March

Our theme for the month of March is FOOD!!

 

 

The kiddos can walk around our very own grocery store pushing a shopping cart or carrying a basket to pick out what ever food they want. They can take turns pretending to be a customer or a cashier.

 

There is also a  Tim Horton's drive through!! One of my favorite's!!! Building on role playing skills and turning taking.

 

Children can make a pizza by choosing from a variety of toppings. Like all of our play centers there are many skills that can be targeting when playing this game including: turn taking, requesting, rejecting, matching, numeracy, shapes, colors, prepositions, letter identification, sound letter correspondence, etc.  

 

There is a Fruit Toss game where the children can feed the old lady, match the same food, or match by color.

 

Feed the Monkey

Children can feed the monkey and learn about the different food groups.

 

Take a seat in the comfy bean bag chair a choose a food themed book!

 

Craft Corner

We have a variety of food themed crafts prepared and ready to be made a hung up.

 

Anyone in the mood for McDonald's?1? Come and play.

 

 We have a bakery set up with lots of bakery toys a games to target a variety of skills.

  

Our tactile bin is set up as a vegetable garden! The children can play with rice "dirt" and pretend to plant a garden or pick the veggies when they're ready to be pulled. The print out on the right hand side is a topic board available to build on communication skills.

 

 

 

Transportation!!

Our theme throughout the month of February is "TRANSPORTATION". We have set up the classrooms with lots of fun transportation play centers, games, crafts, and toys. We also have some Valentine inspired activities. Our shape of the month is a HEART, color is RED, and number is 6. It will be a fun filled month learning about all these learning concepts. 

Dress up as a pirate and go for a ride on a fantastic pirate ship. Children can work on requesting to have an adult pull them around or take turns with their peers.  

 

 

 

We have a tactile bin filled with treasure and sand! The children can explore the different texture of the sand and look for hidden treasure.
Below is a picture of one of our many topic boards used to promote communication.

 

We also made boats out of cardboard that the kiddos can play in. There are shoulder straps on the boats so you can wear it and move around with it on. Boat races!!

 There is a great train table set up to build and drive the trains on.

Lots of vehicle themed toys, games, and puzzles are set out.

We created some road inspired shapes as a pre-printing activity. Children can use there finger or a vehicle to make the shape.

There are black beans and construction vehicles filling up this tactile bin. Fun for the children to dig, pour, and drive through.



Scooters!!! Scooter races and Stop and Go games!!!

We have prepared lots of transportation themed crafts for the children to make outside of group time.

 

Here is one of the crafts we just did!!!

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year 2017!!!

Brrr!!! It's a little chilly out there this week. Which creates the perfect opportunity to talk about winter clothing.

We had a  special guest join our classroom today to help us learn about winter clothing. The children enjoyed helping dress and undress FROGGY.

 

We read "one mitten" written by Kristine O'Connell. The children had the opportunities to wear a mitten during story time and imitate some of the actions in the book. 

The children made a mitten craft by cutting out paper mittens, gluing cotton balls on, hole punching and pulling a string through the hole.

 

This month we are learning about a couple new songs!

Five Little Snowflakes

 

One little snowflake with nothing to do.

Along came another and

Then there were two.

 

Two little snowflakes laughing with me.

Along came another, and

Then there were three.

 

Three little snowflakes looking for some more.

Along came another, and

Then there were four.

 

Four little snowflakes dancing a jive.

Along came another, and

Then there were five.

 

Five little snowflakes having so much fun.

Out came the sun, and

Then there were none.

 

Five Little Penguins

 

Five Little penguins slipping on the ice
One fell down, “Ouch! That’s not nice.”
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No More penguins slipping on the ice!”

Four Little penguins sliding near the sea
One fell in and began to sneeze!
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No More penguins sliding near the sea!”

Three Little penguins skating all around
One slipped up and then fell down!
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No More penguins skating all around!”

Two Little penguins sliding down a hill.
One fell down and banged her bill.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No More penguins sliding down a hill!”

One Little penguin jumping very high
Broke the ice and began to cry.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No More penguins jumping very high.”

No there’s
No little penguins having any fun
No little penguins , not even one.
The mother called the doctor, and the doctor said,
“Let those penguins have some fun!”

 

 





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.