The Snowy Day

Despite the late start and a smaller number of friends in school today, there was no shortage of activities going on in the Keshet class today.  Ethan and Harrison brought in their new SteveSongs CD which provided our beautiful background music.

 The children built towers with the magnetiles...

...Made necklaces with the cheerios,

 

...and even helped prepare our snack by peeling clementines with a special visitor.

We ended the day by going down to the community room and playing with the Levana class.  Not bad for a short day!   We look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday.

Model Magic

The Etzim children were so excited to explore a new way to make sculptures yesterday!   Using glue and crepe paper, children discovered different ways to mix the two together into a moldable substance.   As Betty put the materials out, it was interesting to watch as each child approached the same materials in different ways.

A Bar of Chocolate?

Over the last couple of days we have been learning how to use real screwdrivers and screws.  We were all able to identify the different screwdrivers and screws, but not everyone was able to identify the bars of soft substance we putting the screw into.  "Is it chocolate?" "Is it candy?" Finally, Eliana yelled out "It's soap!"    

The Carnival!

What a day we all had at our Summer Carnival! The booths included:

Balloon Bowling, Watermelon Spit, Snack Shack, Beanbag Toss, Shoot Hoops (with a basketball), Musical Freeze (with shapes) and last but not least Face Painting with Emily. As the children moved from booth to booth they handed a ticket to the person running the booth. At the end of the carnival the children had the opportunity to collected their prizes. We invited them to pick out a painted rock and bracelet that the children made during the course of the week.

Next year the children requested a Jumpy House and Pony Rides at the Summer Carnival!

Grinding Gears

A new choice in the Unicorn class this week was gear building.  Many children enjoyed exploring this new toy, by building cooperatively and imaginatively.  When lining the gears up next together on the board, many children were fascinated by all of the gears moving together.  This fascination brought up many ideas about what gears do, how they work, and how can the children build and use them in the classroom.

Ben explains the ride he had built for his car.

 

Jacob and Nathan put their gear boards together to create a longer gear system.

Drew adding a yellow fish to his gears

Harper makes a turtle spin on her gear board.

Max adds many underwater creatures to his gear board.

 

Sam builds his gears vertically.

Promoting Fine Motor Development

A few weeks ago OT Shana Krell from Gateways, stop by to take a look at our classroom and made some great suggestions as to how we can use our classroom space to encourage and promote fine motor development. Shana helped us see the space in our classroom differently. Preschoolers should be upright, either sitting or standing, with their arms and hands working against gravity while they work on the vertical. Shana gave us many ideas and activities to do with the children, but one of my favorites is using push pins to display art work or create games on the cork space in the classroom. She also suggested we use the ledge at the bottom of our window to draw, write and create. Vertical work surfaces such as easels, cork/peg boards or walls will strengthen the muscles in young children's hands and will promote wrist development.

Calling all Unicorn artists!

All of our Unicorns pushed up their sleeves today and got ready to paint!  This upcoming Sunday, Josh and the Jam-Tones are coming to perform a concert and all of the classes are making some fantastic artwork to auction off!  Here, you can see a special sneak peak of what the Unicorn class is creating.  All of the children worked very hard mixing colors, painting and planning to create what we all agreed would be a work of art!  We're very excited to see all of the classes art work on Sunday, and for you to see OURS!

Dreidels with Gabi

The Levana children have been having a wonderful time this week exploring our dreidel collection with Gabi. Spinning a dreidel is a little advanced for our Levana fine motor skills, but we have been having a great time trying (and knocking them down once Gabi gets them spinning!)

"Lighting" the Menorah

The children noticed that there were two Menorahs in the kitchen area today but something was missing. "Where are the candles?", Sophie asked!  I responded, "That is a good question. Let's go ask Ellen for a box of candles."  So Sophie and I headed upstairs to ask Ellen.  She responded, "There should be some in the red box outside your classroom." Sophie and I headed back downstairs and sure enough the big red box was there.  When we opened the lid, we discovered not only a box of candles, but lots and lots of other Chanukah items as well. "Oooohhhh!", Sophie exclaimed as she peered inside.  I said, "Let's just take the candles for now and when we come to school again on Thursday we can see what else is here."  We brought the candles over to the Menorahs and the children took turns putting the candles in and "lighting" them.

Unicorn Chanukah Snacks!

For snack in the Unicorn class room today, the Blue and the Yellow teams worked very hard to build and create our very own delicious treats, menorahs!  There were many steps that went into our creative creation and the Unicorns all worked hard counting, building and helping one another in building their edible delights.
First we had to cut our bananas, count out nine pretzels, and cut our nine grapes!
The next step was to plan and figure out how to fit the nine pretzel sticks onto the bananas.
Last, the Unicorns worked hard pushing the grapes onto the candles to recreate the light!

Our snack was not only delicious- but tons of fun!

Sometimes you can't beat old fashioned

The children really enjoyed playing penny hockey today. No batteries or electronics involved at all. Just wood and a penny. The goal was to flick the penny into the other person's hole. Some of the children thought they should switch turns after one flick, and others thought after 3 flicks. The game required fine motor skills, eye hand coordination, attention, and cooperation. The result was good ol' fashion fun!