We headed back to the table and took out some paper and markers and got busy making maps for Ozbot to read and follow.
I am praying for health and safety for you all this weekend and look forward to having a "full house" on Wednesday.
This morning we began with center time. After snack and chapel we met on the rug to see what special robot Tootsie had brought for us today. We read a story about all the different types of robots. There are robots that go to space, vacuum our floors, build cars, and decorate donuts! We talked about how big some robots can be while others can be quite small. Then Tootsie introduced us to Ozbot. Ozbot is a cute little robot that reads color. Different patterns of color also tell the robot to speed up, slow down, spin, or turn and reverse course. The children were very excited to see how Ozbot worked. We headed back to the table and took out some paper and markers and got busy making maps for Ozbot to read and follow. Ozbot was very entertaining but everyone wanted to also introduce our robot kitten to our friend that missed school on Wednesday. We returned to the carpet for some robot kitten play. Several friends tried their hand at cutting robot wrapping paper. Usually we use card stock to cut because the stiffness of the paper makes it easy for beginners to hold steady. The wrapping paper can be challenging to cut but everyone did really well with it. We are really hoping everyone is back with us next week. We will continue our robot work next Wednesday. We will also throw in some magnet fun. There will be no classes next Friday due to conferences. A reminder of conference times is listed below. There will be no child care after all due to the need to keep classes separated during the covid spike.
I am praying for health and safety for you all this weekend and look forward to having a "full house" on Wednesday. This week we are talking all about robots! We had a great morning but couldn't help but miss the friends that were not able to make it today. We said a prayer for everyone that they will be well enough to join us again on Friday. The morning began with some center exploration. We enjoyed cutting practice, a lemonade stand in dramatic play, and Alphabots. Alphabots are letters that transform into robots. Always a huge hit. Not only do they provide an opportunity to "play" with letters but they are a great fine motor workout. They can be found at Lakeshore and go on sale regularly. One of my favorite art projects every year are our Robot Collages. I put out an array of recycled materials and the children build a robot out of all the loose parts. They never cease to amaze me with their creativity. Just take a look at today's masterpieces. One friend had so much fun she made two! During storytime Tootsie brought us a fun song to dance to, a book called, If You're a Robot and You Know It, and a real robot kitten to play with. The song, Robot Rock, is so catchy we were singing it the rest of the morning. We can't wait to share it with our other classmates. Link to the song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQcHsUevexM The rest of the morning was pretty chill. We continued to play in the centers and with each other. Really looking forward to having everyone back together soon. We really miss our friends when they are away. Take care of yourselves. Friday we will have a visit from another exciting robot, Ozbot! We will learn how to program him using color patterns.
I apologize for the late post. I had a soccer game with my son across town after class. We began our day mixing up a crock pot of hot cocoa to drink later in the morning. Once the cocoa was mixed and set to heat up we got busy exploring centers. Everyone enjoyed some sensory play making kinetic sand "cocoa", dramatic play in the cocoa shop, and some other various fine motor and alphabet centers. Today we spent a little time on some name work. We had the opportunity to trace our names with dry erase markers and cover our names with stickers. The preschool got some new dot painting tools and we just couldn't wait to try them out. They reminded us of marshmallows so we stamped them in white paint and went to town. The time had finally come to taste our hot cocoa. We were very excited to add some marshmallows. Everyone enjoyed the warm drink before we headed to the playground. I hope you all enjoy your weekend! I am really looking forward to next week. It is one of my favorites, Robot Week! Lots of fun is in store!
We had a great morning discovering new centers and playing in our Cocoa Shop. During art we decided to paint our own mug and fill it with cocoa scented puffy paint we mixed together with shaving cream, glue, and a packet of cocoa mix. We also had a great time with a new batch of cocoa playdough. The scent was wonderful. Everyone was tempted to taste this play dough because it smelled so good! We used little mugs, filled them with playdough cocoa and rolled some chocolate marshmallows to top it off with. During our circle time we sang about our names again. We are really catching on. The children get pretty excited when their name comes up. We played a game today where we rolled a dice and graphed the results. Everyone did really well and with the graph as a visual we were able to see which item was rolled the most. Which was rolled the least, and which column had the same number of tosses. You may hear your son or daughter saying things have a connection. We talk about connections all the time. When we are eating lunch we compare what everyone has in their lunchboxes. If two or more children have the same food we say they have a connection, something in common. When interpreting the graph today one child noticed that snowballs and snowflakes had a connection because they were both rolled twice. We all enjoyed some fresh air and playing ball with friends. Nice to take advantage of the beautiful day because it is going to be pretty cold tomorrow! Please take a moment to read through the Covid letter that was sent home in totes today. Feel free to call Kendra or myself if any questions come up. We just want everyone to stay as safe as possible.
Looking forward to Friday! We will be taste testing some cocoa and the weather will be perfect for it! It was good to be back in our normal routine today. It is amazing how the children thrive when they can anticipate what is coming next. We enjoyed our final day of ice cream play. Centers were busy and we were able to catch up on a few things we missed on Wednesday. During our circle time we played a little game of pass the ice cream. The children each had a large paper cone and without touching the ice cream (a bath loofa) were challenged to pass it from one friend to the next. They did a really great job. We enjoyed it so much we played several rounds. We also took some time to vote for our favorite ice cream flavors. Today we could choose from Chocolate Chip, Mint, or Banana. The more we play with our names in print the faster we will learn them. Some of us are already able to identify all of our classmates names! Next we headed to the big table for some sensory play. We made Ice Cream Dough together. This was the first time I have tried this with a class. It is a simple recipe, mix 1 cup of icing to 2-3 cups of powdered sugar. It makes the most vibrant dough and it smelled wonderful. I think the reason I have never tried it before is that I was always afraid the children would eat it. Although safe, who needs that much sugar? So as we were mixing I just referred to the powdered sugar as powder and not one child even thought about putting it in their mouth. Sometimes it's all in the name! Regardless, we had a wonderful time making ice cream cones for our friends! Once we cleaned up we decided it was time to get silly and we all took pictures with some ice cream props. We finished the week out with some ice cream taste testing! We used our fine motor pincer grasp to pinch some sprinkles from the bag to add to our vanilla cups. I think everyone was in heaven. Next week will be Hot Cocoa Week! Another yummy theme to dive into.
Please be on the look out for an email from Kendra about our Covid protocols. Masks are required by all adults to enter the wing. If you do not have one when you come to pick up, your child will be escorted to you. Also, due to the current spike in cases it has been decided that we will not be offering child care during conferences. If it is necessary for you to change your conference time please let me know. Enjoy the holiday weekend and stay healthy! See you next Wednesday. We had a busy morning and our schedule was off but a great day none the less. The children were delighted to usher in Ice Cream Week! Lots of fun dramatic play, sensory experiences, and of course laughter. We got straight to work, aka play! The kitchen area is a full functioning ice cream parlor with many flavors and options to explore. Our sensory bin was empty when the children arrived this morning. Every one wondered why I hadn't put anything in it yet. So during our snack time, with a captive audience, I introduced Water Beads. If you have never worked with them before they are something worth trying. These tiny little beads balloon to 6x their original size when soaked in water. They come in a wide variety of colors and are so much fun to play with. We had a talk about how they are not food and we are not to put them in our mouths. They are also fragile and some children like to smoosh them in half. That just makes a big mess of the sensory tub so we talked about trying to play with them as balls and not to smash them into pieces. Every one understood the ground rules and had a blast playing with them. There is something about the cool, slippery nature of the water beads that just makes you want to dive right in. I think I will be able to use them more often since they were so well received today! During story time we read a book about how to make ice cream. This led us to a discussion of our favorite flavors. We are still working on name recognition in print so this was great opportunity to review and use them to vote for our favorites. We then compared the data we collected to decide which was the class's favorite flavor and which flavors tied with the same number of votes. Next we headed up to see the magic show. Spikey Mikey put on a great show and had the kids in stitches! We finished out the morning with some art and playground time. We needed to run around a bit after sitting for the magic show! We didn't quite get to everything I had planned to day so we will work on more ice cream fun Friday! Looking forward to tasting some ice cream too. Can't really celebrate Ice Cream Week and not taste any right?
Brrr! The weather sure fit our Ice Theme this week! We had another fun filled day painting on blocks of ice, learning some new chapel songs, and tackling a new skill: putting on our own coat. Our morning began with some center time. Today we explored some Transient Art. Transient Art is creating something that is not permanent. Sometime this might be creating a design out of loose parts that are not fixed which happens often in our block area. Other times it can be our work with play dough that only lasts a short while before being cleaned up. This morning we painted on a block of ice. Since this artwork would melt before we had the chance to bring it home everyone took their picture with their final product before heading back into centers. The children thought it was so much fun! Each time their brush touched the ice the paint swirled and changed. It was a unique experience. After all of that ice play we were getting a little chilly. It was the perfect time to learn how to put our coats on by ourselves! We use a simple trick. Place the child's coat on the floor in the position of tag to toes. The child places his/her hands in the arm holes and flips the coat over their head, sliding their arms into place. It takes a bit of practice but everyone was able to put their own coats on by the time our recess came they only needed help with zippers. Everyone was so proud to learn this new skill. It is definitely one we need to keep working on but today was a great start! Then it was back to centers before the playground. Some of the children asked for more play dough as well so I took that out to play with again too. Outside we enjoyed some fresh air, running around with friends, and a visit from the garbage man. Next week will be Ice Cream Week. The dramatic play will become an ice cream shop full of sweet treats. It is for sure one of the tastiest weeks of the year! We will also have a visit on Wednesday from Spikey Mikey, the magician.
For those looking ahead, Parent Teacher Conferences are on February 4. Signups have begun. If you need to move things around to accommodate a sibling's meeting I am flexible. There will not be classes that morning but during our meeting time there will be child care offered by our aides in another wing. I am attaching a photo of the signups so far. If you wish to make any changes just let me know. Have a great weekend and stay warm! I can't even believe that it is 2022! We got off to a great start today. The children were so excited to be back together. They fell right into our routine. They loved exploring all of the new offerings throughout the room. There were many new centers to chose from including, snowball scoops in the sensory bin, shape sorting narwals, and building a snowman. I think one of their favorites was snowflake stamping. The children love stamps but never get the opportunity to actually stamp by themselves. Today they did and many went home "tattooed" in snowflakes. One of the mornings highlights was the dramatic play area. This week it is a smoothie shop complete with a blender, fake ice cubes, and all of the fruits and veggies one might want in a blended treat. As predicted the dramatic play area is taking on a much bigger interest than it has so far this year. Many of the children spent significant time there today mixing up smoothies for friends, making interesting combinations, and taking orders from their customers. Everyone is sharing the space and items available well. It was a big hit! During our science time we discussed ice. What is it? What does it feel like? How can you make it? This is a substance everyone is familiar with. But how do you melt ice? Everyone was given a large ice cube, table salt, rock salt, water, and a dropper and were challenged to melt their cube. Then the fun began. The boys and girls enjoyed adding salt and water to the cube and watching channels slowly form in the block. Each time they added salt or water the channels in the ice got deeper. Our cubes went from smooth to rough and jagged fairly quickly. From science most were just interested in center time so that is what we did. When the children were out at music I cleaned up a bit and set out an invitation to learning for their return. One of our parents made us some amazing glittery white play dough that smells like peppermint. It is a sensory delight! I set up trays with a ball of dough and had some play dough scissors, arctic animals, and fake ice cubes on trays for them to add to their set up if they wanted. When the kids got back to the room they couldn't wait to dive in. We spent nearly 45 minutes rolling snowballs, hiding our animals in the polar ice caps, and talking about each type of animal. The children were so engaged! And the stories they were making up were wonderful. Not only is play dough time a very valuable fine motor activity but when we carefully add manipulatives it can also become a rich language activity. By playfully engaging in storytelling while working with play dough and props we lay the foundations for future figurative writing. Play is serious work! It was a great first day back. Friday is School T-Shirt Day. We will be painting on ice slabs Friday so it is sure to be another fun filled day. See you then and Happy 2022!
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Why Blog?Here you will find little snippets of our days together. When my children were in preschool and would come home I would always ask, "So, what did you do today?". All they ever said was, "Played." That didn't tell me much. I hope this blog will be a place to share what we have done and help you ask more directed questions of your child. You will see first hand just what we do after you kiss your little one goodbye in the morning. It will also be a great place to visit and see just how much your child has grown and learned throughout the year. Archives
March 2024
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