Have you ever thought about maximizing space and growing food upwards? Well, some of our teachers and students are getting really creative and resourceful and decided to start a Potato Tire Tower Garden! Today we collected soil for our first tire level in the tower garden. Then we planted a few potato sprouts, hoping for them to grow tall in order to move to the next tire level and add more soil. Thanks to the parents that donated old tires in order to begin this project. If you are curious about this potato tire tower garden, check out this link to learn more about it. http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2009/04/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-tire-towers/

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines we are working on during this project include:

• Gross Motor Skills: The control of large muscles for movement, navigation, and balance.
  
• Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy: The perception that one is capable of successfully making decisions, accomplishing tasks, and meeting goals.
  
• Reasoning and Problem-Solving: The ability to recognize, understand, and analyze a problem and draw on knowledge or experience to seek solutions to a problem.
  

Birds are back and we have seen chickadees, woodpeckers, hawks, blue jays, sandhill cranes, and more! Therefore we started studying our precious book about western birds, if you have any cool books about birds at home, feel free to send them to school for a day. Above is one of our students observing the western birds book and trying to replicate the image on a white board. He called his bird Mr. Wables, when drawing the picture of a wobbler. It is incredible how sharp their bird recognition is already.  

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

• Persistence and Attentiveness: The ability to begin and finish activities with persistence and attention. 
• Initiative and Curiosity: An interest in varied topics and activities, a desire to learn, creativity, and independence in learning. 

Mail time! This week we worked on creating our very own mailboxes to send and receive mail. Students have shown so much interest in writing letters to family members and their peers. What a better way to practice literacy and get to writing and reading?! Feel free to write to your child or encourage them to write letters at home and drop them in the respective mailbox

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines   we are targeting with this project include:

• Alphabet knowledge: The names and sounds associated with letters. 
• Print Concepts and Conventions: The concept about print and early decoding (identifying letter-sound relationships.) 
• Early Writing: The familiarity with writing implements, conventions, and emerging skills to communicate through written representations, symbols, and letters.