Room 5’s Fall Factory!

Room 5 is getting in spirit of autumn! We’ve incorporated the seasonal theme into our dramatic play center with a costume dress-up station, into our art projects with marbled leaf printing, and even into our sensory bin with orange corn kernels and black and white striped sunflower seed shells. Songs like “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Vine” have been added into our morning meeting routine, and there’s much more to come!

(Click on the pictures to enlarge and get a scrolling view!)

Check out our fantastic fall sensory bin!

We’re still enjoying our time in the outdoor classroom before the weather turns cold, and Team 6 has a big hit with their Western themed dramatic play center. Room 5 friends decided to put on their hats and ride the “tractor”…Yeehaw!

We know autumn is a rich time of year where family traditions and special customs bring us all closer together. We would love to hear about your own family’s traditions and what you like to do together as we enter this special season. Pictures, stories, special dishes that you like to make can all be incorporated into our curriculum to help build on the family values that make this time of year so special to us all.

Blessings from Room 5, and happy fall!!

Room 5’s First Month!

Can you believe we have just finished our first month of preschool?! We have been working and playing so hard in Room 5 that the time has flown by. Our youngsters have been hard at work learning their new classroom routine, making friendships, and discovering all the excitement that their new school has to offer.

One of our themes this month is apples, so naturally we got to make art through apple stamping! Fine motor skills, visual arts, and messy fun abound in this activity. The good times and creativity never seem to stop flowing here!
It’s been an incredibly blessed first month in Room 5 and the teachers in here are incredibly grateful for the loving and enthusiastic families we get to work with each day.

Nature in the Classroom

Play is an essential area of development as children grow, especially during early childhood. Through play-based activities children are allowed opportunities to enrich cognitive skills, physical development, language, and social skills. With the help of appropriate materials, children can continue to develop these skills in the classroom. The use of natural materials in the early education classroom helps enhance the relationship children have with their environment. Natural elements encourage curiosity within the environment and expose children to build connections with living things around them.

Such materials include:

 Wood blocks

 Sand

 Water

 Rocks

 Pinecones

 Plants, flowers, gardens

 Wood chips

 Sea shells

Natural materials also serve as open materials in which children can further explore. Teachers can use these materials for open-ended activities in the classroom. As children continue to become interested in materials, teachers can continue to build on the activities. Teachers can plan and expand using these open-ended materials to create new opportunities for exploration as well as learning.

Author: Jessica Panameno, CSULA Child Development Intern

A Wonderful Week 2!

Room 5 had a wet and wonderful second week of our Fun in the Sun Summer Camp!

We got creative using math and color matching to glue fruit loops onto the corresponding rainbow lines as we recalled the story of Noah’s Ark. We had our very own cardboard Ark in the dramatic play center stocked with plush animals two by two! Some of our friends got creative with the leftover fruit loops and made cereal smash art!

We stayed cool during the heat wave by ramping up the outdoor water play, and closed out the week with a day of fun in a bouncy house! Everybody jumped, took turns, and worked up a healthy sweat with a big smile. Most importantly we all stayed hydrated and praised the Lord for the water that keeps us going. As we all continue to conserve water in this drought we have come up with fun ways to conserve water and remain cool in the heat!

What a blessing it is to learn and love the Lord together as we delight in his creation all summer long!

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” -Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

The Fiesta in Room Five!

The first week of our Fun in the Sun summer camp has been fantastic in Room 5! The theme was “Fiesta!” this week, and our youngest room celebrated it faithfully!

We created maracas and tambourines, read stories about Hispanic culture, scooped and counted beans with festive spoons and “cactus cups” in our sensory bin, and had a blast hanging out on “Fiesta Beach” in our classroom!

For our Bible story this week, we focused on Creation in Genesis 1! Our little ones got to experience their first trip to Chapel Wednesdays in the library on the PCS “big school” campus! How exciting it was to journey onto the campus next door and congregate with their fellow preschoolers in the beautiful library, decorated as a “Surf Shack”, to hear the word of the Lord from the teachers and students in Room 2, who hosted our Chapel this week!

We met “Snappy” the crab- our VBS mascot, and learned about the wonder of God’s Creation! Room 5 also really enjoyed dancing and singing praise together as we learned our new VBS worship songs.

Outside we were busy staying cool. Ms. Cindy knows how to keep our young ones excited and engaged while learning how to enjoy the heat! We danced and played in the sprinklers, pumped colorful water into sorting devices, and bonded together as we got our daily dose of vitamin D- drying off in the warm sunshine.

The fun never stops here at preschool… next week we are learning about Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood!

Room 2 has Sprung into Spring

April has brought some fun activities for Room 2. From field trips to Descanso Gardens, Robot making, and week of the young child, we have enjoyed it all!

For the Week of the Young Child, the children and teachers got to participate in pajama day, crazy hat day, mismatch day, color day (orange for Rm , and fruit day!

The children used boxes to create their own robot costume. They first made blueprint designs of what they wanted the robot to look like.

They then voted on the colors they wanted to paint the boxes…

and then added the small details.

After it dried, it was wearable.

The children also enjoyed the rock star dress up in our outdoor environment.

Life Science and Earth Month!

Room 5 has been celebrating Earth month with fervor and excitement! We took circle time out doors to the older pod’s back yard and had a picnic on the grass, complete with a nature walk afterwards! We planted our own personal grass pods and have been exploring the elements of the earth around us.

We are watching our silkworms eat, grow, and spin their silk webs. Story time also provides a great opportunity to talk about caring for the great earth God gave us and what we can do to be responsible for it!

Growing in His Grace

Room 5 is a class full of energetic toddlers! We take our outdoor play time seriously. Thanks to Team 6 and the awesome outdoor learning environment they provide- our young friends can indulge in every outlet of learning and discovery in a special way- out doors!

Running, climbing, sliding, and testing their bodies’ abilities safely boosts their sense of autonomy as well as physical development. When they crave some quiet time outside, our friends like to work in the peaceful garden. Finding a connection with nature and the beauty of God’s creations is an important building block of faith as well as being a responsible member of society. As we approach Earth Day this month, Room 5 will be encompassing the concept of the Earth as a planet and a real place that God instructed us to take care of. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” – Genesis 2:15 (NIV)

Hollow Blocks Inside

We changed things up a bit in the block area in Room 2. For a few weeks we got to borrow the large hollow blocks to see what the children would do with them inside. They made intricate walkways and roads!

Lucky Little Ones in the Younger Pod

Room 5 mixed it up with our cooking activity this week. We opted for a healthy recipe given to us by one of our wonderful families, with a celebratory twist. We made GREEN banana soft-serve “ice cream”! The ingredients were simple and healthy and our friends had a good time hopping up in Mrs. Erin’s arms to hold down the blender and watch the ingredients transform into a delicious treat!

The ingredients are simple and sweet: frozen bananas, hemp milk (to make it lactose and soy free), vanilla, and honey. We just added a few drops of green food color to make our treats fittingly festive!

Out on the patio the younger pod enjoyed St. Patrick’s themed activities like crafting shamrock crowns, free paint with tones of green, and of course- green goop in the sensory table! It was a wonderful way to spend the holiday together. We are some lucky folks!