A Peek Into What We've Been Up To
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Ramps and Tunnels
We’ve noticed a collective interest in things that roll, particularly down and through things, and have begun adding a few extra materials to the children’s play environment lately that allow them to explore this interest such as bouncy balls, pom poms, and tubes of all kinds!
An Introduction to Gardening
We’ve been really hoping for some gardening opportunities around here, and our beautiful umbrella stand became the perfect opportunity for a bite-sized introduction! Sammi gathered the children and some gardening materials and led the way in planting a small herb garden under our umbrella. Dominic and Berkeley were particularly interested in this project, working hard from beginning to end!
We saw some social development happening right before our eyes as they worked together. While working on transferring handfuls of soil from the bag to the umbrella stand, Lukas approached and asked, “Why are we filling this up?” Berkeley responded, “To make plants.” Dominic agreed, and graciously invited Lukas to help. “Make some plants. Right, Lukas. Right. Get some gloves, Lukas!” Lukas wasn’t too interested in joining in this project, but Berkeley and Dominic kept their focus. When the chives and rosemary were completely planted, Dominic felt satisfied that the umbrella would no longer be vulnerable to the wind. “This is big, look,” he explained, taking pride in his work, “We put some soil in there, and water, and plants.” He got the big yellow watering can and began to pour water all around the fresh soil, explaining, “For plants to grow, and flowers in this!” He added a few little tidbits of information to finish his prideful explanation of his work, including “I wore blue gloves,” and “Sammi wear big gloves.”
To complete the project, the children painted some small “tree cookies” for decorations and garden markers so we always remember which plant is which! Next up: garden care!
Letters and Phonics
“Look, Lindsey,” Dominic often says as he points to his mouth shape, “D-D-Do-Dominic!” Dominic has driven a group curiosity around phonics as he’s constantly showing everyone how to isolate the beginning sounds of words and names. We’ve been hearing a lot of sound and letter talk lately, as Dominic’s interest in phonics has paired with Braden and Berkeley’s interest and skills in letter and name recognition, driving some whole-group conversation and curiosity. We’ve worked to implement more letters into our daily environment, including letter magnets, “letter shapes,” and letter tiles in our sensory bin. We’ve paired this with some explorations of sound, including musical instruments and frequent dance parties to our favorite music. As the children explore this idea, we discuss the letters and sounds we find in books and in our environment, often helping one another recognize names on cubbies, for instance. We love to see this organic interest in literacy concepts and are excited to see how it continues to develop in meaningful, child-driven ways.
Bubbles!
Kenna recently led the children in a morning project of bubble-making! We made our own bubble solution from scratch, created our own bubble wands, and were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor by blowing bubbles all day! We began by gathering on the grass with all of our materials and learning about our bubble solution recipe. We needed measuring cups, water, soap, and corn syrup. Donning our safety goggles, we practiced our math skills like counting and measuring as we followed Kenna’s lead to carefully measure out each ingredient and add them to our mixture. When all of the ingredients were added, we practiced our turn-taking and our fine motor skills as each child took a turn with the whisk to mix our ingredients together. As a group, we counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stirs for each turn, then passed the whisk to the next patient participant.
Once our bubble solution was complete, the children each picked their favorite color pipe cleaner to create their very own bubble wand in any shape or size! Before testing our solution, we stopped to make a hypothesis: Would our bubble solution work? Would it make bubbles that could float through the air? All 6 children predicted that our bubble solution would be successful, and they were right! We got to blow bubbles to our heart’s content all day! The children felt so proud of their hard work, and bubbles are always, of course, so much fun.
Getting Messy!
As teachers reflect on our practice with our children, we do our best to make sure we’re providing them with opportunities to meet all of their developmental needs, and we don’t need to say this part twice: these kids love getting messy. Sometimes we need to embrace the mess in order to meet age-appropriate sensorial needs, and we love giving children the opportunities here to do things that aren’t typically accessible elsewhere…like the power involved in using too much. Too much tape, too much glue, too much water - that’s what preschool is for! Recently, we added some fragrant, foamy shaving cream to the mud kitchen for some sensorial exploration, and when the children showed an interest in pushing the limits of quantity, we thought, “Eh, why not?!” and handed them the cans. What developed when we allowed them to open this door was beautiful experimentation, thoughtful collaboration, and of course, lots of sensorial learning.
