Carnegie Mellon University Children’s School February 2020 PM Preschool Newsletter

Planet “Those who dwell among the mysteries and beauties of the Earth are never alone or weary of life”.—Rachael Carson Earth, the third planet from the Sun, in the Milky Way galaxy, is our home. Planet Earth is the only planet we know of that contains living things such as plants, humans, and animals. Earth is not only our home but obviously a very special and unique place! During the whole school Planet Earth Unit, the PM Preschool friends got the opportunity to explore Earth’s special place in the solar system and to discover what the Earth is made of…ROCKS! The PM friends gained hands- on experiences with Earth events such as earthquakes and volcanoes. Then the unit took a prehistoric turn. The PM friends focused on dinosaurs and paleontology, the study of the reptiles that lived long ago. Finally, the PM preschool friends examined ways of helping the Earth, such as minimizing waste, and conservation through composting and recycling. During the unit, children explored through their senses and were stimulated by many special guest presenters as they inquired about our planet. It is our sincere hope that the PM Friends continue to “dwell among the mysteries and beauties of Earth.”

Our Favorite Theme Books Mango Monkey Says… Circle time is a great time to hear stories that help Our wise puppet friend, Mango Monkey, came to visit with friends learn more about our theme. This month our his puppet pals. He knew that we were learning about the favorite books were: Planet Earth and asked the friends questions about taking -Moustraunaut, by Mark Kelley care of it. The PM friends had many ideas to share with their puppet friends. To support their ideas, Ms. O’Neill -Earth: My First 4.54 Billion Years, by Stacy read the book, “Grover’s 10 Terrific Ways to Help Our McAnulty Wonderful World”, by Anna Ross (Sesame Street). The -In a Dark Dark Cave, by Eric Hoffman Three’s friends then brainstormed various other ways of -Round Like a Ball, by Lisa Campbell Ernst taking care of the Earth. Mrs. Cherin read the -A Rock Can Be…, by Laura Purdie Salas book, “Respect and Take Care of Things”, by Cheri J. -On My Beach There Are Many Pebbles, by Leo Meiners. The Four’s friends then sorted pictures of items Lionni that are made of aluminum, paper, glass, plastic, and -Rhoda’s Rock Hunt, by Molly Beth Griffin compostable materials and placed them in the correct bin.

Week 1 Planet Earth 2020 Storytelling The Planet Earth

In the Discovery Area during Free Choice time, a different aspect of the Planet Earth was highlighted. To show the friends that the Earth is a sphere, the friends painted onto a spherical Styrofoam model “planet” to symbolize “water”, “land”, and “lava”. They also colored with markers onto a round wooden bead which they then strung onto a lanyard to create a planet necklace. To show them that, the Earth rotates, the friends drew with markers onto a spinning plate with the help of a record player. The friends learned that the Earth is made of rocks. To gain more experience with rocks, the friends painted WITH rocks onto paper. The common circle time focus of the PM Preschool was, “we all live on the planet Earth.” The PM friends enjoyed spinning a globe to find exactly where we all live on the planet. The PM friends were delighted to watch a space shuttle blasting into space on YouTube. The friends practiced their cutting skills by cutting out a circular Earth for locker tags this month. After gluing the circle down, they drew themselves around the planet, and some friends wrote the word, EARTH. The Makeshop featured a clay exploration. It was interesting to watch the friends explore and manipulate this natural Earth material. The Three’s and Four’s Dramatic Play areas featured space stations as the friends pretended they were astronauts headed out into space, or Capsule Communicators, guiding astronauts from the ground. During week one, the PM friends explored concepts related to the Planet Earth and demonstrated great prior knowledge regarding, “this pretty planet spinning through space”.

Week 2 Planet Earth 2020 The Earth is made of rocks. As the friends traveled deeper into their study of “The Planet Earth”, the central inquiry during week two was, “What is the Planet Earth made of”? When the PM friends looked deeper into this question through photographs, models of the Earth, and drawing from their own life experiences, they concluded that the Earth is made of rocks and water. During Free Choice time in the Discovery Area, the friends conducted a sink or float experiment with Mrs. Cherin and made predictions and conclusions from what they observed. The PM friends drew with chalk onto a large piece of slate and painted water over their creations. During Circle and Activity Time, the PM friends got the chance to explore different Sedimentary, Igneous, and Metamorphic rocks brought by various teachers with the Children’s School rock collection. The PM friends pretended they were planets. They smiled as they practiced orbiting around the sun on their own ellipse. The Green Room featured a rock tumbler in which the Four’s friends placed ordinary rocks. In connection with the tumbler, the friends watched a YouTube video that showed how the tumbler wears rocks down over time. The sensory table in the Green Room featured slime for the friends to explore. Week two also featured a celebration of the 100th day of school! PM preschool friends created “100 day” headbands, combined 10 pieces of 10 different snacks, such as Goldfish and chocolate chips, to make a “100-piece snack”, and were given the challenge to stack 100 cups into a pyramid shape.

Week 3 Planet Earth 2020

Inside of the Earth and Earth Events

Although a main focus of the planet Earth unit was rocks, which form slowly, during week three the PM class examined Earth events that happen quickly, such as earthquakes and volcanoes. During free choice time in the Discovery Area, the friends built structures onto tile surfaces with loose parts and Kapla blocks. They then moved or “shook” the surfaces to demonstrate the movement of tectonic plates in an earthquake. Through this exercise, the friends learned that buildings need a strong foundation to hold strong. Homemade volcanoes were also featured in the Discovery Area. The friends created chemical reactions when they mixed baking soda with vinegar and watched their volcanoes erupt. At the easel, the friends dripped lava colored watercolors. In the Green Room, the Four’s friends melted crayons onto rocks, using a heated crayon melter, to create pet rocks. They worked with Mrs. Cherin to develop a name and write a story for their new pets. In the Blue Room, the Three’s friends spent a lot of time creating and drawing with pebble shaped crayons. During this week, the friends created geodes with a rock hardening substance, flour, and coffee grounds. The Three’s friends then flattened the “rock” material and put shiny plastic gems inside. Afterwards, they balled the material to form a rock and let it dry so it could be cracked open in two weeks.

Week 4 Planet Earth

Dinosaurs and Fossils

During Week 4, dinosaurs and fossils were highlighted in the PM Preschool. This focus truly piqued the PM friends’ interest as dinosaurs can be quite appealing! In the Discovery Area, the PM friends dug for plastic dinosaur bones in the sandbox, continued to draw and create onto the large piece of slate at the easel, and created rubbings with dinosaur stencils. During Circle Time in both Three’s and Four’s circles, the PM teachers used children’s literature to expose friends to the wide range of sizes within the dinosaur community. Seeing the wide range of sizes of different dinosaurs brought about many questions about how humans know that dinosaurs existed. This led both groups to explore paleontology-the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. During the Three’s Circle, Mrs. Myers brought in her collection of Petosky Stone fossils from Michigan to examine the process of how coral fossils are made. The friends painted over the stones to discover this fossilized coral. The Four’s friends worked to scrape away rock from a replica fossil that has been at the Children’s school for a very long time. Both groups created different versions of imprinted fossils by imprinting plastic dinosaurs into model magic, playdough, and clay.

Week 5 Planet Earth Recycling/Caves

During week five, the friends looked into different ways we can take care of our Earth. Many of these ways had to do with what is done with items that we want to throw away. During Discovery Time, the friends practiced sorting and disposing recyclable items into the correct bin. The friends sorted aluminum, plastics, paper, and compost into the correctly colored and labeled bins. Caves were also a focus for the PM Three’s group in week five. The PM Three’s created bats, the most well-known of cave inhabitants. Bats are very interesting creatures of the night. The Three’s friends created a cave in the Blue Room where they turned off the lights and passed a flashlight around while inside. The Three’s friends used tools to crack open the dried geodes that they had formed and pick out the sequins to take home. Mango Monkey came to visit each room during circle time to learn ways to take care of the Earth. At the end of the week, the teachers reviewed what we learned during the previous weeks. The PM friends thoroughly enjoyed our month-long study of Planet Earth.

Music Experiences with Mrs. Hraber

This month, the PM Preschool friends got two visits from our

Music teacher Mrs. Hraber! During his first visit, Pete the

Metronome was dressed in his party clothes for the preschool’s

100 Day School celebration! He wore a 100-day party hat and star

shaped sunglasses. Mrs. Hraber led the friends in songs about counting by 10s up to 100. We swayed, clapped, and stomped to the songs. Mrs. Hraber brought 100 small instruments that the PM friends rotated around our music circle! During his second visit, the friends correctly predicted that Pete the Metronome would come to music class dressed as a dinosaur! The friends sang songs about the Brachiosaurus, Iguanodon, and an Ornithomimosauria! The friends stomped, and pretended to fly, swim, and run! The friends held onto a parachute and walked at different speeds. Then the friends played a variety of beats with drums and rhythm sticks. We ended each class by singing, “Goodnight Pete”. Music class with Mrs. Hraber is always such a wonderful treat! Thank-you Mrs. Hraber! This unit was filled with lots of great songs! PM preschool teachers featured Planet Earth themed songs such as, “This Pretty Planet,” by Tom Chapin, and the Lakota chant, “The Earth Is Our Mother.” The friends enjoyed singing the silly song, “Aiken Drum,” and “We Are Rocks”, sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

Center Spotlight: The Kitchen

At the Children’s School, the kitchen is an engaging learning lab where children learn to utilize kitchen tools such choppers, peelers, skewers, and measuring cups. From the start of the unit, PM teachers read the classic folktale, Stone Soup by Marcia Brown. The friends worked together in the kitchen over the week. They chopped and peeled vegetables to go in a pot to create their own stone soup. Later in the month, the friends chopped and peeled Clementine oranges, watermelon, banana, and kiwi to create their own fruit kabobs. Later in the week, the friends combined extra fruit to make fruit salad as special snack. The kitchen is always an available space during Free Time in the PM Preschool. We hope that children are showing interest in helping to cook at home.

Our Month in Photos

Ewan finds continents on the planet tracing affixed Chloe draws with a pebble shaped crayon onto to the light table in the Discovery area. paper at a table easel in the Blue Room.

Aria and Maddox place plastic dinosaurs amongst greenery onto a mountainous Araad turns the dirt in the garden boxes outside on the playground. backdrop at the Loose Parts table in the Green Room. Our Month in Photos

Seiichiro tests the ramp he set up in the Make Shop. Zoyah watches closely as she sends a wooden

ball down a wide ramp in the Make Shop.

The friends watch as August sends a wooden ball Ewan contacts a space shuttle from the Dramatic Play down a rubber ramp they worked together to set up Area set as a “Space Station” in the Green Room. in the Make Shop.

Aria uses her hands to mold a drying rock material in the Discovery Area. PM Friends spaying watercolor paint onto paper in the Discovery Area to create stalagmite and stalactite forms.

Our Month in Photos

Chloe and Ryan explore the soapy Claire rides a train that she built with water in the water table during “Free Imagination Playground Blocks. Choice” in the Discovery Area.

PM friends work together to build “marble Maddox stretches the blue slime at the runs” in the Blue Room. sensory table in the Green Room

Mary arranges loose parts in the Mila sits proudly on the cave she built kitchen during Discovery Area time. with Imagination Playground Blocks. Special Guests

Mrs. Myers brought her collection of Petosky Stones to Dr. Carver visited the Four’s Circle to discuss show the PM Three’s friends and examine the process her trip to the Craters of the Moon National of how the coral fossils are made. Park and Monument in Idaho. She brought many enlarged photos to share!

Mila’s mom came to the PM Three’s class to Claire’s dad came to the PM Three’s class to read “Dragons Love Tacos”, by Adam Rubin. read “Papa Bring Me the Moon”, by Eric Carle.

Burt Esterhuysen, a gemologist, came to visit the Ewan’s Mom came to the PM Four’s Four’s classes from Henne Jewelers. He brought class to read, “Morris Mole” by Dan gemstones to show to the group and discussed Yaccarino. how rocks and gemstones are made.