Thursday 22 September 2016

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.

 
 
 

Wednesday 14 September 2016

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 voilĂ  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!

Thursday 8 September 2016

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!!!

Tuesday 6 September 2016

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!!!