What a fun filled artsy year of creativity and exploration!










































What a fun filled artsy year of creativity and exploration!
This past month our friends played a life-size version of the children’s board game, Snail’s Pace Race on the Patio with Ms. Kristen.
Why are “games” and “play” such a vital part of early childhood education? Nothing answers that question better than seeing the range of skills being developed in such fun and practical ways as this.
While we play we are developing social emotional skills–engaging in cooperative play, delegating roles, taking turns, regulating our own emotions, developing self-confidence and laying the groundwork for character development and sportsmanship. This fun and engaging game also increases our attention span as we pay attention to each role of the color cube. One-to-one correspondence is one of the most challenging early math foundations and this is a way to reinforce the concept visually and pragmatically.
We celebrated all of our extraordinary children through a fun week filled with dress up days and special activities. Enjoy!
Older Pod has been enjoying a Trader Joeβs dramatic play area on The Patio with Ms. Kristen!
As we play, we learn to share space, take turns with materials, delegate roles, and collaborate with our peers. Dramatic play is vital in the development of creativity through the use of imagination. Most evidently, this particular dramatic play is helping us develop communication skills and teamwork. We are also gaining knowledge of the world around usβ learning fruits and vegetables, increasing phonological awareness through print, practicing exchanging money for goods, assigning numerical values to things, and counting.
Check out our friends hard at work!
THANK YOU to the many families who contributed recycled goods and THANK YOU to our favorite local grocery storeβTrader Joeβs!
Weβve had a fun and eventful week in Room 3! The children enjoyed Easter art projects, Bible stories, and chapel. We even found some bunnies up in the loft!
One of our families was able to come in and do a fun cooking project with the class. We learned how to make rice balls and ate them all, yum!
Pizza party! π
Since itβs finally starting to feel like Spring, we got to enjoy lots of outside time, including a picnic snack and a special music and movement activity.
Last but not least, our Easter chapel!
With Winter coming to an end, we wanted to reminisce on all the fun we had during snow days! Our friends in Room 3 got to enjoy the fresh snow first thing in the morning. We rode sleds on the slide, learned how to make snow balls, colored snow, and even had a mini snowball fight with our teachers! Thank you to the office for another great year of snow exploration! βοΈπ·βοΈ
The curiosity approach is an early childhood teaching method that aims to ignite a child’s natural curiosity and imagination. As adults and teachers we sometimes are too quick to model how we want materials used, find ourselves leading play by making suggestions and guiding children through activities we have prepared for them. It is important to take a step back and remember just how capable children are to think for themselves, make their own choices and direct their own learning. We want to equip children with the confidence to make good choices and explore the world around them in safe and enriching ways.
Room 1 was the first to arrive at this Valentine inspired activity. With interests peaked, our older 4 year olds began picking up the materials at this table. They were wide-eyed and curiously asked, “What do we do here?” and “What do we do with this?” With no adult direction, they started picking apart the flower petals, cutting the stems–dissecting the flowers! What better way to learn the parts of a flower than to be given the freedom to do what every child instinctually wants to do–take it apart to explore it! Of course with an activity like this comes the discussion of caring for nature so things can continue to grow. But in this moment and with these roses that have already been plucked from the ground, we are the ones growing–growing in our knowledge of the world around us, growing in life science, and growing in personal discovery.
Check out the way our little ones used the petals to color the water, make observations with magnifying glasses, and discuss their step-by-step process with friends.
A very special THANK YOU to David’s mommy for donating these roses to The Patio for us to explore all week long! We LOVED them!
Our friends have been enjoying a Beary Lovely Tea Party on the older pod patio. We are getting the most out of our playtime by using our imagination, practicing important social-emotional skills and developing language.
How unbearably sweet to see our friends care for their teddy bears in such loving ways.
“Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14
The last two days before Christmas break were so much fun and we have the pictures to prove it!
We watched Frosty the Snowman.
Then we had dance parties until it was time to go home.
Happy New Year everyone!
This week has been full of fun activities and projects. Here are a few photos of all the things we have done!
Then we had a school wide chapel where we heard again the story about baby Jesus and why we celebrate his birthday and we also got to sing some fun songs as well!
Itβs been a fun week and we look forward to the rest of the Christmas season!
Next week will be just as much fun and even though it be short it will be jam packed!
Please look forward to the upcoming pajama and cocoa days and we will probably watch a Christmas movie or two π.
Thank you all for helping this week be a success and so much fun for our class!
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