Today we started an experiment that relates to our healthy lifestyle investigation. We were wondering what would happen to our teeth if we didn't brush them for a day, or even several days. To simulate the scenario without actually not brushing our teeth, we collected white shells (that resembled our teeth) from our materials room. Then we made 5 food coloring dye solutions to drop our shells for the time period of choice, In a few days we shall see what happened to our shells and if we are even capable of brushing the dye off the shells. To be Continued...

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this activity include:  

• Physical Health Status: The maintenance of healthy and age-appropriate physical well-being.
• Scientific Skills and Method: The skills to observe and collect information and use it to ask questions, predict, explain, and draw conclusions, 

Did you know we now have a doctor's office at NRP? Come check out the community room and this new space where friends are exploring another way to promote a healthful life style. Bellow are some pictures of two "doctors" and a "patient" being cared for. 

Also, we started a project called "healthy choices clip art" some friends already started the project and cut out healthy choices to display on our project wall and potentially make a book in the future. 

For our overarching question: How do we stay healthy? a whole array of topics have come up in our classroom and developed our curriculum. We explored the concept of a virus and how it attacks our body and make us feel sick. This discussion created a lot of questions amongst the preschoolers. One question that we decided to explore further with our sensory table, was the question: "If white blood cells protect our body from viruses, what do red blood cells do?" 

Bellow, are some pictures of the sensory experience answering that question. We first read a simplified version of blood composition and learned a lot about platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells and plasma! We then came up with our own blood sample to symbolize and learn the four components of one of the most important substances in our bodies; blood. (In case you are wondering, the red blood cells main purpose is to carry oxygen from our lungs to other parts of our bodies.)  

After a long weekend away from school, one of our pre-kindergardeners said: "Ms. Gaby, remember the blood sample we made? That was so much fun!" and then I asked him about the different components of blood and he remembered a surprising amount of information. Learning can be so fun and motivating when done from a place of curiosity and creativity. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted include:

• Cooperation: An interest in group experiences.
• Conceptual Knowledge of the Natural and Physical World: The acquisition of concepts and facts related to the natural and physical world and understanding of naturally-occurring relationships.  
• Initiative and Curiosity: An interest in varied topics and activities, a desire to learn, creativity, and independence in learning. 

The  "self help" topic we explored last week led our preschoolers to a lot of questions related to "why do we get sick?" This week we are focusing on different aspects of that question. Today we specifically focused on reviewing the information we learned last week about viruses (or germs), and how they act within our body to make us sick. Followed by the discussion some friends showed interest in creating their own virus sculptures and understanding why they are structured in such particular ways. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this activity include: 

• Art: The use of a range of media and materials to create drawings, pictures, or other objects. 
• Conceptual Knowledge of the natural and physical World: The acquisition of concepts and facts related to the natural and physical world and the understanding of naturally-occurring relationships. 

Some preschoolers have been displaying a lot of interest in the basic principals of physics through the manipulation of ramps, balls, cars and different props that they manipulate to explore their outcomes. It is fascinating to see their minds come up with questions and solutions in a matter of seconds while playing a having a great time. Such an inspiration!

​Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines encouraged during this activity include: 

• Initiative and Curiosity: An interest in varied topics and activities, a desire to learn, creativity, and independence in learning. 
• Cooperation: An interest in engagement in group experiences. 
• Scientific Skills and Method; The skills to observe and collect information and use it to ask questions, predict, explain, and draw conclusions. 
• Geometry and Spatial Sense: The understanding of shapes, their properties, and how objects are related to one another. 

This week we focused on "self-help skills" such as hygiene, getting dressed and undressed, and table manners or etiquette. Since our preschoolers have been displaying a lot of interest in the dramatic play joy of cooking, baking and serving food, we set up a scenario where  some students managed he kitchen area and others the dinning table. We explored ways to set up the table, and pretended to cook food with play dough as our medium. We then all sat at the table and practiced our table manners. I have never seen a group of preschoolers so cooperative, intentional and focused at the table. We hope to transfer these self-help skills to our daily "real dinning experiences" at home and elsewhere. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this activity include: 
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