Fur and Feathers

The most recent trains of thought have been driving in diverse directions. About half of the children regularly play “Koala” during outdoor classroom and morning choice. In the beginning, the koalas frequently threw themselves into battle, fighting the invisible and unwitting foe. However, soon the children discovered (yes, there was a bit of coaching here) that koalas are actually rather peaceful creatures. A few of the attacking koalas were babies, so the game moved to “keep a baby koala on your back [walking with someone walking behind you] and keep it safe.” That’s what Mama koalas do, right?

The other half is obsessed with “Puffins.” These puffins are lovingly re-created each morning using paper, tongue depressors and lots and lots of glue. Puffins appeared in the building area, in the loft, at the light table, and outside the classroom. We aren’t sure how much information our children actually have about puffins, but we are certainly curious to find out.

Here are the tidbits of prior knowledge that we collected today when the children were asked:

What do you know about koalas or puffins?

• Koalas climb trees. -KV
• Puffins climb trees, too. -CS
• Puffins are black and white. -MH
• Koalas hug the trees and use their feet and hands to climb. -AH
• Koalas sleep for half and hour in a tree. -KH
• Koalas sleep at night in trees of bamboo. -WS
• Koalas look for food in trees, like apples. -LZ
• Puffins are white. -NP
• Puffins have wings that are black and they have orange feet.  They don’t have claws. -AG
• Puffins fly. -RF
• Koalas usually stay up in trees and eat leaves. -LW
• Puffins sometimes go in rabbit holes. -ZW
• Koalas live in snow. -SS

Now that we have some ideas about these two creatures, we’ll begin crafting some questions to learn more.