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Showing posts from April, 2014

The Power of Documentation

This is a photo of our current documentation board that is home to pictures and stories of our latest inquiry on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I am so elated about the excitement this board has been generating that I had to blog about it! Previously Bonnie had been posting some documentation on a board inside the classroom but it did not seem to get noticed. I believe it was due to its location as one must go out of their way to look at it. I have always felt strongly that documentation must be easily accessible to parents (like this blog) otherwise it is shared only among staff and a few parents. Documentation has many functions but primarily it is about sharing a child's educational experiences with parents and teachers so that we can support their learning. In order to achieve the goal of accessibility, we decided to move the documentation to the outside bulletin board, which is right outside the classroom and gets a lot of foot traffic. Wow, does product plac

Block Play: To Construct or De-Construct?

When I was in our storage cupboard, it suddenly dawned on me that we have not used our standard blocks in a long, long while. Well, it seems the children felt that way too as they were so excited when they saw them in the classroom. A flurry of children ran over to the carpet once free play began. They frantically began to pull out the blocks, no matter the size or shape. There was a sense of urgency in their movements almost as if they were frightened that if they didn't take them out fast enough, they would be taken away. The following conversation took place during building: Rhys: We are making a house. Emma: Yes, we are. Rhys: Excuse me, Connor, the road is in the way. Connor: The road is getting bigger. Matias: Make this here. Connor: Look at this big house. I made a big, big, big house. Rhys: No Connor, I am making a road. Sebastian (entering the play area): Is this a volcano or something? Who built that? Connor: We are making a house. Emma: We are makin