M/W/F
Snowy Fun . . .

As the forecasters predicted, we had LOTS of snow this week!  This became the curriculum for a few days.  Above, the playground before we ran onto it!

All bundled up to go out!  Thank you parents for having the children well prepared!

We HAD to run through the puddles!

The kids really had fun exploring the playground with all that snow on the equipment, it was like a different place. . .

 We also enjoyed exploring the snow INDOORS.  Here, Karsten paints the snow.

Other activities this week included playing superheros...

We talked a lot about how superheros behave, what they do and what fun super powers they can have.

We made paper bag pumpkins...

On Friday, we found Halloween rings in our shaving cream...

We danced to The Monster Mash...(Jane was tired at this point)

We enjoyed a visit from my teacher-friend, Carole Sue, who brought a big book as a gift and read it to us!

As I have mentioned, this group often "writes" their own curriculum, meaning they are comfortable enough and have become happily social, that they often play very well in the blocks, outside and in the housekeeping area, creating their own scenarios with one another. These are good opportunities for me to, rather than dominate their play, to observe them and facilitate when necessary, such as when they need help with how to ask for something or figure out how to take turns.

A routine of the day that has also become a huge part of the curriculum for the children is SNACK TIME.  The children often ask, "Is it time for snack?"  They LOVE getting out their water bottles and snack containers and comparing snacks.  Sometimes they help each other get their water bottles.  They get a great kick out of seeing what each child has for snack.  This has been another wonderful opportunity for verbal language development and learning how to have conversations together, as well as a nice community building experience.

They are progressing wonderfully!


Tuesday/Thursday
Superheroes...


Our Tuesday/Thursday class really enjoyed reading the above book.  It is about a little boy who saves the babies when they crawl away.  This sparked a conversation initiated by Zoe, about how we are not babies anymore because we walk, talk, eat on our own, go potty in the bathroom, etc.

We talked about how the little boy in the book was a hero and this transitioned into our Superhero play.  We also read the book, Superhero ABC, which has a lot of fun superheros in it.  We noticed that most of them had a letter on their costume so we made our own...

Z for Zoe, E for Elliott, etc.  And then we had a superhero olympics and did races up and down the hallway, like skipping, hopping on one foot, rolling a ball to your friend.  We wore our capes!

The snow was a whole other curriculum this week.  Above, Elliott discovers an icicle.





The children were well-prepared (thank you) and enjoyed exploring their playground in this way!

We also explored the snow in a warmer way by bringing some in and painting it...

Other activities this week included beading straws - I was impressed at the great eye-hand coordination exhibited here!

We sorted, stacked and counted the little pumpkin erasers Owen's dad gave us.  We put them in baby food jars too - practicing screwing on and off the lids was good exercise for our hand muscles.

 

Of course we found time for painting...

and playing house!

And we dearly love the routine of having snack together.  We eat, check out our friends' snacks and make conversation.  The children especially enjoy identifying crunchy vs. soft foods.

They had a lovely week!