In our first water activity the children explored the 3 water phases.
Then they painted water color pictures that remined them of the 3 phases.

"When my dad took me camping we were part of an ecosystem!"

Our ecosystem in a bottle experiment tested to see if the plants really need sunlight to grow. 
The ecosystem that thrives will have its lid closed. The growing plants in the sealed ecosystem made oxygen for the insects and the insects made carbon dioxide for the plants!! 
Add soil and compost to each container. One container is transparent, the other is opaque.

Add 4 black eyed pea seeds to each container and sprinkle compost on top of them.

Add water to each container.

The transparent container THRIVED, and became art inspirations!
The entire water cycle is occurring in the sealed bottle.

The seeds that did not receive sun did not thrive.
PLANTS REALLY DO GET THEIR ENERGY FROM THE SUN!!

Basil can handle the heat! Lets plant some to make pesto pasta!

Don't forget to water!

"Save the people with the slide!"

To celebrate the summer solstice we made yummy banana muffins for the potluck!!
Add 2 very ripe bananas to a mixing bowl.

Add 4 eggs.

Add one half teaspoon of baking soda.

Add one half cup almond flour.

Add one half cup coconut oil

Add one quarter teaspoon of salt

Add one third cup honey.
Mix
Put in muffin tin.
​Bake at 350 degrees for 15 mins or until firm.

Making potions is one of our favorite activities to inspire children in hands-on science activities and start to develop scientific inquiry.  Here's a great selection of items for your potion table at home:

After the fun of mixing together a lot of different elements we began to break down the potion making experience into simple (and fun!) science experiments:

​

(we transferred our test tubes to larger ones to enjoy the reactions more!)

To further explore the chemical reaction we trapped the carbon dioxide released from the baking soda and vinegar and blew up balloons with the gas!

In art class we have been enjoying a lot of process art based activities!  To learn more about Raising Creative Thinkers with Process Art check out our previous blog.

Use a straw to blow watered down tempera paint to create unique colors and shapes.

Have a lot of paint on your paper? Make a print!

Use rice with watercolors to create interesting patterns and textures.

We made face masks of our favorite circus animals!

Dancing Gorillas!

Stretching Giraffes!

Roaring Lions!

Ms Hannah led us in some fun parachute 'circus tent' games!

Ms Hannah also taught us some hula hoop moves!

We designed our own popcorn bags and made fresh popcorn!

It's amazing how much kids love to watch popcorn popping! But maybe not as much as they love to EAT the popcorn :)

Ms Symone and Mr Noah gave us an amazing juggling and acroyoga performance for our Circus Party! Thank y'all SO MUCH!!

Even some of the parents joined in!

We have been planting butternuts, watermelons, sweet potatoes, and lots of sweet basil.

We spotted a Monarch Caterpillar feasting on the dill!

While we make at least a dozen different recipes here are 2 of our favorite garden pestos:

Blend together 2 cups basil, 1/2 cup garlic olive oil, 1/2 cup sprouted pumpkin seeds, and a few shakes of Himalayan salt.  Yum!

We LOVE this Roasted Garlic Olive Oil by Texas Olive Ranch we get at Wheatsville!

Blend together 2 cups fresh parsley, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup walnuts, and several pinches celtic sea salt. Yum again!

See you next time!

In a world where we are preparing our children for all kinds of unknown professions, it is important to engage children's curiosity and their natural joy for learning.  This love of learning along with communication skills, self regulation skills, and the ability to problem solve leads to life long success no matter the profession.  Some might think that learning these skills will only happen behind a desk in a typical school environment, but Dimensions Educational Research Foundation's research tells us that children who spend time in well designed, nature filled classrooms with many opportunities to engage with open ended materials and loose parts develop skills across all learning domains.

​For generations children have used found materials in their play from rocks and sticks to tin cans and wire. In his article “How NOT to Cheat Children: the Theory of Loose Parts,” the British architect Simon Nicholson coined the term “loose parts” to describe open-ended materials that can be used and manipulated in many ways. Environments, he believed, offer many ways for children to interact with variables such as gravity, sounds, chemical reactions, concepts, words, and people. “In any environment,” Nicholson writes, “both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it”. When children play and create with loose parts, they can move around, making use of any or all of the found objects, devising spaces and structures that can entertain them for hours. They become more creative and flexible in their thinking while satisfying their ever-growing curiosity and love for learning.

In our blog this month 'Learning with Loose Parts' we are highlighting how we introduce and incorporate loose parts into our learning environment with lots of ideas and projects to inspire families to include loose parts in their art and play environments at home.  We love to focus on loose parts in April as it's Earth Day month and so many of loose parts are found objects, nature materials, or recycled items - who needs plastic toys??

When first introducing loose parts we like to provide 3 different open-ended items for the children to to create and play with along with the invitation of "I wonder what we could do with these...".  Here are a few combinations of what we explored:

"I'm making a boat, a big boat for my whole family."

"It's sparkly!  I love glitter glue!"

"It's a robot with a robot motorcycle.  It goes fast and it has super powers!"

"Look at my magic wand!"

Once the kids were clearly comfortable with 3 materials, we started introducing 5 materials to expand the experience.

Buttons, Wire, Tape, Paper Clips, and Ribbon

After lots of exploring loose parts that the classroom provided, we wanted to investigate what it means to children when they have sought out, discovered, and collected materials themselves.

Each child went home with a paper bag with their name on it and instructions for what types of materials to look for to further study how materials can fuel ideas and thinking.

We gathered in a circle and invited the children to empty their bags one at a time and share any stories or thoughts about the items they collected.

​TOTE, CARRY, AND PILE

• Picks up loose parts and explores it.
• Transports loose parts from one location to another. 
• Drops loose parts into containers.
• Gathers loose parts in a container.
• Pushes containers of loose parts from one location to another.
• Can shovel or scoop up loose parts.
• Can pour loose parts from one container to another.

SHAPE & FORM

• Lines up loose parts make a vertical or horizontal line.
• Stacks 7 or more loose parts.
• Orders loose parts by some common attribute (color, size, shape, texture, etc.).
• Sorts loose parts by common attribute (color, size, shape, texture, etc.)
• Moves loose parts into racing or flying.
• Names the loose parts creation or use.

 
ATTENTION TO DETAIL

• Creates enclosures with loose parts.
• Builds structures vertically and horizontally.
• Writes and/or draws about loose parts creation.
• Creates intentional structures with clear purpose or idea.
• Creates detailed settings with loose parts.

SYMMETRY AND ASYMMETRY

• Has a distinct theme to the play with loose parts.
• Uses loose parts to help define play role
• Uses loose parts to create and execute an elaborate idea.
• Can transform any loose part into a specific use and purpose in a larger play theme or theory. 

After the organizing stage we created open ended projects with one type of part at a time and then participated in projects where we used all the loose parts together.

Working with wood scraps and recycled paper materials invites experimental building, thinking in three dimensions, and thinking about space.

The freedom to experiment invites creative and often collaborative solutions.  When the children first started constructing they had no definitive goal in mind, but as the process developed they began to form a consensus of what they were making together. They titled this "Our Spaceship Boat!".

We classified our nature items into categories: things that came from plants, things that came from animals, and things that did not come from living things.

We also explored how we could use our nature items in play - rocks became homes, leaves became airplanes, and avocado seeds became birds eggs.

As the children continue to explore the "metal things", the objects gleam and glisten and the children begin to notice subtle differences in shape, color, and texture.  

The children are delighted to see how easily objects can transform into facial features.

Exploring circles!

Once the children seemed fluent in the different materials we began some theme-based yet still open ended projects.

To make the beginning structure of the robot we wrapped floral foam with tin foil and connected the pieces with small bamboo skewers.

"My robot can turn his head!"

Then we added all kinds of found materials.  Most objects can easily be inserted through the tin foil and into the foam.  We used glue and stickers for other designs.

To extend the project, some of us made drawings of our robots too!

The children were delighted to continue to find items they had personally collected as well as new objects they had never seen before as we engaged in the different projects.

The final collaborative project was to create the alphabet and the numbers 1 to 10 with our collected and sorted loose parts.

One of the children brought in fresh dandelion flowers from their garden at home so we made our scrumptious dandelion cookies.  Check out our previous blog for the recipe.

Some other simple loose parts to introduce to children are:

Velcro Rollers

To celebrate Earth Day we created a collaborative piece where the children formed "earth beads" and decorated our window with them.

We have been incorporating more mindfulness activities into our yoga classes:

Magic Massage
Self massage is restorative.  Magic Massage stimulates the blood flow to the brain which helps improve concentration skills, while the muscle massage soothes and releases tension.

Washing Machine

Allow your arms to be loose and floppy so that they wrap around the front and back of your body as you turn side to side.  Notice if there is something you would like to wash out - anger, hurt, feelings, worries? As you swing from side to side, imagine you can feel those things being washed out and away from your body and down into the ground.

Volcano

Such a fun way to release tension, negativity, or excess energy!  With your hands in front of your heart notice if you are carrying around any anger or excess energy inside.  Let it bubble up out of your heart into your hands.  With an exhale forcefully explode your volcano, making the sound "Pssssh!".  Imagine the hot lava leaving your body and mind.

Do My Best

Lift your left knee to your right elbow.  Lower and switch sides.  As you continue from side to side repeat the following song:

"Opposite elbow,
Opposite knee.
I stand up strong, 
just like a tree.
I use my mind,
and body,
and breath,
To focus myself,
and do my BEST!"

This movement crosses the midline of the body and coordinates the information flow between both sides of the brain.

And we've been doing some old favorites too:

Singing Stars

Planting and watering baby lettuces we grew from seed :)

And picking and eating fresh carrots!

See you next time!

This March started off with just a few blooms around us.  The kids were excited to explore the dogwood and redbud branches found on our property - the first blooms of Austin Springtime.

The kids loved seeing the natural cycle of a dogwood bloom and smelling it's fresh unique scent.

As our early Texas Spring continued we collected wildflowers and native blooms from all over the garden. 

​ Learning to use a magnifying glass is one of our favorite nature table activities!

We were particularly enchanted with the sweet scent of the Texas Mountain Laurel!

The art of flower arranging is a Montessori inspired 'Practical Life' activity!

"It is almost possible to say that there is a mathematical relationship between the beauty of his surroundings  and the activity of the child; he will make discoveries rather more voluntarily in a gracious setting than in an ugly one." - Maria Montessori. The Child in the Family. 

"Maria Montessori developed practical life activities to help children develop into independent thinking adults. Each step in a practical life activity satisfies the child’s innate desire to imitate the home life skills that children see adults perform around them on a daily basis."

​Rhythms of Play

After making more bouquets, we created still life drawings with oil pastels!

To preserve our flowers we carefully selected the best ones for our plant press.

Such a great opportunity to incorporate learning about counting, colors, and shapes.

After Spring Break our flowers were completely pressed and we composed them into our own designs - some with patterns, some with free form - preserved with contact paper.

To extend the activity we did crayon rubbings on top of our compositions and noticed the beautiful texture the flowers and leaves made.

The beauty of flowers is expressed by artists throughout time.  In this activity we looked through the Art Masters Sticker Book and were challenged to find 4 paintings each that had flowers in them.

Andy Goldsworthy is an amazing British artist who has spent his life collaborating with nature and inspired these environmental art projects.

Taking art books and cutting them into DIY puzzles is a fun and simple way to introduce children to the great artists!

Such a sweet little snack!  Excellent for hand-eye-coordination, number sense, and creating healthy, aesthetically pleasing treats.

Simply take banana slices and add pumpkin seeds as petals around the banana.  Use a dried mulberry or raisin for the center of the flower.  Serve with a smile!

We loved learning about the life cycle of a flower!

A lot of our learning takes place in the natural questions and conversations that come up as we work on various projects.  Mr Ben has a wonderful talent of explaining scientific concepts in ways that young children can really grasp the information!

"Why do plants have roots?"

"To keep from getting pulled up"

"The roots are like little straws that drink water from the soil"

"Why do plants have leaves?"

"They get energy from the sun to make food for the plant. When we eat plants we are eating stored sunshine"

"Why do plants have flowers?"

"To make seeds."

"Why do plants have seeds?"

​"To make little baby plants and the circle of life continues!"

​"Crece, crece, crece
Grow, grow, grow"

Happy Flower Dance!

After our blooming flowers we have been practicing our Conscious Discipline breathing tools.  Check out our previous blog for more details on how we use these to help with self regulation.

Planting violas in the veggie and fairy herb gardens!  The kids love these pretty colorful flowers in their salads.

Can you count all the fairies visiting our fairy herb garden?

"Why do we have seasons?"

The following experiment explains how seasons work:

We used a globe with a tilt, a heat lamp, and a digital infrared thermometer to see how the tilt of the Earth and the position of the Earth in it's orbit around the sun effect the globe's surface temperature in Austin. We modeled the position of the Earth and Sun for the spring equinox, the autumn equinox, the summer solstice and the winter solstice and measured the different temperatures of Austin on the globe.

This hands on experience really helped the kids understand how the different intensities of light affect the temperature in Austin!

See you next time!

At ACG we love to create dynamic, hands-on learning experiences to help develop essential skills.  Check out these 30 fun projects that encourage literacy and language development!
​

Kids are much more motivated to practice reading and writing if they are creating something like a special card, a birthday wish list, or even a grocery list.

Using scissors and other tools helps to make strong motor skills for writing!

Dotted lines help early writers to find confidence in their writing skills.

​We used the Montessori technique of 'analysis of movement'; when we are demonstrating a skill we break it down into clear simple steps.

"…the adult should be calm and act slowly so that all the details of his action may be clear to the child who is watching." – Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood

We started off sewing the first letter of our names.

After the sewing exercise the kids were easily able to recognize the first letter of their names with these fairy letter coloring sheets.

A neat way to highlight children's art work is to outline it in sharpie and cut out around the shapes.

The kids loved seeing their alphabet fairies turned into a magical fairyland!

Use children's interests as motivation for learning! Our Pre K class is really enjoying learning the sounds of the alphabet. The following project was inspired by Fairy Dust Teaching:

"I love making special gems and jewels to help motivate my students to learn critical skills like letters, letter sounds and sight words.

I have found that it can be highly motivating to students who are struggling. This is most powerful if you introduce the jewels through a little story:

Once, a long time ago, there lived a little fairy.  She was no ordinary fairy.  She was an Alphabet Fairy.  Yup.  She wore a beautiful Pink Cape and had a little blue bag.  She carried in her very secret bag - secret jewels.

Shhhh - -  I will tell you Alphabet Fairy’s secret.   (I pull out a blue bag).

Alphabet Fairy loved all the sounds of the letters.  One day she was telling her best friend the Tooth Fairy how much she loved letters and their sounds.  “I wish I could let children know how special the letters and their sounds are. . . .”

Just then, the Tooth Fairy had an idea.  “I know!  You could leave one of your special sparkling letter jewels every time a child learns a new letter and it’s sound!”

Alphabet Fairy danced and danced.  “Yes!  Just think!  They could have a bag full of 26 sparkling jewels and love the letters as much as I do!”
From that day on - she shared the jewels with as many children as she could.

(I open the bag and pour a pile of letter jewels in my hand.)

(I tell the children) The Alphabet Fairy has given me the jewels to share with you as you learn your letters and sounds."

​

Learning to identify and spell your name is a beloved preschool favorite!

This fun board encompasses sight, sound, and touch skills as children learn how to write letters by tracing the directional arrows and develop writing motor skills.

The kids love the sound of the magnet pulling the metal balls into the shapes of the letters!

We also love this maze board that helps us to master letter identification and alphabet order!

Some explored with random letters, creating really long nonsense words.

While others were eager to practice their name mastery.

The kids loved exploring and matching these hieroglyph stamps while gaining a deeper understanding of the history of our alphabet!

The kids were delighted when they saw the first letter of thier name appear as well as other pictures!

Providing a comfy spot and a variety of eye-level books supports the independent exploration of pre-readers.

Studies show that reading books aloud to toddlers is important because the earlier children acquire language, the more likely they are to master it.

“You are stretching them in vocabulary and grammar at an early age. You are preparing them to be expert language users, and indirectly you are going to facilitate their learning to read.

Encouraging older children to sound out words and explaining what a word means if it isn’t clear in the context of the story will help build children’s vocabularies.

Allowing children to pick the books they are interested in and turn the pages themselves keeps them active and engaged in learning. 

Reading to children also teaches them to listen, and good listeners are going to be good readers."

 - Dominic Massaro

For more details on the research read:

“Two Different Communication Genres and Implications for Vocabulary Development and Learning to Read” by Dominic W. Massaro, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2015

First we explored making letters out of sticks, forming the alphabet, and writing our own names.

Then we added letters on stones too!

Using nature-inspired loose parts to make letters and words creates a beautiful expression of language. 

These ABC Yoga cards by Rainbow Kids Yoga are so much fun!   The kids loved doing the poses for the first letter of their names!

As we did our letter posture we also made all the different sounds the letters can make!

How we love to add nutritious ingredients to our favorite recipes :)

The kids loved these Sweet Potato Avocado Brownies! And it was fun learning to read the recipe together on the outdoor chalkboard.

Mix together the above ingredients and add 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt and 2 TBS melted coconut oil.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

The kids gave these a thumbs up!

We were inspired by this Valentine book by Gail Gibbons to explore some poetry!

The kids especially enjoyed these haikus so we came up with a cool haiku project below.

This was such a fun original idea!  We wrote out nature inspired, one syllable, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and a couple of prepositions on heart shaped sticky notes.  Then the kids counted out the haiku rhythm of 5, 7, 5.

The readers had fun carefully selecting their words.

The pre-readers enjoyed randomly choosing their words and being surprised when the finished product is read to them.

These poetry books by Jane Yolen were an intriguing way to introduce rhyming while also integrating nature, counting, and color.

By far, the favorite book of the month is Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas.  Just say "No Bob!" to the kids and expect riotous laughter :)

These are a fun way to learn about different vowel sounds and practice rhyming.

These poetry pebbles provided a fun opportunity to express our imaginations and a rich experience in oral language and storytelling.

After reading "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" by Mo Willems the kids crafted their own story by creating a huge bus that can fit all the pigeons on the planet!

And these guys created bridges for the troll from the classic fairy tale Three Billy Goats Gruff.  There were some excellent troll impersonations!

While not an obvious literacy activity, we presented the beads and sorting tray in a left-to-right order. Materials in Montessori Education are presented in this order as an indirect preparation for reading and writing. ​

Incorporating a variety of texts into projects and play introduces children to all the different ways language can be used to communicate ideas as well as unusual or difficult words that are new to them.

When snacking in the garden it's fun to explore new and interesting words to describe our experience - the broccoli flowers are "crunchy, ticklish, fragrant".

See you next time!

STEAM is a developing educational model of how the traditional academic subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) can be organized into an integrative framework which creates an interconnected learning experience. 
 
STEAM is a way to teach how all things relate to each other.  There is a lot of research suggesting that integrating these subjects, especially adding a creative component with art, is beneficial for students. This emergent methodology is more fun than traditional methodologies and makes more sense to all types of learners as it is based on the natural ways that people learn. STEAM activities are usually hands-on, exploratory, and inquiry-based.

Outer Space has always attracted the attention of young children. Outer Space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the history of our solar system. Children are naturally looking for explanations and trying to understand everything in their environment.  Combining STEAM education with learning about outer space leads to natural learning at its finest!

​Check out our 'out of this world' projects this month with a STEAM lens:

We used real photos from NASA of the sun and the planets with watercolors and different sizes of coffee filters to create a sun-catcher solar system for our front windows.

"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."
John Muir

"I made an asteroid belt!"

This 200 piece Solar System puzzle took a little teacher help but it was amazing how long the kids concentrated to finish it!

Integrating math into our learning was fun with this interactive activity.

​Each step equals 36 million miles.  The kids were amazed at how many miles there are between the planets.

The pumpkin was the sun.  Mercury was 1 step, Venus was 2 steps, Earth was 3 steps, and Mars was 4 steps from the sun.

Jupiter was 13 steps, Saturn was 25 steps...

... and all the way down the garden Uranus was 47 steps and Neptune was 77 steps from the sun!  That's far!

Looking for an awesome spot to go camping in Central Texas?  Try out Canyon of the Eagles - it's where the UT astronomy department has their telescopes and there are Star Parties most evenings that children are welcome to!

This Twinstar Telescope is not bad!  We were able to see the daylight moon and a magnified version of the tops of the trees quite clearly.

We love our blocks!  We made a space station for our astronaut "Flying Frank", as well as a Martian community complete with Mars Rovers.

The kids were creating space stations all over the garden too!

A collaborative art project leads to hours of imaginative play that sparks more of an interest for further learning.

Watching and counting down with this Space Shuttle Launch was seriously exciting!

The rocket went at least 30 feet up and got stuck in the treetops!

Straw Rockets!

Straw Rockets are an excellent opportunity for children to practice the engineering design process. 

Check out this link for directions and a template to make the rockets at home.

We loved these resourceful books to practice our ABC's!

Yoga Journey to  Outer Space!

We started off our Astronaut Adventure by stretching our arms up high to put on our big astronaut helmets.

Then we stretched out our legs one by one and put on our huge astronaut boots.

We crawled into our small rocket ships and counted backwards from 10 to 1.

"3 - 2 - 1 Lift off!"

Travelling in space we saw some "bright stars!"

and "falling stars".

The kids have creative control of our journey and they wanted to go to the moon and see some aliens!

Then we became peaceful warriors to create peace with the aliens.

When we were ready to go back home we got in our rocket ships and counted backwards from 10 to 1 again.

" 3 - 2 - 1 Lift-off!"

We landed back on earth, strong and proud from our great voyage.

For more on STEAM learning check out our previous blog!

See you next time!

Winter is often thought of as a season of peace with the snow (yes we had some in Central Texas this year!), the holidays, and the shift into a fresh new year. Children often ask what peace means. They hear the expression “Peace on Earth” but they don’t always understand the concept. Different families and cultures view peace in many ways; from harmony with neighbors and acceptance of one another, to personal well-being and calmness in our hearts. 

"Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child"
-Maria Montessori

Our Peace Curriculum at Austin Children's Garden is deeply rooted in Maria Montessori's work in Peace Education.  While we draw from many educational philosophies to create our unique learning community, our years of teaching in Montessori schools have been integral in creating an environment to support young peacemakers.

Montessori recognized children as the redeeming factor in the evolution of humankind. In order to bring about a world of peace and tolerance it is important to focus and teach peace early. Having a peace curriculum is a sure way to prepare our children to be peace-seekers. Dr. Montessori said “…we must gather together all the elements of the world and organize them into a science of peace.” 

There are many forms and layers of peace.  To think about what peace is and how it can be practiced means analyzing possibilities for its application.  The Peace Flower diagram provides a simple, concrete framework upon which teachers and parents can focus on.

The Montessori Peace Flower- The Four States of Peace Awareness: ​​

Self Awareness - An awareness of how we are thinking, feeling, and behaving.  It means being mindful about thoughts, words, and actions.

Community Awareness - An awareness of other people in the community and the nature of relationships we have with people, especially people with whom we interact every day.  Community radiates out from each individual to include family, other students, teachers, school staff, neighbors, shopkeepers, etc.

Environmental Awareness - An awareness of what the earth needs to stay healthy and how individuals, communities, and cultures treat the earth.

​Cultural Awareness - An awareness and appreciation of the differences in people’s attitudes, beliefs, practices, customs, and social behavior.

In Early Childhood, we spend a significant amount of time on the first petal of Self Awareness.  We want to help identify and name all of the various feelings the child will have, and help them know that all feelings are okay and give them tools to process their feelings in a healthy way.  Continuing to move outward, we want to show them what appropriate actions they can do with these feelings.  We then want the child to begin to contemplate and meditate upon their actions before they are performed.

While concentrating on the first petal of self awareness, our overall goal is to help the child move from a less egocentric state to one of community, environmental, and ultimately cultural awareness.

By now all the kids should know - what's the first thing we can do to calm down when we start to feel upset?

BREATHE!

(We were inspired to make these breathing and counting beads from a camp our son attended at Yogapeutics, a positive and fun aerial yoga class that incorporates mindfulness and sensory integration.  Check out their awesome weekly classes and camps!)

First we decorated our popsicle sticks with markers and stickers.

Then with one side of a pipe cleaner taped to the popsicle stick we counted out 8 beads and beaded them onto the pipe cleaner.

After our beads were on we taped down the other side of the pipe cleaner.

Such a fun tool that really helps us to slow down and focus on our breathing!

The kids loved these cards made by Yoga 4 Classrooms!

We had some delightful conversations on what it means to be peaceful.  Being quiet is one way to be peaceful, but there are many other ways to practice peace.  Peace is an attitude we create with our thoughts, words, and actions.  Here are some ideas the kids came up with of how we can practice peace everyday:

"Sing with my mommy"
"Play outside"
"Be nice"
"Give lots of hugs and give presents"
"We give presents to kids who don't have any presents"
"Hug my brother"
​"Smile and be nice"

We feel peaceful when we think positive thoughts!  The kids loved coloring and painting these positive messages and then making collages out of them.

We loved making these Peace Fortune Tellers from The Peace Booth.

Inspired by these great books we created a community poster and a classroom declaration of peace.

The Peaceful Classroom is a wonderful resource and has inspired a lot of our activities in learning about compassion and cooperation!

"If we are to teach real peace in this world... we shall have to begin with the children."
—Mahatma Gandhi

Step 1:

Fold the tissue paper into rectangles.

Step 2:

Twist a pipe cleaner stem onto the middle.

Step 3:

Trim of the edges so they are rounded.

Step 4:

Carefully separate the tissue paper into beautiful flower petals.

All the teachers and volunteers at ACG receive training in Nonviolent Communication.  When we work with the kids we use vocabulary words that are free of judgement but express authentic feelings.  The list below is just a partial list.

Here are some of the words that might express your Feelings:

Excited
Amazed
Motivated
Delighted
Appreciative
Thankful
Touched
Encouraged
Amused
Glad
Happy
Tickled
Energized
Restored
Content
Relieved
Centered

Here are some of the words that might express your Needs:

Cooperation
Consideration
Respect
Support
Ease
Harmony
Order
Rest/Sleep
Contribution
Participation
Space
​
Here are some words for feelings when your Needs aren’t met:

​Baffled
Dismayed
Exasperated
Frustrated
Irked
Surprised
Ashamed
Exhausted
Tired
Hurt
Frazzled
Cranky
Nervous
Overwhelmed
Stressed out
​

For more details on NVC and how to use it with young children check out this article by Marion Badenoch Rose Ph.D.:

The Heart of Parenting: Nonviolent Communication in Action

Every home and classroom needs a Peace Basket filled with tools for young peacemakers.  Here we have our classroom peace flower, a meditative finger labyrinth, a calming mind jar, arnica based "boo boo cream" and noise cancelling headphones for sensitive ears.

The kids love using this simple finger labyrinth!

Check out our previous blog to learn how to make your own calming mind jar at home!

We made our own peace flags with beautiful beeswax crayons and a PEACE stencil.

The kids were delighted when they took off their stencil to reveal the word PEACE!

We loved this tape resist "Peace on Earth" project!  We mixed blue and yellow water color on paper plates to look like the blue water and green land of the earth and then peeled off the tape to show a peace sign.

We created our own doves of peace with sparkling water colors and a print of Picasso's - The Dove of Peace.

We put all our art projects together to decorate our Peace Corner in the classroom.

We created a variety of beeswax candles to help us Sing Peace Around the World.

Hint - if the beeswax is a little tough to mold in the cold weather - try a hair dryer!

At circle time we learned the song Light a Candle for Peace which is a classic Montessori Peace Day project.  For more details on the project - check out World Community.

Taking care of our garden and creating food together is a wonderful way for us to practice our environmental awareness!

To prepare the salad we ripped up the collards into bite sized pieces and washed it in the salad spinner.

Oh the joys of salad spinning!!

We added a fresh orange from our orange tree!

Scooped out some yummy avocado...

...and made a simple dressing of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and salt.

Bon Appetit!

Check out our Facebook page for pics and the recipe for this delicious carrot cake we made with this HUGE carrot for our Winter Solstice Potluck!

In Science class we have been learning all about the amazing properties of water and how to take care of the earth to protect clean water.

​Dr. Masaru Emoto's stunning water-crystal photographs have enchanted millions of people in his many books. His groundbreaking work has shown that thoughts and words have a direct effect on water- crystal formation, and since our bodies are mostly water, our thoughts and words certainly affect not only ourselves but the world around us. In The Secret of Water, Dr. Emoto brings water's message of love, peace, and hope to the next generation in his first children's book. This book offers an understanding of water that will encourage parents and children alike to value and give thanks to our most precious resource. 

To learn more about Dr. Emoto's work check out the Emoto Peace Project.

The kids loved reading this book and looking at the pictures of the different water crystals and then took to their water play with extra respect and gusto!

Since ancient times music and singing have been considered powerful healing tools.  We love listening to World Music from Putumayo Kids to learn about other cultures and discovering new peaceful music at the library.

To start off our unit on the senses we searched out our first Sit Spots.  We first learned about Sit Spots from Earth Native Wilderness School - and if you haven't had a chance yet to check out Earth Native - you must!  They have amazing camps, preschool programs, workshops and more!

In our Sit Spots we focused on our senses and discussed all the different sensations we experienced.

We listened to all the sounds around us and heard:

"crickets"
"squirrels"
"church bells"
​"my breath"

With our eyes closed we touched our surroundings and felt:

"leaves"
"something tickly"
​"sticky grass"

With our eyes closed we smelled our surroundings and smelled:

"popcorn"
"leaves"
​"air"

With our eyes open we focused on what we could see:

"my friends"
"clouds"
"magic tree"

We focused on what we could taste in the air and had some surprising responses:

"ice cream"
"popcorn"
"just air"

We planted a garden for each of the 5 basic senses!

The kids digged their own holes with a spoon and learned how to gently loosen the roots of the baby plant before planting.

In our Scent Garden, as it is pretty shady, we planted many different varieties of mint:

Chocolate mint
Orange mint
Pineapple mint
Grapefruit mint
Spearmint
Peppermint

In our Taste Garden we planted many different seasonal herbs:

Dill
Fennel (fun taste test to do with the dill as they look so similar)
Parsley
Cilantro
Rosemary
Thyme
Oregano
​Sage
Lemon Balm
​Chervil

In our Listening Garden we planted grasses and plants with crispy leaves that make interesting sounds.  Adding windchimes and windmills enhance the listening quality of the garden.

In our Touch Garden we planted a variety of plants with soft leaves, interesting textures, and rubbery succulents.

In our Sight Garden we planted edible flowers with all the colors of the rainbow!

Herbs add a wonderful aspect to sensory learning - their scents, textures, colors and tastes invite a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity from young learners!

We gathered fresh herbs to make a Relaxing Sunset Tea and Fresh Herbal Salts.

Rolling the lemon balm leaves in your hands helps to release the fresh calming aroma.  Lemon Balm is a lovely herb to use with children and really easy to grow!

Kids love using hibiscus too as the swirly pink quickly colors the water!

Using salt to preserve herbs is a tried and true method that dates back centuries.  The fresh herbs permeate every ounce of the salt mixture that releases and preserves the garden harvest.

We funneled our mixture into amber glass bottles and made our own label designs!  The herbal salts will keep fresh in the fridge for up to a year.

We learned more about the relaxing properties and sweet scent of lemon balm with these fun coloring pages from the Herb Fairies.

Melissa officinalis is the scientific name for lemon balm!

First, we explored the different scents, tastes, textures, and qualities and then matched the original plant to the powdered form.

Combine the flour, spices, and salt and mix well.  Then add the oil and water. Mix and knead until well blended.  Add more water and oil if too dry, more flour if too wet.

Check out Creative Sense for a great resource for sensory materials and ideas.

Oh the wonders and fun of mud play!  The kids loved getting messy and decorating their personal pies with shells, flowers, and leaves.

"Scientists have now confirmed something that children have always instinctively known; playing in mud is a joyful experience. Recent research has shown that dirt contains microscopic bacteria called Mycobacterium Vaccae which stimulates the immune system and increases the levels of serotonin in our brains, an endorphin that soothes, calms, and helps us to relax. Scientists say regular exposure to the bacteria may help reduce a child’s vulnerability to depression. In short, playing in mud makes you happier!

Mud is also an excellent medium for learning. The same release of serotonin that occurs when playing in Mycobacterium Vaccaedirt has also been shown to improve cognitive function. And the rich, engaging sensory play children partake in while playing with mud allows them to express their creativity while enhancing their fine motor skills. Children practice social skills such as cooperation, negotiation, communication, and sharing as they work together. Emergent math and science skills are practiced as children make before and after comparisons, solve problems, test theories, and measure and count ingredients for their mud pies. This is the scientific process in action!

Mud is a wonderful art medium, it is in ample supply, can be easily molded to create endless sculptures, and responds differently than clay or play dough. The open-ended nature of mud encourages creative thinking and allows children to freely create without fear of making mistakes. This also contributes to a child’s sense of self, helping to build a strong inner sense of competency.

Mud play is inclusive of all children. It allows children to play at their own developmental level. Mud is an open ended material that meets the diverse needs and interests of different children. Younger or less skilled children might focus on the sensory experience whereas older children may have more specific goals in mind for their mud play. Allow children to explore the mud at their own comfort level. With mud, there is something for everyone and there are no wrong answers.
​
Playing in the mud inspires children to feel a connection to nature and develop an appreciation for the environment. Many children today have limited opportunities to play outdoors and it is difficult to care about the environment if you have not had the chance to spend time in nature. By providing time outdoors and the chance for muddy, messy play, you facilitate a love of the earth."

​Community Playthings

Need a quick sensory play activity to keep your little one busy and happy?

​Shaving foam with food coloring is so much fun!

Corn Meal is another wonderful, abundant medium that kids love to feel and play in.  Cooking dinner and want to keep your 'helper' occupied?  Put out a large roasting dish of corn meal to play with!

For this activity the kids were blindfolded as they searched for hidden treasures with their fingers and tried to identify what they found through touch alone.

This is a fun recipe that is easy to whip up and highly entertaining!

Mix together:
​

• 2 cups of  sugar
• 2 cups of corn flour
• 10 tablespoons olive oil 

This is a special type of kinetic sand that really holds it's shape when molded together and then efortlessly turns back into loose sand again - fascinating stuff!

"This is a blue bee swimming until he gets sucked into a volcano!"

Good ol' fashioned sand is such a great sensory experience for kids as they explore their sense of touch and play and discover with the wonderful texture of sand! 

These would make such cool holiday gifts!  Simply use different colors of sharpies on white socks.  Then blend the colors with drops of alcohol.

Awesome ingredients for a potion table:

• food coloring
  
• baking soda
  
• vinegar
  
• dishwashing soap
• hydrogen peroxide
• yeast
• glitter

We went hunting for colorful leaves and flowers and created pretty pieces for the nature table.

Which carrots taste better to you?  Orange, yellow, magenta, or white?

Thumbs up! Orange carrots are the winner!

We loved this simple Fall activity!  Such a fun way to introduce sewing techniques. Their focus was amazing!

"Before you start, examine the front cover illustration of 'Duke Ellington - The Piano Prince and His Orchestra' by Andrea Davis Pinkney. See if your child can guess what the green swirls are. After you have finished the story, look at the cover illustration again and discuss it. Look through the book for other pictures showing the different colors of music. Then set out a variety of paint colors for your child to use and play Masterpieces by Ellington: “Sophisticated Lady” in the background while you paint on one half of the page.

​Next listen to Masterpieces by Ellington: “Mood Indigo”. Without telling your child the title of the piece, ask what colors he hears when he listens to the music. If you like, you can tell him the title and explain that indigo is a blue color. Get out the colors for today’s painting as directed by your child, and have him paint a picture while listening to the piece again on the other half of the paper."

​Waldorf Curriculum​ - an awesome free resource!

Compare how the 2 pieces of music and art are different!

Each child picked out a lemon and examined it carefully for distinguishing features and then put it back in the bowl.

Try to find your lemon by looking for the bumps, ridges and colors you noticed before.  The kids were great at actually finding their original lemon!

These edible paints made by GLOB actually smell and taste like the plants they are made from!

We explored rhythms and tried out different utensils as drumming tools to compare the difference in sounds.

So fun to create these shakers with toliet paper tubes, neon paint, glitter washi tape, stickers, and markers.

A teacher secretly put rice, almonds, small rocks, and navy beans into two shakers for each item - then secured the shakers with penguin duct tape.

Sound shakers are an amazingly fun and fairly simple Montessori material from the Sensorial Area of the classroom that helps children hone their Auditory Senses.

In addition to our five familiar senses of vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, we have two additional "inner" senses. These two senses are called vestibular (inner ear/balance) and proprioception (joints/heavy work).  The sensory benefits of yoga for kids is impressive!

In November we like to put an extra focus on gratitude.  In Yoga class we did poses of things in nature that we are grateful for.

Benefits: This pose is a great warm up to the other poses and helps devolop core strength, flexibility, and posture while providing some gentle proprioceptive input.

Benefits: This move helps with coordination, leg strength, and a deep pressure (proprioceptive input) into the legs.

Benefits: This is a great pose for the core. There’s also the added benefit of all the proprioceptive pressure on the back while they roll out of the pose.

Here's a great resource to practice some of these poses at home!

It's never too early to start cultivating an attitude of gratitude!

We offered some scratch 'n' sniff stickers to increase the sensory benefits!

And don't forget to donate to our fundraiser for a new block center for the kids at:

GOFUNDME

No amount is too small to make a difference!

See you next time!

Here at ACG we love to play with our food!  These Banana Ants are a fun way to learn about the different body parts of an ant.

We learned that all insects have 3 body parts as we connected the head to the thorax and the thorax to the abdomen with pretzel sticks.

Ants use their antennas partially like we use our noses, to smell things (they also use them for touch). When an ant meets another ant, it will touch it with its antennas to pick up any scents. The ant can tell if an ant is a member of its own colony from its smell!

 We connected the eyes with sunflower seed butter.  Ants have compound eyes made from many tiny lenses connected together. Check out this cool camera that allows humans to see the way insects can!

We had fun pretending to be predator bugs - beetles, spiders, and caterpillars... as we devoured our banana-ant prey!

We loved reading these great books to learn more about these fascinating creatures:

The kids have been enthralled with our new ant farm!  They can really see how the ants create tunnels and carry food around.

We created some really cool ant tunnels with a tape resist technique.  Tape resist art is a fun process based experience! So fun and simple to try at home.

We mixed together blue, red, and yellow to make brown paint.

The kids love tearing off the tape to reveal their designs!

Ants dig their tunnels so they have a place to live. If they stayed on the top of the ground things like birds or lizards might eat them. Also, the temperature is better underground. It is not windy, away from the rain or snow, cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

"I'm building a nest for the baby eggs!"

​Spider Shapes!

Spider Webs!  Chalk on black paper makes really cool webs!

​Silly Spiders!

​Nature Bugs!

We collected items from nature and then researched different bugs with insect field guides.  The kids created some really beautiful bugs!

​Looking for a very special holiday present this year?  This Spielgaben set is a collection of very high quality learning materials with endless possibilities. We really enjoyed creating different insects with the fun colorful shapes.

​We explored even more mathematical principles with these bug-inspired patterning and sequence cards.

​These over-sized toy bugs are a huge hit!  We had fun matching them to our specimen collection and playing bug attack with them.

​Make your own bug stickers! Combining stickers AND stamps? So much fun!

We love the quality of these beautiful stamps!  The kids were delighted in how many different types of bugs they could identify after all our projects.

​Insect Watercolors!

​Stained Glass Bugs!

​Bug Searching!

We had so much fun creating bug yoga poses:)   

Sweet butterflies!

Jumping Grasshoppers!

Dragonfly Pose!

Praying Mantis!

Wiggling Earthworms!

The kids love finishing class with these chimes - it takes a lot of concentration!

The kids LOVED these crunchy pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds).

Step 1:

Prep your chocolate chunks by hammering 1/2 a bar of dark chocolate in a sandwich bag.

Step 2:

The pumpkin had been de-seeded and baked at 350 for 45 minutes.  Once cool scoop out the cooked pumpkin.

Step 3:

​Crack and whisk together 3 eggs.

Step 4:

​Mix into the eggs 1/3 cup cooked pumpkin, 1/3 cup honey, 1/4 cup coconut oil, and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Step 6:

Spoon into a greased mini-muffin tin and bake for 12 - 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Such a healthy and yummy Halloween treat!

​Thumbkin Patch!

"I'm making a big pumpkin!"

​No-Mess Color Mixing Pumpkins!

​Paper Pumpkins!  Check out these awesome scissor skills!!

​
​Bunnies love kale!

Kids love kale too!

​
Roly Polys!

We planted carrot, beet, lettuce, spinach, sugar snap peas and cilantro seeds in the garden.  Little hands are the sweetest seed planters :)

The kids started spontaneously painting the playhouse and it turned into quite an artistic feat!

Finger painting too!

​Fall Leaves!

​Rain doesn't stop us!

The kids love making (and eating!) these banana-dogs.  Simply spread sunflower seed butter on a tortilla and roll a banana up in it.  Slice to make cute little 'banana sushis'.

These awesome blocks and our water table were the result of fundraisers with our parent community - Please check out our 2017 fundraiser below!

We are raising funds for a whole new indoor block center for our schoolhouse!  This block center will include 4 different sets of blocks which are all mathematically modular, along with ramps, cars, trucks, toy people (all hand-made with beautiful wood) that can be used together to create endless play and possibilities.  These blocks are crafted by Community Playthings (just like our outdoor blocks and water table above) where they use the finest materials and care in their products.

Blocks are one of the most powerful learning tools for young children, enriching every area of the curriculum and supporting child development.

Please help Austin Children's Garden have an amazing new indoor learning center!  We are hoping to raise all the funds before the holidays so the children can play and learn with them as the weather gets cooler.  Please consider donating to the fundraiser in lieu of any holiday teacher gifts - seeing the kids happy and creating with these beautiful learning materials is the best gift we could imagine!

And please pass this on to any family or friends that might want to donate - no amount is too small!! You can write a check directly to Community Playthings and put it in the black mailbox in the schoolhouse or go to our GoFundMe campaign:

​https://www.gofundme.com/BlocksForAustinChildrensGarden​
​

Check out all the wonderful skills our kids are learning when they play with blocks:

See you next time!