Tuesday, April 10, 2012

March Pictures

The toddlers are wearing some of our dress up shoes during
our Hats and Shoes lesson. Check out their feet.







Spring has certainly arrived! Our garden outside of the classroom door
has tulips blooming. We added a humming bird feeder, but when we added
the humming bird food it leaked out! For now the feeder is a pretty decoration.

Say Cheese! Some of the girls from our class pose for a picture
under our crab apple tree. What pretty blooms!

The toddlers paint with shoes! This was a great activity. We are starting to do
more of our daily and art activities outside now that the weather is warmer and dryer.






We took several of our large trucks outside to our parking lot area one morning.
The boys had truck races! The toddler with the brown jacket organized the game.
Great socialization!




Another outdoor activity. We simply put out paper and pencils for the toddlers.
They doodled, made pictures, drew lines. This simple activity worked on their early
writing skills: lines, circles, fine motor skills, and communication.


We always interact with nature no matter what our lesson is!
The kids noticed our log by our playhouse was decomposing and it easily broke apart.
We saw several worms, a spider, and tiny bugs that I have never seen before.



The toddlers planted grass with minimal help from me. We watched our grass
grow in our window sill for about a week. The grass grew so fast, and
felt so soft and smooth.



Thursday, March 15, 2012

Enjoying the Rain

Now that the temperatures are warmer we can go out and enjoy the rain!
We put on our boots and jackets to see what we could find outside.

When we walked outside our postal worker came by and gave us
a friendly wave before she went on to her next delivery.


We found several worms! This is the first of many.


The toddlers are looking for puddles.

And they found some!


This young toddler played with long pine needles in this puddle.


The toddler in the white vest yelled, "pinecones!"
So far we saw a postal worker, worms, puddles, pine needles, and pinecones.


Playing in the Snow

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

We Made Our Own Hats

During our Hat and Shoe Lesson we decorated paper hats.
All of the toddlers worked on their hat for a very long time,
then proudly wore them. I was especially impressed with the
younger toddlers when they were gluing on their decorations.
The started to understand that they needed to put the glue down first,
then place their decoration on the hat.






Learning About Compost



Mr. Wes from Marvin's Organic Garden came to visit us.
Mr. Wes showed us that our fruits and vegetables that we put in our
compost buckets go into our compost bin and makes great dirt for
our plants. He had some compost for us to feel, touch and smell.


Monday, February 27, 2012

PURE PLAY PICTURES

Below is a collection of natural play that our toddlers did during the months of January and February.

This older toddler learned how to stack this type of manipulative
to make a cool looking structure. Notice how he built a base for
his structure so it would not fall down.

These two girls are making houses. The one on the left placed a pot
on the top of her house. It could be for a metal roof-very economical!


This toddler noticed a huge mess was being made in this activity area.
He took the broom and dust pan and started to clean it up!




More fabulous houses!


This young toddler lined up blocks and spacing them out,
like the two rectangular blocks in front of him. He then used those blocks
to make the tower beside him.



This older toddler has a lion looking through the hole on the side
of the log, and put another animal inside the log.
The animals are talkingto each other.

He is builing using the rocks in our room. What strengh!

This young toddler is grouping the shapes of these beads.
He grouped all of the square beads first, and is now grouping
all of the cirular beads.

First, what a great smile!
Second, what a great structure!
Things are inside of each other and on top of one another.
Very detailed.

I love seeing toddlers working beside each other.
These two are mimicing each other's play. One will open a door on
the puzzle, then the other will open the same door.