Hungry Caterpillar

        
Today for snack the children could make their own bread dough hungry caterpillar.  I used our basic pretzel dough recipe, split it and coloured it
green and red.
   
The children kneaded and rolled the green dough into a long shape then added
a red head.
             
The dough was sticky and needed flour to stop it from sticking to our hands. 
For some children it was a little off-putting and they took it slowly.
 
The pan is lined with parchment paper so the children can print their name
beside their snack.  Then into the oven.
                   
                  A hungry boy eating his hungry caterpillar.

Fire Hose

      
When we were brainstorming about fire fighters one thing that was mentioned by most children was a hose.  They were needed to put out fires.  They sprayed water.  They were on the trucks.

So a hose was something we definitely needed for our fire truck.
          
I found the orange reel at a yard sale just down the street from my house for $2.  I couldn’t believe how lucky.  I then visited one of the local bike shops (one of our dad’s works there) and asked for old bike tubes.
                 
I cut off the valves and stapled the tubes together to make one long piece.  Covering the staples with black electric tape to prevent getting scratched while we played.
    
    Then I attached it to the reel with packing tape and we wound it in. 
       A hard piece of cardboard tubing was used for the nozzle.
    
The fire fighters worked hard breaking into the structure (yes it is our truck but also worked well as a burning building) with their axes then spraying in water.  A parent added blue streamers in the end of the nozzle.  I love that the grown ups are comfortable adding and inventing too.
                  
Just like a real fire station we leave our equipment all set for another day
                                          of fire fighting.

Fire Fighters

For the last several weeks we have been talking about fire fighters.
          
We spent about a week reading books and brainstorming what we know
                                 about fire fighters.
            
A parent that works at Costco saved us this great box.  Once we opened it
                  we started to plan how we would get in to it.
               
       
      The children drew the windows and doors and I cut them out.
        
Added two chairs, steering wheel and radio and it was ready to go.
          
This is an interesting question for us because in our valley we have three fire departments and they all have different coloured trucks.  We are planning trips to a couple of those fire halls so we will ask the fire fighters why their trucks are different colours.

In the meantime we had a visitor to our school.
    
The fire house came to school for the grade 3 classes to learn about getting
                        out of a burning house safely.
                  
Retired Deputy Fire Chief was volunteering and we asked him to visit our room to take a look at our fire truck.  We asked, 'why the trucks are different colours?"  He explained that a few decades ago it was believed that black and white was easier to see in traffic and that is why some fire trucks were changed.  But most trucks are still red.  We will have to survey the children to see what the majority want to paint the truck.

Seed Sock Update

Today we pulled down our bags of Seed Socks from the window.
          
First we noticed that the socks felt dry.
        
Then we noticed that nothing had changed, nothing was sprouting.
       
If we were do to this again we may choose a different area to walk, choose to go later in the Spring and we would add a lot more water to the bag before closing it and hanging it in the window.

A New Fairy Woods

One of our former parents is a teacher at a neighbouring school.  Her class created fairy doors to put in the forest beside their school.  Today we went in search of the doors.
  
It was a beautiful day to run through the forest checking behind
                       all the trees and stomps.

      
This woods has lots of trails to wander and big stumps to climb on, a natural playground.  The children searched and searched and some reported they found 9 doors while others found 11.

 
After counting we gathered in an opening beside a big stump so I could
                     introduce our project for the day. 
           
       Each child could make their own fairy garden to take home. 
Provided were a small bowls of soil, sliced pieces of cork, bottle caps, jewels
                                        and moss.
    
   The children also collected sticks, stones, and pine cones off the ground.
       
                  Then they began to put their gardens together.
         
                       Getting more items as they created.
                   
      Each garden is unique according to what attracted the child.
              
Because we used live moss they gave their a spray of water when they
                                   were finished.

But we weren’t finished yet.
 
                  I introduced Fairy Wishes to the children. 
If you blow just a few Wishes over your gardens then maybe fairies will move in.
  
I demonstrated blowing the wishes and as the dandelion fluff separated and
they spiraled done to the ground they kind of look like little fairies.
     
         A good blow and lots of wishes all over his garden.

Fairies didn’t arrive but I did have a little gnome for each garden.
     
           
                    A wee little home for the gnome.
Hopefully the fairies and the gnomes will be comfortable in their new gardens.