Category: Room 4

Stone Soup🍵

We all waited for Stone Soup day anxiously! Our children had the chance to pick what vegetable they wanted to share with all of our friends😊. We put our small motor skills into play by washing, chopping, and throwing them in the pot…with the great help of our parents, of course😁! Our children distinguished all the vegetables and got the chance to taste each vegetable individually😋.

After all of our hard work, we enjoyed our delicious soup along with some bread, juice and fruit.

Thank you all for your contributions! Without your help this wouldn’t have been possible🙏🏻. Btw, Room 4 received the Most Delicious Soup Award😉.

Vegetable Fun!

Room 4 has been busy exploring a variety of veggies! We have been introducing different kinds of vegetables to ease them in to our Stone Soup day. The children had the privilege of choosing what veggie they wanted to bring in for Stone Soup (you know, they love being in control). We are very excited😜

The children had a chance to taste corn in different forms other than the regular old way of finding it in our soups or rice. We exposed them to corn on the cob, corn fritters, a delicious corn salad, and our biggest hit, POPCORN!🍿

We got to practice our small motor skills and hand-eye coordination to chop some potatoes. Then, we put them in the oven and had some tasty French fries😋

We compared and contrasted fruits and vegetables🤗. We agreed that fruits have seeds and vegetables do not. Our kids were very excited and were good at distinguishing them.

Snare Drums and Cymbals, Bam!

Over the past few weeks we have been reading a story titled Creepy, Crawly Calypso. A lively tale about insects who play a variety of instruments, making calypso music. This book has a companion CD that introduces the children to the sounds of different instruments. Following this, Ms Silvia brought in a Snare Drum and Cymbals for the kiddos to try. Your Little’s loved making music! Take a look….

Jacob had everyone dancing!
Kelsey played and everyone waited patiently for a turn.
Beckett enjoyed making his own beet!

 

Music lives inside of everyone.

Class 4 worked on developing music by playing drums and moving.Adding a Cymbal to the snare drum stimulated and motivated their curiosity.The class learned to set up the snare drum on the stand,  how it can change  to  different sounds, how to play soft and loud sounds and to play the snare drum only with drum sticks.

 

 

Do Not Be Afraid, For I Am With You

The Pumpkin Patch Parable, by Liz Curtis Higgs, asks “What is it like to be a Christian?” This was one of our themes over the past while and enjoyed exploring this concept with the children. 

Our pumpkin patch (as the children called the loft now) was the highlight of our class. Thank you to all the donated pumpkins, gourds and fall items. Their curiosity, exitment, and inspiration was amazing. This area of play helps the children develop and  strenghthen their large motor skills as they climb up and down the stairs. They also expanded their social skills as they needed to share the space with two other friends. And not to mention, they learned math skills with the assorted kinds of pumpkins.

Apples! Apples! Apples!

 

Yes! our 1st cooking  activity was fun, engaging and educational. It was filled with many opportunities to develop social-emotional, physical, cognitive and language development, as we also “support children develop scientific concepts.”

 children were very excited to learn about the differences and similarities of apples. Through observation, exploration and tasting of all kinds of apples that were brought by all (Gala, Red delicious, Golden delicious and Honey golden), we were able to record the outcome  of your child’s favorite apple.”Some fun and educational ways to introduce math to your child.”

The children heard and read many apple books, stories and songs, such as “Adam and Eve,” from the Book of Genesis, “Up, Up Is Apple Picking Time,” by: Jody Fickes, “Apple Picking Day,“ by: Samantha Brooke, “3 in 1,” by Joanne Marxhausen. Song: “Way UP High In a Tree.”  Apples! APPLES! APPLES!If that wasn’t enough we also painted large apples, decorated apples with stickers,  made star print found inside our apple like the story of The House with No Window, No Door and a Star Inside.

God bless Bryce, Grayson, Jacob and May God bless them and guide their future.

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Happy Fall Y’All

Today we had our first taste of Fall (I know, I know it’s not official until next week) by making homemade apple crisp! Yum-o! Each of your little darlings took a turn to operate our apple corer, peeler, slicer. Yes! We cored, peeled AND sliced! Then we snapped our spirals into pieces and layer them into a buttered pan. But that’s not all! We topped our crunchies  with brown sugar/cinnamon crumb topping! Oooh la la! We ate this delicious concoction after our lunch. We loved it so much that we will bake it again tomorrow.

Moon Sand: A Fun Sensory Experience

During their early years, children engage in a variety of sensory activities. It is through these activities that children’s fine motor skills, among many other areas of development, are enhanced. One type of sensory activity that children often enjoy and have fun with is sand play. Through sand play, children explore their sense of touch and discover new textures. Because it is open-ended, sand play can also be very soothing to children. Children can simply enjoy the texture of sand as they run their fingers through it and also have the freedom to make whatever it is they desire. From pouring sand into buckets to building castles and running cars or plastic animals through it, children gain the opportunity to explore their imagination and creativity.

Teachers and parents can encourage children’s involvement in sand play both at school and at home. There are different types of sand that children can play with. One very cool and fun type is homemade Moon Sand (also known as cloud dough). Although there are a variety of ways to make it, moon sand can be made with two simple ingredients: flour and baby oil. By mixing these two ingredients, moon sand not only has a great scent but is also moldable, safe, and fun! Getting children involved in helping make the sand can also be enjoyable for them. Moon sand is an easy activity that parents can do with their children at home and most importantly, it is exciting and lots of fun!

Moon Sand Recipe:

  • 8 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of baby oil
  • If desired, add powder-based colors (i.e. powdered tempera paint or powdered drink mix)

How to make it:

  1. Pour the flour into a large bowl.
  2. Add any powder-based color into the flour and mix it.
  3. Add the baby oil to the flour and mix all the ingredients together.
  4. When the sand feels soft and moldable, it is ready to be used.
  5. Store the moon sand in air-tight container and it should last up to a month (add more baby oil if it dries up.)

Children in Room 4 having fun while playing with homemade moon sand:

moonsand2Author: Adriana Gonzalez, CSULA Child Development Intern

Surfin’ Safari

Room 4 had a safari inspiration, starting with our new bulletin board, which was filled with your child’s art work! We then added vines that decorated our celling, along with animals that hung upside down and stared down at you. We read many books such as: Giraffes Can’t Dance, Who Is the Beast, and A Color of His Own. To top it all off, we had a visit from Reptacular, and exotic animal show that featured animals that the children were able to touch! They learned all about the animals and where they came from. It was a “wild” week of fun and adventure!

Two Fantastic Fridays!

Last week we ended our dive into island life with an enormous obstacle course bouncy house. This derby-licious week came to a culmination with an adorable petting zoo trip! We walked all the way to the BIG school to see a hen, a rooster, ducks, fluffy bunnies, a sassy goat, and an gigantic alpaca! It was awesomely furry and clucky! We of course threw in lots of sand, water and bubble play into the mix. Have a blessed and relaxing weekend!