This Week!: Pasta Week

Pasta Week marked the children's seamless return to school following our two week Holiday Break. Happy to be back at school and with one another, they readily explored "Pasta" in a myriad of ways.

It was with great excitement that we celebrated the birthdays of Karsyn and Reid, who both turned four years old during our break!

We happily welcomed a new friend to Parker School! Rowan visited with us on Wednesday and Thursday and will officially join our class on Monday!

In addition, the children had great fun playing with our new Pegs and Magnet Blocks. Many thanks again for your generosity that enabled us to add to our collection of Fine Motor Toys!

We are all looking forward to the "Grand Opening" of our Grocery Store on Monday!

Looking Deeper: Exploration and Learning through Play

This Week I would like to guide you through a closer look at the value of

Pasta Week!

Pasta Week is intentionally scheduled to occur after the long Holiday Break. It is a low key, fun week, built around a popular children's "comfort food", and we do in fact cook and eat pasta each day for snack! If we are cooking, then we are exploring Science! We talk about how cooking the pasta in hot water changes it. Pasta is hard and crunchy before it is cooked, and soft and yummy afterwards! The children may not use the Scientific language, but cooking pasta teaches them about the "properties" of the substance, and its transformation when exposed to heat and water. These are concepts they will remember and build upon as they continue Scientific exploration both formally and informally.

Additionally, the children are amazed and excited when they discover that the "water table" is filled with all kinds of pasta that they can touch and explore! They immediately gather around the table, reconnect socially, and banter as they "cook" and create in all sorts of ways with this delightfully tactile material which is so familiar, but has perhaps never been "handled"!

As always, our books and songs focus on the topic, as do our art activities. As the children paint, glue, handle, eat, and hear stories about pasta they learn that it comes in a variety of shapes, colors and sizes. They broaden their vocabulary as they learn the names of many pastas such as; Spaghetti, Penne, Ravioli, Lasagna, and Farfalle which is the Italian word for butterfly, and the "proper name" for bow tie pasta which we cooked and ate on Thursday!