Animals in Winter - Tot School

We had such a fantastic time in tot school today!  I love talking about all the things that animals do in winter time.  We practiced saying some big words like "Hibernation" and "Adaptation" and "Migration".  

 We pretended we were animals in winter needing to do different things.  We built "dens" to "hibernate" in, pretended to be butterflies flying somewhere warmer, and we pretended to hunt for food and grasses.

Winter Camps

Happy Thanksgiving Week everyone!  Winter Camp registration will open on Thanksgiving day at www.InitiateLearning.net Be sure to sign up early because spots will go fast!  Check out the amazing line up:

Tot School - Scarecrows and Thanksgiving

Because of how the weeks fall this month we were able to do our Scarecrows theme and Thanksgiving theme together this week.  We started the day off by decorating our scarecrow hats and saying "Boo" to the stuffed animal crow.  They thought that was a hilarious game.  We also made handprint turkeys - be sure to check the binders for those gems!

 One of the favorite activities was making dancing scarecrows.  They were pre-cut and assembled with mini brads to make the head, arms, and legs wiggle like they are dancing.  I thought they turned out delightfully adorable!  Have a great Thanksgiving, no tot school next week!

Tot School - Indians and Pilgrims

NOTE: This educational tot pack and activity day is meant as an introduction to Native Americans and Pilgrims.  I have intentionally used the word Indian to introduce the letter I.  Indian, however, is not an accurate description of Native Americans.  For more information please see this link. There are also many different tribes of Native Americans that have very different traditions. Though the Pilgrims were in contact with the Wampanoag, this pack introduces ideas from many different tribes.

We had a fantastic morning in tot school yesterday.  I have loved watching this group of children grow up- they really do grow and change so quickly.  One thing that I'm noticing now is how they are developing the ability to play together, a developmental step just beyond playing side-by-side.  I love how they are interacting and saying hello and goodbye to their friends by name.

We made feather headbands and counted to four.  We read stories about being thankful and Thanksgiving.  We also built tons of buildings with blocks.  One of our favorite activities was making petroglyphs by coloring on sandpaper (because carving rocks is a little out of our league right now).  Last, but not least, we made a home made game with a popsicle stick, a string, and a circle of chenille stem.  The idea is to hold the stick and try to get the circle around the stick by swinging it. We had such a fantastic day!

Thanksgiving Week Camp Registration Is Open!

I am so excited to announce the launch of a new website to make signing up for camps a breeze!  Check it out by clicking the "Home" button above or heading over to http://www.initiatelearning.net

Thanksgiving break is headed our way and I'm excited to announce 2 new camps and a repeat of a favorite!
Wednesday, November 21, 9am-noon MakerSpace
Wednesday, November 21, 1pm-4pm Robotics EdScratch 1
Friday, November 23, 9am-noon Robotics EdScratch 2

Here are the basics:

MakerSpace: Do you have a builder, crafter, or tinker-er that loves creating things? Imagine the cardboard challenge on hyperdrive and that’s what this three-hour camp is about. Makerspace is the creation of robots, cars, toys, and battery powered awesome. We will learn to connect basic motors to wheels, propellers, and gears onto student’s invented creations (made with recycled materials). We’ll learn about circuits and paper/cardboard crafting. Students will be bringing these inventions home to explore more and show you the amazing things they can immediately apply in their own home tinkering time. Students will need to bring cleaned recycled materials to class, no glass items please.

EdScratch 1 (Robot Programming): Join Miss Amanda for EdScratch 1. Whether you’ve programmed before or not, this is a great starting place for students to learn to program robots. We’ll start with some robot basics, including teaching Edison to play soccer and move into introducing the EdScratch programming language. Building your first program in EdScratch is easy! Just drag and drop the blocks you want together. EdScratch is much more complicated than EdBlocks, however, so expect to challenge your brain to make Edison accomplish even more than what was possible in Miss Amanda’s summer camp series. Students will need to bring one Edison robot with fully charged batteries. If you don’t have your own Edison robot I have extras available for $40 each.

EdScratch 2 (Robot Programming): Ready to dive in and really get programming your own robot? Join Miss Amanda for EdScratch 2. Using the vertical block-based visual programming language based on Scratch we’ll explore computational thinking, the input-process-output cycle and the parameters of inputs and outputs on Edison, grouping blocks (writing programming for Edison to do two things at once), bugs and debugging syntax and logical errors. Students will need to bring one Edison robot with fully charged batteries. If you don’t have your own Edison robot I have extras available for $40 each.

I can't wait to work with your kiddos!  Only 6 spots per class! Sign Up HERE!