Bananas for Learning

  December Study: Gingerbread The holidays and the month of December are my favorite time of year! Yes, the children are full of sugar and excitement for upcoming events, but nothing matches the joy that comes from watching a kid enjoy all the magic of the season. In order to respect a variety of cultures and backgrounds, we chose to focus on holiday baking and gingerbread during the month of December.  We set up our dramatic play center to be the Banana Bakery and the students loved it! We used as many real materials as we could, including a variety of cake pans, utensils, and ingredients (sealed TIGHTLY!). They looked at different recipes and pictures of baked goods to find what they wanted to create for their customers. This was a very popular center everyday and they looked forward to make things for people they loved.  Our sensory table was extra fun as I filled it with a gingerbread cloud dough. Cloud dough is mostly flour and vegetable oil, but we also mixed some c...

November Study: Leaves + Turkeys After all the sugar and excitement of Halloween, we needed to come back down to earth and spend some time outside! Early November is peak season for leaves changing color in North Carolina and it was the perfect study for the few weeks we had between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  As we start most our studies, we had students notice what was changing outside. We talked about the different kinds of leaves we saw and sorted them by the kind of tree they belonged to. We asked questions about why the leaves were falling or why they changed color and investigated by watching videos from scientists and watching time lapse videos of trees changing from spring to winter. These conversations led us to talk a little bit about seasons and the changes that we see in each one. We talked about clothes that we wear in each season as well as how the weather dictates what activities we can do in each season.  As the month went on, we started talking about Thanksg...