Dramatic Play
We have been talking lots about animals, and enjoyed role playing with the stuffed animals in the quiet area, so this area became a Pet Store! We had so much fun picking out different animals, filling shopping carts, and playing with the cash registers. We used the leashes to take ours puppies for walks and gave them "food." Finn loved putting the fish tank on his head, and Bo loved taking the fish for walks in the cart. Alex and Joe flew the birds around, and Aria made parties for all the animals!
Block Area
The airplanes, helicopters, and wooden cars are still lots of fun and we have been finding lots of ways to use them. We especially like to fill them up with people and fly them around together. We have been building lots of structures with the wood blocks, making bridges, towers, and "garages" for the vehicles. Bo and Reza enjoyed filling the dump truck with people and shells, and then dumping them back out!
Quiet Area
We have been really enjoying our new "blob" bean bag! It has been a great place to cuddle and relax reading books, and just to sit when we need a break! The tee pee has been fun too, especially for hiding, but also for sitting and reading. Reza went in there to lay down and read all by himself! We often mimic our friends, and find our own book to read next to someone.
Nature Area
The kaleidoscopes continue to be very exciting. We love using two at a time and finding different things to look at! We especially enjoy looking at each other and seeing how silly it makes our faces! The shells and rocks are still great materials that we love to explore and use in many different ways.
Art/Literacy
For Love Day, we had lots of heart materials, and we loved making different things for ourselves, our friends, and our families! The sparkly stickers were lots of fun and we practiced glueing trying to put the doilies on the heart shapes. We have been really enjoying markers and drawing lots of pictures with very imaginative stories! We also celebrated Aria's birthday! She got to choose the colors (pink and purple) for the collaborative canvas painting we all worked on.
Gross Motor
The ball pit is back! We were all very exciting to play in the balls again. We often pretended it was water and went "swimming." Bo discovered it is a lot of fun to dive from the mattress into the ball pit and everyone else followed him doing the same. We played and sang 5 little monkeys on the mattress and took turns falling off and pretending to bump our head.
Music Area
We have been talking lots about bands, and wanting to play the instruments together to see what sounds we can make. The rain sticks have been fun especially comparing their sound to the real rain outside! We have also been using the drum sticks to bang on different things, exploring the different sounds they make.
Cognitive Area
We continue to find many ways to build with the stretch builders and enjoy playing with them together. We have been making lots of vehicles and robots. Finn liked to build "drills" and find different things to fix around the classroom. We have been really interested in the puzzles, and love to name the pieces and put them together as a group. We have been interested in finding the letters in our names and our friend's names on the Abacus.
Outside
We spent a lot of time in the sand pit. We love building roads and filling buckets and pots to make different things. The dump trucks are always fun to fill and dump, and the big shovels are lots of fun to use. We all went on the swing together and had so much fun laughing and spinning. We used the outdoor blocks to build towers and barricades on the bridge for us to jump over. Aria even used them as food to cook on the stove. We love throwing the hoops and watching them spin, as well as rolling them down the slide. We searched for many bugs, finding some in the creek bed and in the bricks. We loved watching them move around. Our blueberry bush is starting to bloom and we have enjoyed searching for and tasting the ripe blueberries. Everyday we go check to see if any more have changed from green to blue!
