"Hoppy" Easter!

We had our spring egg hunt before we got out for spring break. The children all had a fun time hunting eggs. We do holiday and birthday celebrations a little differently in our class. Whatever the celebration, parents are always asked to send something healthy and age appropriate. What did that mean for our egg hunt? NO CANDY! We suggested that parents fill eggs with raisins, fruit snacks, animal crackers, or stickers.  For our "special snack" we ate bunny grahams and grapes. Who really wants twelve two and three year olds eating candy or covered in icing? Not us!

All of our friends had a grand time hunting eggs!

"Hoppy" Easter! I hope all of you have had a relaxing day!

Sensory Play

Playing with sensory materials such as play dough, water, and sand is often comforting to preschoolers, especially those with higher levels of bodily kinesthetic intelligence. Sensory play encourages the development of eye-hand coordination and small muscles. Children enhance their language skills by discussing their work and the ways the sensory materials feel and behave. Sensory play is also a great way for children to learn concepts related to size, measurement, floating and sinking, and other scientific principles. Children practice sharing and further the development of self-regulation while exploring sensory materials. Sensory materials and experiences can be changed with the thematic unit. You will always find an area in the classroom, on the playground, or in both places designated for sensory exploration.

Bean Table

My youngsters LOVE all of the sensory materials. We have a play dough table that is always open. Soft dough is wonderful for pounding out frustrations, so it provides a soothing activity for upset children. I make a new batch of play dough each week in attempt to minimize the spread of germs. The cookie cutters and play dough tools are changed out by season, topic, etc.  I just introduced them to gak a few weeks ago and it was a huge success. We will now alternate between play dough and gak at our play dough table. The children love using the play dough scissors to cut the gak! We also have at least two other sensory tables available in the classroom. There is one large sensory table on the playground. We change the materials by season or when students become uninterested. There are also two smaller sand tables on the playground. In the common room in our building, we have a large sand table that is available to the children. Below are some pictures of sensory experiences we have had this year. You may feel like I put an excessive amount of pictures in this post but we have so many sensory experiences that I had a difficult time choosing which ones to include. Sensory play is messy, fun, soothing, comforting, and wonderful for all children!

Right now, we have gravel, trucks, and various containers in our outdoor sensory table. The boys and girls both love it. They really enjoyed when we had corn in it during the fall. 

When it is hot outside, I freeze objects into a variety of containers and the children use plastic hammers to get the objects out. This picture was taken during "yellow week" so I froze all yellow objects. This is lots of fun!

Some of out friends didn't know what to think about pulling pumpkin seeds out of a pumpkin. 

This is our indoor water table. We have fun adding soap to make bubbles.

One of the most popular sensory tables this year was our gingerbread mix table. Everyone loved it! Messy is good in preschool! It smelled delicious, too. 

We had various sensory table toys and arctic animals in our snow table. 

THE BEAN BOX. Children take their socks and shoes off and get in the box! The funnels, containers, and other toys are not in this picture but we do have toys that they play with in the box.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this area. The lentils are in a sturdy wooden box that easily slides underneath a table when we are done with it. 

Making gingerbread men at the play dough table. 

The "polka dot"(pom pom) table is very entertaining. They love to fill up the containers and then they have to work hard to get the polka dots out.  

Spring Break is finally here!

HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!!

Margaret Wise Brown

Ready, Set, Play!

Believe it or not, children learn through play. Children must explore, experiment, and make discoveries for themselves through playful interactions with the environment, peers, and adults in order to make sense of their world. The main goal of a developmentally appropriate early childhood classroom is to expose children to magnificent things to explore and discover through self-directed play. While it may be an accomplishment for preschoolers to recite the alphabet or count to a high number, it is much more important to support their curiosity and desire to explore by providing them with meaningful learning opportunities that are relevant to them- their families, their lives, their cultures, their languages, and their needs.

 Why is play the main event in early childhood settings? Children communicate with language, gestures, writing, and drawing through play and social interactions. Engaging in play also helps children with their social emotional development. They learn about their emotions during play by discovering what they feel, like, and dislike. They learn empathy and self-regulation. They work with others during play.  Play encourages cognitive development because children think during play. They create mental pictures in their minds, use one object to represent another, and use language and gestures to imitate things they have observed. They expand concepts based on their experiences, like caring for babies, cooking, and shopping. Children move while playing, which stimulates physical development. They run, twist, hop, jump, and skip. They develop fine-motor skills by drawing, writing, cutting, and doing centers that encourage the use of fine motor skills. Children develop self-regulation while organizing themselves during play. They organize their behavior to go along with the group. They learn to modify their emotional reactions and regulate themselves.

(Sisters coloring bunnies. Big sister on the right is in Preschool 4. The friends in our class can't sit down for that long to get that much color on their picture!)

 All the domains are developed through play: language, social emotional, physical, and cognitive. Play introduces children to the skills that will form a foundation for learning and social interaction in the future. They learn how to regulate their bodies and feelings. Children learn all of these things through observation and modeling. They do not learn these things alone. They learn within the context of relationships. Model how everyday tasks are completed. Tell them each of the ingredients you are putting into the recipe. Write and illustrate a book together. Go on an outdoor adventure. Paint, glue, draw, and cut to make a masterpiece. Listen. Talk. Explain. Support their natural curiosity and let them explore and you’ll be surprised at what they will discover. 

Get to Know the Teacher

I hope this video helps you get to know me a little better!

Around the Room

I thought I would give you a little glimpse into our classroom...

Here are our Learning Towers. The children love to stand inside of them and look outside. They have plenty of room for two students to fit in each tower. They also serve as garages for our large wooden buses!

We have various toys out to roll, toss, pull, look through, feel, and pretend with. All of the shelves are labeled with pictures so students know exactly where to put them when they are done playing. At the beginning of the year, the shelves are not all full. We do not have a set schedule for when we rotate these things in and out. We observe the children and when them become uninterested, we switch things up. They love the cars on the top shelf. Those are the only things that have been out the entire school year!  

This is our block and building area. My little ones are still in the build it up and knock it down stage. Our friends are learning that they can only knock it down if they built it themselves. 

Our reading center has board book for tiny hands. A variety of books can be located in this center. We have books out that go along with the current topic but we also keep books that we have focused on all year long. Children love repetition and hearing stories over and over. They also encourage children to retell the stories that we have read previously in the year. 

The loft is very popular amongst the youngsters. Each week a completely different toy is put up there. Last week it was Legos, this week it is cars, next week it is magnets (hooray for magnetic walls!). The children are very quick to tell any peers that have forgotten the rules that only TWO friends are allowed up there at a time. Underneath the loft is where you can find our "home" center. It includes a kitchen, couch, babies, baby bed, and high chair. 

Children can always be found either going down or rolling cars down the slide. You can often hear the teachers saying, "We go up the stairs and down the slide.". 

One more week until Spring Break. Hooray! Enjoy this beautiful weekend!