Dramatic Play
Splishy, Splashy! Let’s go swimming! With lots of pretend-play about boats, the dramatic play area turned into a lake! We used fishing poles to catch all sorts of fish, including: sharks, puffer fish, clown fish, whales, and more! Sometimes we brought them home and took them in as pets. Other times, we would catch a lot of fish and cook dinner for all of our friends. We also used our binoculars to look for monsters and sharks while we were traveling on the boat; it was interesting to see how binocular lenses made objects look bigger than usual. We also brought phones with us when we traveled to make sure we could reach our friends any time of the day. We loved jumping into and out of the boat and loved trying to get all of our friends into it to go on an adventure!
Cognitive Area
The gears were really interesting, as we attempted to build structures with different methods. We really enjoy creating different types of planes, including helicopters, vacation planes, and seaplanes. We also really liked building gigantic factories and figuring out how to get the different pieces to move in opposite directions. We still love to make boxes and buildings with them too.
Music Area
It was fun gathering our friends and collaborating in different musical pieces. There were musical performances throughout the day and tickets could be purchased at the ticket booth. Snacks and presents were provided to the audiences to enjoy the show. There were many different types of instruments, including musical sticks, egg shakers, drums, guitar, and more! Friends also sang along to the rhythms and everyone celebrated at the end of the performance.
Block Area
Beep, Beep, Beep! We really enjoyed filling up our cars and trains with different types of items to deliver around the classroom. Some trains offered rides to the sea animals at the dramatic play area and brought them to other parts of the classroom to explore. There were dinosaurs waiting at different train stations to bring them to the zoo; some ended up getting rides from cars because the trains were late. We explored making different ramps and roads for the cars and people with the ramps and tried making lots of different structures with the slide builders. We especially likes using them as telescopes though!
Gross Motor
Balancing isn’t easy, however we really enjoyed practicing on the balance structure. Friends often offered a hand to help us get from one side to the other. Other times, we would use the wall to support ourselves to get across, as we practiced trying to balance. It was also fun figuring out how to get from one side of the climbing structure to the other; the best part was when we got to slide down really fast! When we dropped items down the slide, they also went really fast; we noticed if we placed items in the middle of the slide, they would stay on longer. Playing under the climbing triangle was almost as fun as being on it! We loved pretending it was our house or car and seeing how many friends could fit.
Art & Literacy
It was interesting to watch the water beads expand and grow throughout the day. As the beads started filling our tub, we really enjoyed feeling the texture of them; they were super squishy! We used them to make different types of desserts, including: ice creams, cakes, cookies, and sprinkles. We also tried picking out certain colors out and noticed the beads changed color depending on whether they were inside our outside of the tub and when in different color containers. We celebrated several more birthdays and continue to love using the shape slices and loose part materials as well as all the other art supplies.
Quiet Area
We enjoy choosing books with our friends and reading to each other. We like retelling the stories through our memory and using pictures to guide us. Some of our favorite books include, “Ten Splishy, Splashy Fish,” by Little Tiger Press and “Curious George Goes Fishing,” by H.A. Rey, Margret Rey. These fish stories reminded us of the items we had in our classroom, which made us want to go fishing as well. We also compared the different types of fish we had in our classroom to the ones in the book. We had lots of snuggle parties on the beanbag with our friends and stuffed animals. We also love playing with and taking care of the baby dolls, giving them bottles and wrapping them in blankets.
Nature Area
We turned the sea shells and pine cones in to a dessert shop! There different ice cream flavors and they came in many sizes. We made pies and cakes with pine cones; they smelled delicious! We enjoyed feeding them to our friends and blowing out birthday candles together. We also explored the different shapes of the shells, matching the similar ones and categorizing them into groups. We learned how they fit together to become clam or scallop shells that open and shut.
Outside
With the rainfall coming in, we really enjoyed looking at our backyard in a different point of view—wet! One of our favorite things about the rain was the puddles! We also liked pretending the slide as a water slide that made us go a lot faster than usual. We were also really interested in the way rocks get darker when they’re wet. With the water, we were also able to build sand castles for our friends to live in and we loved that it was easier to create when it was wet!
It was exciting when we built really big block structures together. Some of the structures we made include, rockets, airplanes, and towers. We also used different materials to decorate the structures, such as: rocks, plants, and sticks. Our favorite part was getting to crash it down together and opening construction sites to fix the structure. We love using the bark to make piles and spread around the yard. W also pretend it is food and pass out meals to everyone. We love going on the swing together and pretending we are on a rocket ship or airplane. We also have been drawing lots of pictures on the chalkboard and it's fun to come back the next day and see what got washed away from the rain!