There’s a Little Wheel, Down to the Baker’s Shop, Rig-a-Jig-Jig, Hey Ya Na, and Sweet Potato.  We also got to play the drums!

We continued our study of bread today by reading two different versions of The Little Red Hen. In this story the little red hen goes through the entire process of baking bread: planting the wheat, harvesting the wheat, grinding the wheat to make flour, and baking bread using the flour. In the atelier we used a mortar and pestle to grind our wheat berries into flour.  This was hard work, but it was exciting to see where flour comes from. 

View more photos from today in our Nov 30-Dec 4 Photo Gallery

Last week we brainstormed and compiled a list of everything we already know about bread. We know quite a lot! Today we created a list of things we would like to learn about bread during our upcoming bread unit. 

Questions about Bread:
-How do you grow bread? What seeds do you use?
-Can you make names/words out of bread by shaping the dough?
-What kinds of ingredients do you use to make bread?
-Can you eat all types of bread?
-How do you make the seeds for bread?
-How do you put flavor in bread?
-Is there chocolate bread?
-Can you make bread out of cookie dough?
-Can you make bread cookies?
-How do you make bread?
-How does bread rise?

As we continue our unit on bread we will be searching for answers to our questions as well as developing more questions as we go along. Today we investigated different types of bread. We read two books about different types of bread and about the process of harvesting wheat to get flour. We did bread taste-testing and collected data. We tasted five different types of bread: pitas, blueberry muffins, tortillas, Swedish rye bread, and croissants.  As we tasted each type of bread we analyzed how well we liked it and recorded the results on a data chart. For each type of bread we marked whether we liked it, felt neutral about it, or disliked it.  Then we determined our favorite type of bread.  Using the Smartboard we created a bar graph to depict our class’ favorite types of bread. We analyzed our graph to determine which bread was most popular, which bread was least poplar, and which types of bread had an equal number of people who chose it as their favorite.  We also answered questions like, “How many more people liked tortillas than liked pita bread?” We found out that most students liked muffins the best (10 students).  Three people liked tortillas the best and three people liked croissants the best. One person chose Swedish rye bread as their favorite type of bread.  In our class the least popular type of bread was pita bread.  We will bake and taste several kinds of bread throughout our unit. 

In the sensory table today we examined wheat berries.  We noted the size, texture, and smell of the wheat berries. We also used measuring cups to pour and measure the wheat berries.

View more photos from today in our Nov 30-Dec 4 Photo Gallery

We were busy learning and playing together today. Ms. Aja told us about her trip to Washington, DC and we told her about all the things we learned while she was gone.  Today we enjoyed new learning centers. We were especially excited to use alphabet stamps to create words and cards for special friends and family members. At the math center we used magnetic shapes to create geometric designs. We also used wooden blocks to create marble runways. We collaborated to design runways and problem-solved issues that arose. At recess we examined the plants in our garden. It’s been interesting to see their changes from last spring until now. On our playground we built structures out of cardboards boxes and collected special leaves. We are getting very good at identifying leaves and tress.

View more photos in our Nov 16-25 Photo Gallery

Dear Whales,
I’m in Washington DC right now at a conference for teachers.  Can you could find Washington DC on the map? There are thousands of teachers at the conference. I’m meeting teachers from around the United States and getting lots of ideas for fun things we can do in our classroom. I even got to see the White House, where our president lives.I will bring back digital photos, maps and some new books for our classroom. I know that we have lots of readers and explorers in our classroom community. I can’t wait to hear about all the exciting learning you’re doing with Ms. Becky.
Love,
Ms. Aja