Bananas for Learning

  Settling In in September I cannot believe that we have been in school for nearly a month! The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of getting to know one another, getting to know our school, and getting to know our routines. We have been getting to know the names of our centers and school materials, using our words to get our needs met, practicing sharing toys/materials with those around us, and doing routines over and over and over and over and over again. While we aren't exactly diving into a study about the world around us, we are focusing on the extremely important topics of school/classroom expectations, the people who work at our school, and how to be a good friend. It is these lessons that form the foundation for the rest of our year and set us up for success! It means a lot to Miss Carolina, Miss Tia, and I that we create a classroom community and that we are all on the same page.  I hope that your child has come home excited about what they are doing at school and the fr

  WELCOME! It is our pleasure to welcome you and your family to the 2024-2025 school year at the Frankie Lemmon School! We are so happy that you are part of the Bananas class and I know that we are going to have an amazing year together. We will become like a family; learning, growing, and laughing together for the next ten months.  This blog will be used to share what we are doing in our classroom. It will be updated monthly with pictures and descriptions of what we are learning. If you do not want your child's picture featured on our blog, please let me know immediately. The link to this blog is only shared with Banana Families, so it is private.  Each month we have a different study using the Creative Curriculum and will focus on deepening the children's understanding of things they encounter everyday. Examples of studies we used last year are: Wheels, Bread, and Clothes. They may not sound that exciting, but it is so much fun to watch them ask questions and seek to know mor

 Banana Entomologists After our wheels study the weather was warming up and I could tell the students were itching to get outside. I presented options for our next study and surprisingly, most of our students chose to learn all about insects!  We started out by learning what an insect is...did you know that bugs are insects, but insects are not bugs? We learned that all bugs have three body parts, six legs, and two antennae. Some have wings, some have two sets of wings, and some have stingers. We learned that spider are not insects, they are their own special species called arachnids.  Next we talked about how insects live; what do they eat, where do they live, and how do they protect themselves? We discussed the word camouflage and what that means. We looked at lots of different insects and how they hide to protect themselves.  In the middle of our unit we introduced cups of caterpillars to our classroom. We used magnifying glasses to observe them eating and moving around within their

Wheels, Wheels, Wheels! At the end of our pet study, I gave the students three options of what topic we would explore next. The options were: balls, buildings, or wheels. The response was overwhelmingly wheels! One of the things that I love about our Teaching Strategies Gold Curriculum is that it takes simple items that are part of our lives and turns them into multi-week investigations that encourage our children to think deeper and more critically about things that they see and experience everyday (there is even a box study!).  We transformed our classroom to include centers that helped us explore wheels; different kinds of wheels, how wheels work and move, and how wheels are used in our everyday lives. Mr. Red built us an awesome convertible that we had in our dramatic play center. They were able to use tools to work with bolts, wires (bungees), and lights. In preschool we enjoy using as realistic items as possible, so students had access to paintbrushes and sponges to do body work

  Puppies and Kittens and Birds...Oh My! The Bananas loved the pet unit in February! We talked about what makes a good pet (although many of them really wanted tigers and giraffes to live at their houses), characteristics of pets, how they communicate, and how we can best take care of our pets.  We had some special visitors, including a dog trainer who showed us the appropriate way to approach a dog and what a dog's body language is telling us.  Our dramatic play center was transformed into the Frankie Lemmon Animal Hospital where the children had the ability to take care of a wide variety of pets. They looked at X-Rays, used veterinarian materials such as scrubs, stethoscopes, and cones, and had the opportunity to go to the pet shop to purchase collars + leashes, pet treats, and other essential supplies. This was a favorite center the entire month!  We also added some more opportunities to our writing center. Students were given the opportunity to pick a pet, trace the word, build

 Bananas in Pajamas...and Shirts, and Dresses, and... For our first study of 2024, we decided to focus on clothes and use the Teaching Strategies Gold Clothes Study! Winter brings all kinds of changes in weather and I thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to learn more about all the different kinds of clothes we wear, the features of clothes, how we take care of our clothes, how clothes are made, and who wears certain clothes for their jobs. While it may seem like a simple study, the students loved digging deeper into this topic.  Before the students even came back, I put out a variety of dress-up clothes in our dramatic play center. These were given to us as part of a grant from SmartStart and gave our students the opportunity to see kimonos from Japan, try on textiles from Africa, and accessorize with scarves, mittens, hats, and more. Josephine loved showing off her new outfit When we explore a topic, we try to incorporate it into our daily learning, including small