December 21, 2015 - Ice Art

The children were using their fine motor skills to cut up some branches.  They added the pieces to the tin pans or yogurt containers.  We were making some ice art for the trees outside.

We added in some cranberries for colour.

When we added the water to the containers some of the children noticed that the cranberries floated to the top of the water.

We had to wait a few days for the water to freeze. Then we popped them out of the containers and hung them in the trees. Beautiful!!

December 22 - The Hill

We went outside to the front yard this morning.  A bunch of the children were wanting to help shovel the snow off the deck again.  They are building a huge hill on the deck with all of the snow. They really had to use their muscles to get the snow to the top of the hill. A bunch of the children took turns climbing up to the top of the hill once they were done shovelling.  Ethan started to sing "I'm the king of the castle" once he got to the top.  They were so proud to be at the very top of the hill.

Family Book

The children have been very interested in the family book we all made together.  Each child (and teacher) has a page with their own family pictures on it. They love to sit in the library and look at the pictures with each other.  We hear them talking about the pictures on their page.  They tell stories about the picture or share the names of the people or animals.  After a few days you could hear the children sharing stories about other children's pictures.

A big thank you to all the parents that have brought in their child's pictures already. If you haven't yet there is still time.  

Snow Tire Tracks

The children were exploring Adventure Playground when they noticed a large pile of snow and tracks . They concluded that the snow plow had pushed it into our playground. "The tires tracks are so BIG!" "How did it get in here?" "Look at the chunks of snow!" Some of the children collected the small chunks of snow and threw them into the fresh fallen snow. The turned it into a game to see how far they could throw them.

Heavy Snow

Today we had a huge snowfall! The children were so excited to go out and play in the fresh fallen snow.

 

We haven't been able to take out the shovels or sleds because there hasn't been enough snow on the ground.  The children were very excited to have them out today. They pushed the new snow around everywhere.

The children were very helpful when it came to shovelling all the snow off of the deck.

We had a wonderful morning playing in the snow! 

Flashlights

With the nice weather the last two weeks we have been spending a lot of time outside.  The children are noticing that it is getting darker before they get picked up.  A few think that because it is dark outside we should go inside.  One of my best memories of my childhood was spending time in the backyard with flashlights.  Of course I had to bring some flashlights out for the children explore after five o'clock.

It was so much fun to see them go off and explore the yard in the dark.  They would go behind the shed and all I could hear was giggling and laughing.  That was soon followed by screaming and all of the children coming running out.  They would come running over to me and tell me that they saw something behind the shed.  We all went back to investigate.  Once we got back there they pointed to a moving shadow. The branches were moving and making shadows in the light.  We made some of our own shadows on the wall of the shed.  

The two year olds would walk around the yard looking at different things with their flashlight.  The hardest part was holding the flashlight with their mitts on.  After a few minutes they would get the hang of it.  I would watch them shine the light on their boots as they were walking.  Then they would explore their mitts and jacket. 

It was so much fun to watch the children explore the yard in the dark. By the middle of the week the children were asking for flashlight as soon as they noticed it getting darker.  I saved the flashlight for after five o'clock. It is nice and dark by this time and something fun to do before going home. We had so much fun exploring in the dark.

First Snow

November 19, 2015

The children were very excited to see the snow outside today.  All morning they were talking about what they could do when we went outside.

"We can make snowballs."

"We can eat the snow"

"Can we make a huge hill to slide down."

"Let's make some snow angels."

We were all very excited to get outside and do it all.

Helping with the shovelling.

Snow angels

Reminder to all parents: please make sure that you have outdoor gear in your child's locker.  We will still be going out twice a day so you will want at least two pairs of mitts in their locker.  Please label all of your child's things too.  Makes it easier for us when we find something on the ground and we don't know who's it is.  Thanks 

First Frost!

On November 18 the children went to the Front Play Garden to explore the first frost of the season. They enjoyed drawing on the condensation on the windows and pushing the clumps of frost into piles on the bottom of the windowsills.  

 

During the hour and half we were outside the sun finally decided to come out. The children began to comment on how the frost had melted from the leaves of lettuce in the garden. They watched the droplets of water run down the window and gather into clumps of snow on the windowsill. Some of the children collected these clumps of snow on their mittens, others tasted them and commented on how “yummy” it tasted.