We had a great first week of school in 2B! Thank you for all of your support! The children are transitioning so wonderfully and getting acclimated with the space and each another. We’ve really enjoyed getting to know each child - their likes and dislikes, their personalities, and watching how they interact with us and the other children. Their interests have started shining through in one short week! As a class, the children are very interested in building and creating, sensory activities, practicing their gross motor skills in the gym, and working in the dramatic play area. As the children become more comfortable, we’ll only learn more about their interests and we will be able to build project work based on those interests.
Each week, in addition to our on-going projects, we will also be focusing a little bit of our time on: Language and Literacy, Loose Parts, Science, Cooking, and Clay.
We started off the week with sand in our sensory bin. We incorporated different materials such as shovels, funnels, magnet letters, and people. The children enjoyed dumping, pouring, burying, and feeling the sand. On Thursday, we swapped out the sand for water with blue water color. We added shovels, funnels, and donated seashells! Mikey used the seashells to scoop the water: “It holds.” Charlie noticed how Mikey used the seashells and followed along, using them to scoop up water: “Seashell!” Charlie then tried to fit the seashell through the funnel, quickly noticing it would not fit. Nate decided to incorporate cars into his water play. Cooper explained, “These are crab shells… they’re bumpy… you pick up the shells and put them back in the water.” Amalia enjoyed touching the seashells and explained that the water was “cold.” Maddy and Nicole both decided to use the shovel to scoop up the seashells.
The children of 2B appear to be very interested in sensory play, specifically water play. Sensory play is so prominent in Early Childhood Education because children are constantly using their senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. Sensory activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourage children to use scientific processes while they play, create, investigate, and explore. These activities also promote collaboration and dialogue, and encourage children to make connections to lived experiences. We cannot wait to continue this sensory play in 2B!
On Friday, the children continued to explore their senses (specifically their sense of smell and touch) with a fresh herb study! During circle time, the children all took turns smelling a rosemary plant. They were also interested in touching the leaves and feeling the dirt, noting that it was “soft.” We later moved to the rectangle table to explore more fresh herbs - sage, dill, and tarragon. After smelling and touching the tarragon, Cooper mentioned, “It feels good” and he also noticed that each herb was green. Nate explained that the dill “smelled good.” Charlie said that the sage was “soft” and that he “liked the smell.” Nicole showed us that she liked the smell of the tarragon more than the dill. Amalia explained that she has had dill before: “I made tuna fish with dill!” She also said that we should cook with dill in school.
This herb study gave the children the opportunity to use several of their senses in order to participate in the activity. Using their senses encouraged them to use descriptive words and make connections to their home lives. We can’t wait to introduce more herbs, incorporate them into cooking, and work on taking care of our new classroom rosemary plant!
Other explorations this week:
Role playing in the dress up area
Self portraits & taking portrait photos
Painting
Drawing
Reading books
Sitting at circle time together
Exploring play-dough using rollers, popsicle sticks, and scissors
Playing with animals
Building structures with wooden blocks
Building train tracks
Practicing independence - putting materials back in their place, putting snack/lunch away, and throwing away garbage
Empathy and kindness
Some of our favorite books this week include: I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Not a Box, The Pigeon Needs a Bath, and Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Sight . . . and a whole lot more!
Have a great weekend!