A happy and healthy winter It’s the time of year when we watch the leaves change, take out warmer clothes, and watch football on the weekends. It is also the time when various cold and flu viruses start making their way through classrooms. The Blue Jay room is no exception, and we have had lots of...

Building from the ground up The Peanuts have been investigating buildings of all sorts. We started with a discussion of the different aspects of buildings, such as the foundation, the walls, the roof, the floors, and built collaborative sculptures during meeting times. The Peanuts were encouraged to...

Music and movement As winter melts away, the Peanuts are raring to get outside as much as we can. Once outside preschoolers really move and express themselves freely. The Peanut focus of study naturally turned to movement. We began documenting how the Peanuts liked to move on the playground, and...

An experiential study of community At ages 3-4 years, children begin opening themselves up to the world. In turn they navigate a world much bigger than the one they’ve previously known. Models of child development such as Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems theory and Vygotsky's constructivist...

What’s in a garden? Once we began collecting flower petals for the classroom from under trees outside, read Eating the alphabet by Lois Ehlert, and watched a few beans sprout in jars on our windowsills, we knew we were ready to answer the Peanut’s big question: What’s in a garden? We set out on many...

Powerful Peanut Performances As 3- and 4-year olds grow, the exploratory and experimental curiosity that defines early childhood development turns to family, teachers, and friends. Both bio-ecological and constructivist models of development posit that children’s cognitive ability to think about...

At PIC, we know that a story book can come to life, especially when a little magic (or Magic Circle more accurately) is added. During the Peanuts recent study of sound, the teachers and children dove into some great books to enrich their learning. Early on a clear classroom favorite became, We’re...

The Sounds of Storytelling When you read your to little ones before bedtime, is it a one way interaction? Young children experience read-alouds in many different ways and contexts, but seldom are any of these ways passive! An artfully written children’s work is interactive, colorful, carries meaning...

Moving the Peanuts Towards Water and Sky In the Peanut classroom our teaching team is focued on what we know the Peanuts themselves are excited about and ready to learn. But, how do we balance what the Peanuts are interested in with what we know they need to be learning through play? The most...

As the Peanuts had been studying Art and Artists even before this amazing art installation, we felt lucky to be able to visit the chapel and check out what an artist had created in a space so near and dear to us at PIC! The Peanuts had already begun lots of open ended play with cutting, wrapping...