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.

We happily welcomed a new friend to Parker School! Ani joined our class on Tuesday of this week, and we are so happy to have her with us on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings!

Welcome Ani!

Thank you to Chelsea's mom Michelle for coming in as our first Guest Reader of the year!

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

Divertido con Espanol / Fun with Spanish

The children enjoyed painting and gluing with Rosalba as she pointed out that the word "Pasta" is the same in both Spanish and English!

Vocabalo de Semana en Espanol / Words of the Week in Spanish

Pasta / Pasta

Salsa de Espagueti / Spaghetti Sauce

Queso / Cheese

Mantequilla / Butter

Looking Deeper: Exploration and Learning through Play

This Week I would like to take 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 farfalla which is the Italian word for butterfly, and the "proper name" for bow tie pasta which we cooked and ate on Monday!