Around the classroom we put out some simple activities and watched the benefits children gained from them and how simplicity can progress into many learning opportunities that happen along the way. The benefits of giving children simple and less, helps in development of creating their own ideas.  And by transferring the creation into something, helps foster a proud child to be confident in their future development and learning.   

Fine Motor Development

The malleable properties of playdough make it fun for investigation and exploration as well as secretly building up strength in all their tiny hands muscles and tendons.  With strong hands, children are ready for pencil and scissors holding.  Below is a picture of Sofie, carefully cutting her cake creation.

 

As part of a simple tactile play, it can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, and punctured.  As you can see in the picture of Jeffery, Jun, and Connor, the benefits of these actions provide fine motor development in different ways, not to mention hand eye coordination and general concentration.  Just by adding another element, a simple muffin tray, helped inspired some new creative play possibilities.     

On another occasion, I provided the children with another “simple’ inspiration, three different colored apples. It is interesting to see how and what they paint.                                   

Sofie has her own creation of an apple tree with her name at the top and apples in a basket.

Before Jun began to paint, she holds one of the apples in her hands. I wonder if this was helping her imagine how to paint a picture of them.

 

Ethan began by focusing on writing his name before painting. When he began painting, Ethan added details to his apples by painting the apple stems. 

Here’s another example of how simplicity worked in the classroom. I provided Jack with some “simple” materials on the projector. With these materials Jack was able to create a fence for the animals.

 

Until the next post!

Jess

 

We welcomed our students back from the December holidays. On the first day of school, we were surprised by a snowfall. We were so excited to go explore and play with the snow before it all melted away.

 

We tried different ways of playing with the snow. We ran and stomped across the field, dragging our shoes across the snow to make marks. It was really fun! A few children were interested in how we made tracks with our shoes. The next class, we talked about how the snow felt and what we observed. Children observed that on the way to school there were tracks on the road, just like there were tracks on the field. 

 

Painting has always been a hit at the art table. I decided to spice things up a bit by painting with a tool that we have never used before. We painted with HAIR COMBS. The children were so surprised and a little baffled at first when they saw the hair combs on the table.

 

Ruka was so particular in not letting the colors mix. She had red on top and blue on the bottom. She painted her paper the way she got her paint from the tray

 

Julia was fascinated with how the colors changed when they were mixed on her paper.

 

It was interesting to see how the children used the hair combs differently to paint. Each one of them had a style of their own in painting. This art activity made me realize that children have their own creative ways in using things around them. As adults, we sometimes think that a certain thing may only have one or two uses but for children the possibilities are endless.

 

 

Until next time,

 

 Making art and finding sparkly treasures 

Upon visiting our big buddies, the children were in awe of how large the elementary school was compared to the preschool. The big buddies helped the little buddies build gingerbread houses with some candy that the big buddies brought from home. Together, they built amazing gingerbread houses and brought them home to share with their families.

Since the big buddies had been so amazing, the little buddies decorated cookies to show their appreciation. The children drizzled liquid icing sugar on the cookies and then carefully selected candies as decorations. We then sent the cookies to the big buddies at their school.

Some of the children have seen miniature trains around town. They were excited and actively engaged in conversations about trains. We talked about the requirements to travel by train. The children shouted that we needed to buy tickets at a ticket booth. This created a perfect opportunity for another project. The children had fun making, selling, and buying tickets, while also engaging in imaginative play with our "train."

We look forward to seeing everyone in January 2016! Warm wishes to everyone over this holiday season and a Happy New Year!


~Karen