A Day in our Life

What exactly do children do when they have choice and control over how they spend their play time?

Make neat pieces of art.

Make a club house out of blocks.

Check out the tadpoles.

Engage in imaginative play.

Put together complex puzzles.

Share art with others.

Engage in some great writing.

Have snack together.

Enjoy books together in the reading area.

Draw and write in our journals.

Play cooperatively with others.

Make art together.

Work on the computer.

Make play dough.

And that was just in the first hour!

To read more about the importance of learning through play, read the article Want to Get Your Kid into College?

Goop

We experimented with goop on Friday! Goop is 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water with a little food colouring. Goop is interesting because it acts like a solid and liquid. It's hard to pick up and can be formed, but once it looses its form it is drippy and hard to control. The children were fascinated by it, especially after working with the gak last week. 

More Snails

Look who came to school today!

Mini Alphabet Stamping

Some children were interested in these mini alphabet stampers that were at our writing table. A few children just experimented with stamping the letters while others made up their own books. Not only are these stamps great for writing, they help children practice their fine motors skills as they use a pincher grasp to manipulate them.

Dancing/Painting to Music

Today we encouraged our children to paint with their feet! After dipping their toes into some bright colours, we played various pieces of classical music and encouraged the children to move to the music. The artwork they created was stunning!

Hat Day!

We are having a kindergarten hat day this Thursday! Encourage your child to wear his or her favourite hat to school that day!

Gak!

We made a really interesting concoction with our children today called gak. Gak is an oozy substance that acts like both a liquid and solid. It's got a neat texture and our children played with it all day. (Click here for the recipe so that you can try this at home!) Manipulating it is great for improving fine motor control and strength, which will lead to better writing skills later on. We loved listening to our children discuss the gak as they tried to discover exactly what it was and how they could use it.

Helping to make it! When we follow recipes like the one for gak, the children are engaged in math (counting, measuring).

Comparing the lengths of how long we could stretch our pieces!

Practising scissor skills by cutting it!

More measuring! Just how skinny could we make the gak?

We also experimented with how thin we could stretch the gak.

How long until this piece oozed off the table?

Some children spelled their names with it!