Pizzia Pie and Circles for Pi Day!

 

March 14  (3.14) is Pi day!! In hour of this exciting day the Tel Aviv class had a fun make your own English muffin pizza snack! Each child got an English muffin and used spoons to add sauce and cheese.   Adding sauce and cheese with a spoon was a fun challenge. It uses both fine motor skills and the ability to estimate how much sauce will be enough to cover a muffin. We had some very saucy pizzas and some kids that added little by little until they had enough. Either way the pizzas were delicious and it was fun having a yummy group snack!

After our Pizzas we traced circles we found around our room to create pictures using circles. Tracing the tape was a big hit and then a few of the kids practiced cutting around the outlines of the circles. Circles are a neat shape to draw and cut and it was such a fun way to celebrate Pi day!

Introducing Purim

We'll be celebrating Purim soon after we return from our February vacation. The Levana children are enjoying the story of Queen Esther as we talk about her courage, and play with puzzles depicting the symbols of Purim. Haman, with his three-cornered hat, is easily identified and always captures the interest of the children. They love the yellow triangles on our classroom rug, and today had fun tracing and cutting out triangles of various sizes and from various materials. They are already looking forward to cutting cookie dough into triangles to form hamentaschen.

Mesmerizing Magnet Tiles

At some point through the day every child in the Tel-Avv class was playing with magnet tiles. There were houses, castles, spaceships and even a fire station made today in our block area. Magnet tiles are a great toy for this group because it allows for independent, parallel and cooperative imaginative play. It was great to see different groups of children playing with each other and to see the social fluidly among groups of children in the Tel Aviv class. One of the highlights included the repetitive building and knocking down a magnet tile tower. It was great to see Jacob, Dylan, Ezra and Eli all taking turns knocking the tower down. Eliza put two triangles together and made a diamond. She said that it was a bird flapping her wings. It was great to watch the children experiment with shapes and building while using their imaginations. I can’t wait to see what they will imagine tomorrow!

Ice!

The children have had a great time discovering and playing with the ice on the playground! It's everywhere, in buckets, on slides, in creates, in the house and all over the ground of course! They like to pick up big pieces and break then into smaller pieces. They make ice cream and some children like to put the ice in their mouth. Jay picked up a piece of ice and said, "Hey this is like the triangle in the song Josh (Josh the music teacher) sings!"

Through a child's eyes ice is just simply, a lot of fun! All adults can relate to the fact that, those were the days.

Hardwood Geo Builders Really Hit the Spot During "Peace-Out" Time

The Lunch Bunch children had a great time playing with a new toy, Slot-Together Hardwood Geo Builders! These unique builders make it easy for children to create fantastic 3-dimensional structures! The easy-to-connect pieces slide together at their slots. And as they create, their own imaginary structures, they have the opportunity to improve fine motor skills, develop problem solving strategies, and engage in cooperative learning!

All of the children were so proud of their creations! Jay created a fireworks rocket,Hadley and Matthew worked together on a rocket ship and Teddy was so pleased when he finished his airplane!

Surprise It's Me

Max is concentrating on building and manipulating the wooden shapes into just the right spot. To his surprise, it is a mirrored platform. As he continues to rearrange the shapes he discovers his reflection in the mirror.
Oh my what a surprise! How did that happen?