Lemons - January 13, 2016

The children have been making "tea, coffee and water" for everyone to drink.  All of the children have been very into this as of lately.

After snack we cleaned the tables and got some tools and dishes ready to make lemonade.

This morning I brought in lemons and mint.  I put it in a wooden bowl and had it as our centre piece for morning snack.  

We passed the mint around for everyone to smell.  "A" said the mint smelled like bubble gum. Then we cut up the lemon and past it around to smell too.

Everyone got a turn to use the pestle and mortar and the juicer. 

Once everyone had a turn with each item then we put everything into our pitcher.  Then we sampled the juice and lemons. 

Cars, Car Ramps.....Balance Beams - January 8, 2016

Friday afternoon, a couple of children were racing cars on the floor.  Then E went and got a long block off the block shelf.  He put it on the floor and raced his car on it.  He started to lift the block off the ground to get his car to move.  Then he went and listened to a story in the library.  He took his block and cars with him.

As E was listening to the story the block was leaning on the couch.  When the story was done he saw that and raced his car down the newly formed car ramp.  He let another child try it out with his car too. It was getting a little loud in the library so I put one chair on the carpet just outside the library.  E saw this and took his block and leaned it on the chair.  The other child got his own chair out and block so he could join in the play with E. 

Now both children had car ramps going off their chairs.  They started to have races down the ramp.  One would say "Ready,Set,Go" and they would let their car go racing down the ramps.  After about ten minutes of racing their cars, they both started to move the blocks around on the chairs.  They had one block laying across both chairs. E stood up on the chair and started to feel out the block.  It moved around at first. He got off and readjusted it. Then back up he went. This time he got all the way across.  Now L had to try it out.  He did the same thing.  He tested the block before he walk across it.  Once he felt it was secure enough he walk across it.  After a few tries with the one block they wanted to make it longer. After a few minutes about five children were helping to build. More chairs and blocked were brought over. Everyone worked together to make a huge balance beam.  Once it was built everyone took turns crossing over the balance beam.

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Stacking cups - January 11, 2016

The children have been enjoying the red cups that Ms. Curtis picked up at Superstore.  It's amazing to see how creative they are. How far they can stretch their imaginations and use team work to create these well balanced intricate towers. Mrs.Leier taught us how to play a game using the cups. You take three cups and a toy. Placing the toy under one of the cups to hide it. Switch the cups places quickly. When their all mixed up the friends playing try to guess which cup the toy is under!

"Wahoo! Look how high it is!" -A

Timber!!

It's nice to have friends who will help!

Glass Blocks January 6, 2016

This morning W was setting up the glass blocks at the table. He made a comment “the light is making them glow!” We expanded on his thinking by turning off the lights and bringing out the flashlights. I took a few photos and showed W. As more children arrived they all took a chance to explore with  the flashlights. Some took them to other areas of the classroom. The exploration of shadows and the personal freedom and control of the light makes the flashlights a very popular tool of exploration in our classroom.  

 

Lunch Prep - January 7, 2016

Teachable moments are opportunities that arise constantly in our day. The chance to allow a child or group of children to work on a skill or attempt something that they might not try regularly. Such an opportunity arose today during lunch when V was set with the task of cutting his own pepperoni sticks. The appeal of getting to use a cutting board and butter knife was exciting. The process was slow and supervised. The children have used knives to help cut veggies or fruit when doing cooking activities so V already knew how to hold the handle, where to put the other hand and how to stabilize the pepperoni. He was very proud of himself when he was done cutting up both pepperoni sticks. After he was done cutting he ate every last piece.  

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The Snow Fort - December 29 and 30

Last week the children spent a lot of time working with Preschool Two and School Age One to build a snow fort in the front yard.  They loaded up their sleds with huge snow chunks and then pulled it all the way over to the area we were building the fort.  The school agers would then add the pieces of snow to the fort. It was great to see all the rooms working together to get the fort built.  Everyone was showing lots of cooperation, helpfulness, and enthusiasm to get the job done. 

Your child would love to give you a tour and show you what they built! Come check out the fort when you pick up your child.

Pulling the snow on the sled.

Waiting our turn to get snow blocks on our sleds.

Using our muscles to pull the sled over the snow.

Moving the blocks of snow into the fort.

Wow look at how tall we build the fort! Lots of hard work!

  

Some of us took a break and got covered in snow!

Building Disneyland January 4, 2016

Last week we changed our house keeping to a vacation experience. The children enjoyed dressing up in the hawian shirts, sunglasses and straw hats. When discussing where we were going the children got excited and some mentioned Disneyland. When I announced that we were going to pack our bags three more children included themselves in our play.They were very excited about the idea of pretending our room was Disneyland. They immediately set to work in the block arrea. "E" decided she was going to build the castle.

Nice Castle.

Of course you have to call Disneyland and "see if daddy's there!"

When packing you're bags it good to get friends advice.

Having a blast building our roller coaster! 

These blocks are heavy.

Final touches!

The children were very creative in building their roller coaster. They first created a slide and then used our tunnel blocks as seats to slide down on!!! 🎢

So much fun!