Who lives on a farm?

Escuelita students are learning about farms and farmers. A farm is land or water that is devoted to raising animals, plants or fish. A farm is a place with land to grow crops. On farms, livestock such as horses, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, ducks, or rabbits are raised for livelihood. The farmer is the person that takes care of the farm. The farmers operate the farm and cultivate

 the land. People, plants and animals can live on a farm.

What do we know about farms?

"The horse says, Naaaaay."

"The ducks live in a pond."

"The mouse says squeak."

"Pigs live on the farm."

"There are chickens on the farm."

"Cows!"

"A man lives on a farm."

"A rabbit can live on a farm with a dog."

"There's a farmer."

Horses live on farms

Feeding the horse some hay

 

Counting collage

Students worked together to create a multi media collage of things we might find on a farm. 

8 apples on the apple tree

10 stalks of corn

2 big grey clouds in a blue sky

One big red barn

9 fluffy sheep

Building Barns

Farmers plant their crops in straight rows.

Here is the farmer's field!

We are finding all of the circles. We are making rows of circles.

This one is for squares. Look at how long is our row of squares!

Plowing the field

Planting the flowers

Don't forget to water!

Corn grows on the farm. This is cornmeal. This is ground up corn that we are playing with.

"Corn is yellow!"

"Squash is yellow."

"There is a yellow watermelon?"

"That tomato is yellow."

We cut open different colored bell peppers. We painted with peppers and also saved the seeds that were hidden inside of them. Once we picked out all of the seeds we placed them on a tray to dry so that we can plant them in our garden next week.

"Bell peppers are my favorite!"

"We are going to plant the seeds just like a farmer plants seeds in a farm."

"Will they turn into pumpkins?"

The farmer plants trees.

We can plant trees too! 

A tiny acorn will grow into a GIANT Oak Tree.

Playing with acorns is fun too!

Thank you Zarah for coming into our class to teach us how to plant trees. 

Our Art Show Inspirations

The Development of Drawing

 

Our developmental art show was a great success! Many thanks to all the volunteers and participants who made it such a special event. Most of all, we honor the students whose art inspired us enter into imaginative spaces and think about "birds" in many new ways!

The drawings were, of course, the show stopper. Children's drawings are a representation of a myriad of stages in their development. The very youngest students are simply feeling the joy of the cause and effect relationship of the movements of the arm and hand coming in contact with ink and paper. There comes the realization that certain movements create different effects such as larger movements from the shoulder, swirling, tapping, more or less pressure, and so on. Soon the child is creating dots, lines, and circles. Those lines connect and become shapes, shapes repeat to create patterns, and patterns become texture. At some point those marks on the paper begin to represent something to the child. They might name it. "Mommy." "Truck." Bird." Students may observe that a net is round, and draw a swirling circle-ish representation of a nest, and this is a complex development. Further still is the point when the representations of the child become recognizable figures to an outside observer. But look closely, do you see dots of rain, or tiny lines of feathers, or a brightly shining circle of a sun with rays pointing in all directions?

 

Escuelita students have been studying birds for many weeks. They know much about the parts of birds, food, habitat, migration. We've observed birds, read  many books, told lovely stories, played games, sang songs. What the students know is evident in the stories they've told about their drawings. We hope your child has shared his or her original drawing and story with you. They are all so enjoyable!

This favorite book allowed us to listen to bird sounds and songs.

Our ceramics teacher Jessica, has been enrapturing the students with sculpture through engaging, interactive stories. Have you seen the nests?

Our lobby has a new art installation inspired by the Charlie Harper painting, Mystery of the Missing Migrants. This seemed a very appropriate artwork to study while learning about migration!

Teacher Sonja and her team cut the wood bird shapes, and Art students from Escuelita and Elementary painted the birds to be hung in formation.

Our classrooms are filled with  vibrant paintings and creations from our fledgeling artists! Enjoy!

 

 

Painting with feathers. 

Play-dough & bird seeds