The children in our 3's and 4's classes had fun creating with glue, kosher salt and water colours.

First, glue is drizzled onto the plate, then salt is sprinkled on top and the excess shaken off. The best part... dipping the brush into the water colour and very gently touching the salt with the brush. Voila! The colour seemingly magically seeps deep into the salt.





At the sensory table, the children enjoyed exploring pre-frozen cups of water and sequins.


A group of children spent a long while playing a penguin, memory game. A game we recently received as a gift from one of our families. It was wonderful witnessing the turn taking and watching the children cheer each other on.


On Fort Day, sheets were tossed over tables and chairs, and various table top toys and loose parts placed inside. Children seemed thrilled to walk into the preschool in the morning, and see their classroom transformed. Forts and children... a wonderful combination!

This Winter, preschool children have had many opportunities to explore the ice and snow that is everywhere!

In our classroom I felt it would be a fun and beneficial exercise to create their own individual paper snowflakes.  After explaining that each real snowflake is different and truly unique we all got to work!

Using white paper folded into triangles and an assortment of different types of scissors, each child involved was encouraged to cut along the edges in whatever way they wished.

The children worked for quite a while, concentrating on the challenging task.  This artistic opportunity allowed them to express individual creativity, further improved fine motor skills and surely supported the development of hand-eye coordination.

 

Once their cutting was completed, they were invited to paint glitter glue on their creation.  This exercise was equally exciting to them as they saw their “snowflake” begin to sparkle.  

When the decorating was all done, each child seemed very proud of their finished product…"perfect paper snowflakes!”

                                                      
 

With the abundant snowfall that we got in the past weeks, we decided to take art outside. The children like playing in the snow and painting so why not combine both?

We took our watercolors, brushes and cups of water outside. At first, the children were all painting on the ground.

Then, the big clump of snow on the table caught Mia’s attention. She touched the big clump but it did not fall apart.

Tiffany said, “ It looks like a mountain”.
Sabrina replied with “A snowy mountain”.
Rea started to paint the mountain and all the other girls followed.

Mia encouraged everyone to paint the whole mountain so it can be a “Rainbow Mountain”. The girls were all dedicated in painting to cover the whole mountain with color.

Preschool play is the primary source of development, allowing children to learn and practice many basic social skills.

While children shift between different types of play, as they grow and mature they participate less in unoccupied, solitary, onlooker and parallel play and more in associative and cooperative play which are more interactive.






Children in our four-year-old class participating in associative and cooperative play:



More cooperative play by our four-year-old class:






Children in our four-year-old class working cooperatively to create paper snow people:





The final finish:


We were able to get out on a snow day where the children worked cooperatively to build an actual snowman:




Until next time!