We are glad to be back at school, catch up with friends and begin new projects. There is a basket of nuts and bolts to work with, a new alphabet puzzle, bristle blocks for building, and magnetic lines on the easel. The teacher activities are also new.
In drama, Ms Leslie Folli read the story of Chicken Little and the children acted out the tale. This built on their previous practice of assuming characters within the story and later in the week we will add costumes. You may hear the refrain: "The sky is falling!"
We learned a new way of cleaning our hands in the classroom using a bucket of soapy water and a sponge.
It was important to learn this new hand washing procedure as Miss Santos opened a new art language - clay. We began by exploring the clay, looking at it, guessing what it might be, smelling it and touching it.
The children experienced the texture and the feeling of this new medium on their hands and enjoyed the action involved in the exploration using their pinch grip to pull and twist pieces from the large block.
With Ms Buckley, small teams worked to sort our collection of baby food into groups according to color. We discussed which group had the most before taking turns counting the rows.
Many children had a great deal of success with this activity because it allowed them to move around and use their bodies as they counted. As we count, we touch each object to help with one-to-one correspondence and not skip numbers or rush the counting. I wonder what there is to sort and count at home? Socks, buttons, forks and spoons?
