Christmas at STA

We have so many fun activities set up in our STA classrooms throughout the month of December! Here are a few examples of some of our play centers.

 

Snowman Bowling! While working on some ball skills.



 Ice Fishing!! Children can identify colors on the fish and count how many they caught.

Get dressed up (i.e., work on a variety of dressing skills) and ....

 Go Carpet Skating (i.e., gross motor break)!!!

 Have some fun playing with the snow covered, "Little People" house center. Behind the house is a snow covered backyard. Build those pretend play skills.

Igloo Center!!

Build an igloo and some cooperative play skills!

 Dress up and pretend to shovel snow. Children can also use the clothing dice to turn it into a game (e.g., take turns rolling the dice and put on the piece of clothing the dice lands on).

Enjoy decorating a Ginger Bread House!

Go inside the Ginger Bread House and pretend to make some cookies!! 

 

Pumpkins

One of the crafts the kiddos made this week was a PUMPKIN!! We explored cutting, gluing and putting the materials on. Each craft was adapted to the child's skill level. We used popcorn kernels to get the orange color, black buttons for the eyes and green tape for the stem.

We did a super fun experiment in group time this week-  PUMPKIN VOLCANO!!!

First, we scooped the guts and seeds out.

Next, we poured in the baking soda.

Then, we added a few drops of food coloring.

Lastly, we poured in the vinegar!

A PUMPKIN EXPLOSION!!!

Leaf Man

 One of the books we read was Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man.

A couple of examples of our Leaf Man inspired art!!

 

Fall Walk in Fish Creek Park

This week we went on an outing to Fish Creek Park. The children enjoyed walking around the beautiful park and were able to see the colorful leaves falling off the trees.

If you look closely at the image above you can see the muskrats swimming in the pond!!!

A little hard to see but it's a muskrat!!

The children participated in doing a scavenger hunt.



Fall!!

Our theme for the month of October is "Fall" and we have lots of fun  activities set up in the classrooms. Here are some images of some of the exciting fall themed activities set up.

Build a Scarecrow

 

 

Ball Toss

 

 

 Apple Tree





 



Dress up and Build a Skeleton



 

Leaf and Pumpkin Centre

Apple Trees

 

We had some fun making apple tree crafts. The children cut out a green circle for tree leaves, stamped glue on and sprinkled sparkles for the apple. Then they put on a clothes pin for the tree trunk.

 

We read "Ten Little Apples"! The children worked on turning the pages of the book, counting, labeling, and answering a variety of what questions (e.g., what color?, what's that?, etc.). The children had fun turning the dial and watching the apples fall from the tree.

 

 

 

Tornado Experiment

We did a fun tornado experiment using a tornado tube, two pop bottles, water, food coloring and glitter. This month being purple month, we added red food coloring to one of the bottles half filled with water, blue food coloring to the other half filled bottle of water, some glitter, then connected the two bottles with a tornado tube and voilà a PURPLE tornado!!! 

 

 



 

The group of children were all mesmerized by the twirling tornado and some could hardly contain themselves with all the excitement. It was awesome!

Purple and Circles

Today we had fun during group time learning about the color purple and the shape of a circle.  The children participated in sitting for circle time and doing a craft.

The kiddos each picked a purple object out of the treasure box and held on to it for the duration of circle time.

 Having some fun feeding the purple dinosaur!!

 

We watched a "Storybots" video.

During craft we mixed purple paint, cut out circles and stamped purple circles  

 PURPLE CIRCLE ART!!!

Welcome to School 2016-2017

Welcome to School

We are all super excited to be back in the classrooms! Welcome back to our returning children and a big welcome to our new kiddos. We can't wait to get to know you all. Our theme for the month of September is "Welcome to School". The classrooms are fully stocked with  "Welcome to School" themed activities, games and toys and were going to have a lot of fun learning with them.

 

 

We have an oversized Mr. Potato Head felt board set up in one the classrooms.  The children can build Mr. Potato Head while learning a number of school readiness skills (e.g., identifying body parts, colors, shapes, numeracy, turn taking, etc.) 

 



 

We also set up giant building blocks!! The kiddos can work on building with their peers. With every activity there are numerous ways to target a variety of skills while playing (e.g., colors, numeracy, imitation, prepositions, communication, sharing, ending a preferred activity,  communication, etc.)

 



We made a cardboard school bus for the children to play in!! The children can take turns pretending to drive the bus as well as  pretend to be a passenger. We will be practicing the classic "Wheels on the Bus" song, with actions, along with many more fun songs.

 

 

We often utilize song visuals to encourage participation (e.g. choosing what to sing next).  

 

 

We set up a mini classroom, so the children can play school! They can take turns pretending to be a teacher as well as being a student and sitting for a circle time.

 



Each month we put extra emphasis on one color and this month that color is PURPLE!  The children's name tags are purple, we will do lots of purple crafts, and we have a purple rice tactile table and a purple paper tactile bin set up.

Purple Rice Tactile Bin

The children can find toys hidden in the rice and have fun filling and pouring the rice.

 

 Purple Paper Tactile Bin

 

The children can identify purple materials in the tactile bin and have fun ripping and squishing the paper.

 

Purple Play Dough Centre

 

We also focus on a particular shape each month and this month were focusing on the shape of a circle.  Today we had fun coloring and painting purple circles. We explored different coloring tools (e.g. markers, pencil crayons, crayons, and paint brushes) and experimented with different kinds of mark making (e.g. scribbles, lines, dots, etc.). We also learned how to mix red and blue paint to make purple paint.

 Purple Circle ART!!!