Circle Sculptures

This week we are talking about trees, but we're also working in lots of other things, such as some basic shapes and colors.  I just finished my first round of assessments with this new batch of Little People, and have found that many of them have lots and lots of fun things ahead of them to learn. (Meaning that a good number of them scored very low on this first assessment.)  However, I figure that they're really  not "supposed" to know any of these things until the end of the year anyway.   Plus, I kind of enjoy seeing such great amounts of growth during the school year, as they start out with not much "academic" knowledge and develop into these competent pre-kindergartners at the end of the year.   They're just like little sponges throughout these months.

This week we're familiarizing ourselves with circles.  I decided to set out paper plates, lots of die cut circles, my collection of recycled plastic lids, empty ribbon spools, and brand new bottles of glue.  Then I let them use these materials to make some Circle Sculptures.  Along the way we talked about the different circles - what they were made of, how some could fit inside others, and all about the different sizes.

Not surprisingly  the Little People went to town on this project   They stacked and glued and stacked some more:

 They picked their favorite circles and made some "collections" on their paper-plate bases:

They filled their plastic circles with glue and then in turn dumped the glue out onto their plates before gluing their circles down:

They even decided to bring over some scissors to cut some of their circles.

  But that was okay, too, because we also had a good discussion about what you can make when you cut circles.  I was told that when you cut circles you make pizza (slices).  And then when a smaller circle was cut, I heard, "I cut my circle and made a D!  No - two Ds!"  Sigh - they're so clever - just like little sponges.