Grocery Store Progress

We are continuing to develop our grocery store play each week in new ways. This week, Rachel and Danielle sat down with their individual groups and had conversations on the children's knowledge of grocery stores. We showed them pictures of different aspects of a grocery store such as the aisles, shopping carts, and even what the floors and walls look like. The children were able to give their knowledge of grocery stores as well as ask questions.

We then began work on our grocery store model. Billie started this project with the children and we will continue to add parts to it as the children learn more about what goes into a grocery store. We first primed the whole model with white paint, and then took a survey asking what color we should paint the outside walls. Check the pictures below to see what color we decided on!

Sensory Bags

On Monday, the children created sensory bags to use on the light table. These were very easy to make, just combining clear hair gel and food coloring! We taped up the bags to prevent spills and took our bags to the light table. The children explored the feeling of the gel in the bags, used their fingers to trace letters and shapes, and used other light table objects to create impressions in the gel. These sensory bags can be easily made at home and even taped to windows to see how the light comes through them!

Celebrating February Birthdays

Visiting Day on Fun Friday!

On visiting day all of the children from each class have a chance to visit each other's rooms for work time. We had many areas open including a hot chocolate shop in the Half Day house keeping, musical instruments in the big room, a variety of board games, water color painting with Billie, and more!

What Has Been Happening in the West Yard?

Mystery Reader Surprise

Sewing in the Art Studio

The children were introduced to sewing by weaving cord in and out of a piece of cardboard. This skill uses their fine motor skills by directing the cord in and out pinching their fingers and guiding their hand. We hope to build up to sewing with fabric in the weeks to come!

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Valentine's Day Festivities

Although we do not have children bring in individual Valentines for their classmates, we still offer a variety of work relating to the holiday throughout the week. In the art room we supplied red, purple, and pink paper for children to create cards for family members or friends. This focused on literacy work as the children came up with messages and some even signed their own names. 

Billie also had the children create "kindness trees" on Valentine's Day using lace, tissue paper, and buttons and she helped to tell the message of how we spread kindness and friendship to each other.

Making Valentine's Day Slime!

Matthew and Riley's mommy came into work time to create Valentine's Day slime with Rachel's group! The children mixed in water, glue, starch, and even got to pick out their own coloring and sparkles to add into their creation. We recommend storing your slime in the fridge when you are not playing with it. We loved watching the slime turn into a "jello" like consistency. Everyone's slime looked so unique!

Another Snowy Day!

Where do you see a Cash Register?

We introduced the cash register in the Math & Science area this week for the children to explore. Since our cook book has many ingredients our fridge currently does not have, like hot sauce and olives, we are posing the thought of needing to buy grocery items for our kitchen. First, we started exploring the cash register to see what the children would say and see. Here are some of their responses by a teacher asking, "Have you seen a cash register before?"

"It is used at a store"

"At Whole Foods"

"I saw one at the train station"

"At Costco"

Making Money

From the children's conversation the day before, we started to talk about what color and shape money is. One child said it was a rectangle and green. Another child grabbed a green gear off of the light table and exclaimed, "this color!" Imogene surveyed all of her classmates asking if the money should be green. Most responses were a yes! Another child said money was brown, like "change" so the children brought green and brown paper to the table and started to cut out their desired shapes with scissors. One child drew Abraham Lincoln on his coin, while others drew circles or numbers.

Game Day

On Wednesday we played Hi Ho Cherry O, Bluey Scavenger Hunt, Yeti in my Spaghetti, Count Your Chickens, and Best Worst Ice Cream.

In the Art Studio with Billie this Week...

The children's cook book in house keeping has started a lot of conversation about what we might find in a grocery store. Our wonderful art teacher, Billie, started a grocery store model with the children on Monday to represent the children's ideas of what it looks like inside and outside. Many of the children told us they have been to grocery stores such as Costco and Whole Foods. One child said we needed a shopping card, another said we needed a parking lot. We shall see how our model progresses in the weeks to come!

And Outside...

Billie challenged the children using their fine motor skills by creating carts with small loose parts, tape, and cardboard. We tested their carts as a school on the porch this Friday! They went under bridges, up ramps, and down!

Mystery Readers

Lunar New Year

On Thursday Mackie's parents, Ellen and Eric, came into school to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which will occur this Saturday. They read us a book which taught the children a brief history of the new year - how it started and how people celebrate it. Then, we learned about the zodiac animals and the race they competed in to create the Chinese calendar, and got to play a zodiac animal matching game. Ellen and Eric ended the celebration by teaching the children how to say "Happy New Year" in Chinese and each child received a red envelope containing dragon stickers to represent the year of the dragon.

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

We read a new story this week and put the storyboard with felt pieces for the children to retell it themselves. 

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