From Puddles to Pancakes!

We had a busy week!

The rain did not stop us!  In fact, it became a huge part of the curriculum for the week as we explored big puddles and poured and dumped water in bins in our Mud Kitchen . . 

Below, Molly had a blast running through the giant puddle in her bright yellow boots!

The cloudy weather inspired pancake cooking with the T/Th group.

We also talked about the shape of pancakes and drew our own!

This week on the Milestones facebook page (www.facebook.com/pages/Milestones-Preschool/492457600828639) I wrote an article about The Importance of Sensory Play for young children.  The facebook page is another resource for you where I aim to write one article almost every week about child development - check it out!  Below is one of the sensory provocations (Reggio-language for positively enticing the children to try new things) that I provided at the round table this week.

What is that pink stuff?

We call it GAK, and it is made with glue and hot water.  The children enjoyed its pliability and stretchiness.  A great activity for exercising developing fine motor muscles!

Speaking of developing fine muscles in the hand, Jackson, below, is exhibiting the second stage of the traditional 4 stages of the developing pencil grasp - good job, buddy!  I just conducted the Mommy & Me class last Friday on activities that help to develop this very important milestone in children.  Let me know if you would like some of the information that I shared in that session.

Trains seem to be an constant interest in preschool.  We have been reading several books and, Wednesday we decided to use ALL of the train tracks to build a really big track around the room.  This was not only fun, but encouraged team work.

We also made bridges with the blocks.

Hazel added people and a house!

The T/Th group got to enjoy what the M/W children built and then were great about cleaning it up later.

M/W children finished up their mural.  Jack painted a tree, Colin, a sun and cloud, and Hazel a flower.  We missed Noe this week, she is on a trip.

We had a lovely walk in the drizzle, exploring the environment all wet!

Hmmm, mud!

And our pools were already full for us to fill and dump water!

Our older M/W group is keeping track of school days.  We will fill the circles with groups of ten stickers and then explore counting by tens.

To additionally visualize this, we are also filling cups up with straws up to ten.  Below, Colin counts the straws so far.

The T/Th group has been reading and play acting Humpty Dumpty.  Below, we worked on balancing plastic egg Humptys on a block wall.

Nice balancing your block structure, Jackson!

We have a really big Humpty that we have re-enacted the story with and Jackson picked him up and began reciting the rhyme.

It's lovely to see the children sharing books together . . .

Great week, kids!