For the past couple of weeks we have been getting really involved in learning about letters. Our children have been showing great interest in finding and repeating words that they hear start with the letter of the week! For example, during H week if someone started talking about body parts, they say it's "ha ha heads," emphasizing the starting sound. It's so fun to hear them building their early phonics skills!
Collaging letter H with hearts and horses...
Making HEADS with clay...
Our friends started adding clay to the foam heads to create a base. They worked very well with this material. Some friends hadn't experienced it before and enjoyed the texture of real clay. They gave it all sorts of names like chocolate mousse, mud, or brown dough. It was not as easy as it looks in the pictures to place the clay little by little and at the same time keep spreading it to cover the entire surface. Friends worked in teams and gradually got there in the end.
Later, friends added different materials to decorate the heads.
After the heads were decorated and dressed, our friends created a story. They decided one head would be a boy head and one would be a girl head. Their stories flowed accordingly, with one child picking up after the other to add further details to the storyline. It was wonderful to see how they each listened to one another and then tied up their thoughts in connection with the previous friends. The following were their stories...
The head on yellow tray is the boy head and the one on a green tray is the girl head.
Letter M
Friends collaged letter M with play money. Here we talked about bills versus coins and currency in other countries.
Friends also worked on their fine motor skills with playing a game where they rolled the dice and then plopped that many marshmallows in their bowl. It took some real self-restraint to count the marshmallows without nibbling!
Friends also enjoyed making marshmallow towers. Here we talked about foundations and structures, balance and space, and other dimension of construction. Soon we decided to create a blue print of what kind structure they wanted to make. Friends really gave it some thought and came up with cool designs that we then built out of marshmallows.
Beginning with drawing our blue prints...
Putting out blue print designs into three dimensional marshmallow structures!
Friends looked at their blue prints and tried creating the structure accordingly...
Making Mac and Cheeeeese :)
We also practiced a lot of fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills, as always...
Making Magnetic structures...
L's mom from Blue Room was generous enough to get this activity material for our room as well. Kids enjoyed making these personalized pumpkin patch field trip frames and worked hard on peeling the tiny stickers to place on their frame...
Beading was a highlight and friends wished they could bead all day long, making humongous necklaces and decorations...
Geo boards truly give their fine motors a good challenge while practicing increasingly complex shapes...
Sensory with Jello jigglers...
Happy Thanksgiving!
Friends shared their gratitude turkeys and told us all about where, how, and with whom they made this lovely family project. Thank you to all the families for turning those in on time :)
With Purple Room choosing to be pilgrims and Blue Room choosing to be Native Americans, our Thanksgiving potluck/feast was remarkable! We talked about the positives of the first Thanksgiving story and how everyone made friends by sharing what they had with each other.
Hope everyone had a wonderful, delicious, and relaxed Thanksgiving!
Hugs,
Teacher Rashida
