The winter spirit continues, and our investigation of igloos has lead us to finally tackle the task and start building our own IGLOO! Before we began the Igloo in our playground, we had to decide what was the best material to create building blocks out of. Our students came up with two options: snow blocks and ice blocks. Therefore we decided to test out both options and let them sit overnight to later observe which building block was sturdier and better for building. After some predictions, experimentation, and time; we all decided a mix of both; snow and ice, would be the perfect combination to build our igloo out of. Now, our students are working hard to fill up as many snow/ice blocks as they can, letting them sit overnight, and build with them the next day! Looking forward to seeing what the results are of this exciting outdoor Igloo project.

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines covered throughout this investigation include:

• Measurement and Comparison: The understanding of attributes and relative properties of objects as related to size, capacity, and area.
  
• Scientific Skills and Method : The skills to observe and collect information and use it to ask questions, predict, explain and draw conclusions.
• Cooperation: An interest and engagement in group exercises.
  

These past few weeks we have been focusing on exploring questions such as:  “what is a menu? What can we find in a menu? How do we read and use menus?” This exploration has lead us to create our own North Routt Warming Hutt and create our own menus for own favorite food and beverage items. Above are some pictures of students working really hard on creating their own menus.  Check out our Current Investigations posts on the door of the community room to read some of the students’ responses on these questions. Example: “What are menus?” …“If they don’t have it, don’t order it.”

Some Colorado Early Learning & Development Guidelines covered on this investigation:

• Receptive English Language skills: The ability to comprehend and understand the English language.
• Early Writing: The familiarity with writing implements, conventions, and emerging skills to communicate through written representations, symbols and letters.
• Symbolic Representation: The use of symbols or objects to represent something else.
  

Happy New Year from NRP! We are loving the fresh powder this snow storm is bringing. Specially the enourmous sledding hill the snow plow has created! So much fun, and we get to work on our gross motor skills.

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines (ages 3-5) that were worked on throughout this activity include:

1. Gross Motor Skills: The control of large muscles for movement, navigation, and balance.
2. Physical Health Status: The maintenance of healthy and age-appropriate physical well-being.