Kindness Jar
The past two weeks have been very exciting. We are seeing so much growth and language development from the children. We are moving past some of our behavioral issues, and seeing so many moments of cooperative play and purposeful sharing between the children. As a result, we have been adding quite a few pom-poms to our Kindness jar. Everyone is eagerly awaiting the moment when the jar is full and we can have a special party! Now we are not only adding pom-poms for group cooperation, but also for individual kindness moments. For example, Sloane decided that even though she hadn’t used any magna-tiles she would clean all of them up! And Finn handed out collage materials to each of his friends as they sat down to work on their cork circles the other day. We are so proud of everyone!
Sensory Play Experiences
This week we worked on a lot of really fun sensory projects.
Last week we started the process of making our own paper. We filled up the water table with scraps and bits of paper that we weren’t going to use for anything else. It was fun to just push our hands through the paper scraps and stack them up and float them on the water. This week we used an immersion blender to turn the scraps into paper pulp. We added even more water, and were ready to create paper! Using a mould and deckle with a screen, we scooped up the pulp fibers from the water table and watched as water rained down. Once the water wasn’t dripping so much, we were able to place a pellon on top (it’s made with synthetic fibers so the pulp won’t stick to it) and squeezed even more water out! We then placed our sheet of paper onto a poster board to dry. Next week we will come up with a special project to use our special paper.
We painted with watercolors, painted in a plastic bag, and painted with shaving cream on bubble wrap. Each type of painting uses a very different set of skills and activates different parts of the brain. Watercolors are multi-step: dip the brush in water, rub the paint, put the paint on the paper. Repeat. While moving the paint around in a bag, fingers are busy pushing and prodding the paint. A scientific process is happening- the paint colors are mixing and creating new tertiary colors. The shaving cream paint is more of a whole body experience. Arms are swaying, fingers are dragging through the long line of paint. And the body is receiving feedback from the little bumps of bubble wrap. I mentioned earlier in the year that we are creating our own classroom definition of paint- and having all of these very different experiences are helping inform the children’s concept of what paint is and can what it can be.
Additionally we: made and used playdough, made and used slime, worked on shape recognition through drawing, created self portraits, used a dough made from cornstarch and soap, jumped on bubble wrap, worked on glue collages . . . and so much more!
Shadows
Shadow puppets — we have only brought them up to the gym once, but it was such an engaging experience. Everyone was very excited (and very patient while waiting) for a turn to move the different animals around in front of the light projector. We watched as the shadows danced across the “screen” (white sheet). I am hoping that this play will evolve into storytelling- stay tuned!
Building
We try and have out a variety of building materials for the children to interact with. This week we noticed a lot of interest both in the magna-tiles and in the legos. This has also been inspiring a lot of descriptive language building, detailed explanations, and interaction between peers.
Specialists
With Diane we were able to make our own pasta bowls! Friends were able to add tomato sauce and oregano to personalize their eating experience.
For Spanish with Ernestina, we reviewed songs about animals that can be pets.
Coach Jojo had us building snowmen with the different soccer materials, and we practiced a lot of kicking!
Emily sang a lot of sleepy songs because everyone was laying down and relaxing on the rug this week!
