Happy New Year in the OC! - Teacher Christine

We hit the ground running in the new year with lots of activities inspired by the beauty of mid-winter. It was wonderful to see all of the kids after a long winter break. We missed them!

We played with rice, trucks, and sifters at the texture table. This is such a fun and relaxing station for the kids!

The kids enjoyed snowflake cookie cutters, wintery cupcake liners and decorations at the play dough table. We had many bakers excited about their beautiful play dough creations!

Penguins floated in our water tub on styrofoam ice bergs! The kids had a grand time playing with the penguins and making up lots of penguin potions. 

The kids were excited to visit the writing table to stamp, draw, and write letters.

They kept up their fantastic creativity at creation station decorating snowflakes, snowmen, drawing, and making lovely creations for their friends and families.

We had penguins, sea lions, ice cubes and epsom salt "snow" at the light table

A snowy ski scene greeted the kids this week at the building table! They had a great time building and playing with the skiers and then helping them swoosh down the slopes. Some skiers even got stuck in the trees! :)

We had snowmen on the flannel board to decorate this week.

Baby Mabel was welcomed back with joy!

The kids enjoyed lots of new puzzles and are really developing their fine motor skills.

Our first day back, the kids decorated light blue paper circles with snowflake stamps and embellished them with lots of glitter. These are displayed in the room. Take a look!

At our math/science station the kids LOVED learning how to make structures using toothpicks and marshmallows. This work was wonderful for fine motor skill-building practice!

On Monday in art, we began part one of a two day project to create a birch tree scene. The first step was to tape their trees and use watercolor paints in teal, blue, and purple to paint. Then they sprinkled the wet paper with salt to create a snowy and sparkly effect.

On Wednesday, we removed the tape and decorated our birch trees!

This week, the kids began to work on perfecting their name writing skills! They began by finding their name tag and cutting off the picture. Then they identified the letters in their name and wrote each letter on a circle. On Wednesday, they glued the circles to create the body of a snowman and decorated it with a hat, nose, arms, and scarf! These are displayed in the room as well. The kids did a GREAT job on this project.

On Friday, we continued our work identifying and writing letters by having the kids make shapes and letters in shaving cream. We put out letters and shapes for them to practice and they had so much messy fun. 

On Friday we continued the shape and letter identification with shape and letter hockey in the hall!

We had a bast at circle time dancing with shakers and learned a funny song about washing, folding, and putting away our clothes!

We read books and poems about penguins and polar bears and had a blast with a fun book about different animal footprints!

We brought our writing practice to the carpet and learned how to use our fingers to make shapes in the air! This is great practice for learning letters, which we will continue to do this winter.

We sang songs about snow including a fun one that Teacher Meghan taught us to the tune of the song "B-I-N-G-O"!

We learned a funny poem about melting snowmen!

We enjoyed all kinds of wintry weather this week! It was cold and windy, but that never stops the kids from getting out and enjoying the fresh air. It's so fun to see how they continue their collaborative games outside. Both classes also have lots fun connecting on the playground.

Next week we continue celebrating winter! On Monday we will make "clean snow" which the kids will turn into a sculpture on Wednesday. We will also work more on letters and shapes with a fun fishing game and play a game called Polar Bear ABC. 

As always, we truly enjoy each day that we get to spend with your wonderful children.

Warmly,
Christine and Meghan