Skip to main content

Winter Happenings in Beginning Years

February and March have flown by - here are a few photos and snippets of some of our explorations in the Lodge during that time.

We have been exploring with stories through various mediums and materials. Some ways we have explored stories recently are - listening to stories together as a group through read aloud, listening in small groups to a story on cassette, reading books in the cave or other comfy areas, writing/drawing stories and telling them with loose parts/sensory play.



Extension students also LOVE to paint! Various painting materials are available almost every day. Recently, we used fabric paint to carefully plan and paint onesies for one of our BY assistants, and after school painting teacher, Claire. She will be having a baby girl in April.

We have been doing a lot of building! Different worlds, patterns, stories and inventions have emerged from building collaboratively, parallel to another friend or independently.

We made our home base snack recently. We took a poll, and many students wanted cupcakes - so we took a healthful spin and made banana chocolate chip muffins. Other than a few chocolate chips and sprinkles, these muffins were full of whole ingredients.

We have been exploring the garden space in Farris Hall. Sometimes we visit Chelsea, Kati and Meghan (Extension administration staff) in their offices that overlook the garden. Extension will be working with Upper School and Lower School students in the week before spring break to revive the existing beds, and create new ones. 




Warmly,
Meredith

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Parkour Classes in Spring Extension and Summer!

Extension is now offering Parkour on Mondays and Tuesdays! The class meets from 3:25-4:25pm each day and is available for any child at OES 7 and up. Register  HERE See the class in action (video link)! All Levels Parkour:  Train your body and mind to easily overcome obstacles in creative and fun ways without damaging joints and spine! Develop proper techniques to ensure safety and longevity while fluidly adapting your movements to the your environment. Dive into the world of Precision Landings, Vaulting Styles, Rolling, Wall Running, Rail Balancing, Quadrupedal Movements, and looking beyond traditional use of objects. Although the class is playful and fun, our focus is always on safety through proper technique progressions, learning and expanding one’s boundaries, and creativity. Every class will consist of a proper warm-up, skill development, obstacle course training and cool down review.  Classes are tailored to students’ abilities to help them grow through intense ...

Cardboard Creations

This year the IY students have made countless creations with cardboard during Home Base. We started exploring with cardboard when a group of fourth grade students made a mini soccer stadium out of cardboard for the Table Top Olympics. Then, a group of second grade students wanted to make a Bat Mobile. They found two boxes to connect together and used masking tape for the decorations. This inspired a fleet of cardboard cars in our Cardboard Car Show that took place before Thanksgiving.  In December the cardboard creations continued with more cardboard vehicles. Below is a picture of students painting a Bat Boat.  January brought a new theme of cardboard creations with board games. Students of all ages created bard games to share with other students in Home Base, their class as well as bring home to play with their families.  In February we had two days where there was no school or Extension offerings. This inspired a second grade student to wa...

Gooey & Messy Inquiry in the Summer

The first week of our 2018 Summer Programs took us into summer on a high note! We had wonderful camps/classes all around. Gooey & Messy Inquiry was so much fun. A group of first and second graders explored and brainstormed together to come up with projects, creations and play with materials. We started each day with an open exploration time, and after lunch moved into larger group activities where we would also sometimes join with the older Gooey & Messy Inquiry group (3rd, 4th, 5th grades). Some of the explorations we did involved mixing and dumping with baking soda, vinegar, glitter and liquid watercolor. We also made Elephant Toothpaste, a science demonstration involving hydrogen peroxide, yeast and dish soap to name a few ingredients. We exploded sandwich bags by creating a gas through mixing baking soda and vinegar again, and experimented with borax and water by making flubber and growing crystals on shells. We also played with mixing paints and a...