Dramatic Play
We have been talking a lot about trains and the roles of a conductor, which inspired us to turn this area into a train station! We loved riding on the big train and had a lot of fun dressing up as the conductor. There were times the train broke down, so we always had our tools. We fixed the smoke stack, wheels, and seats; it was hard work, but we wanted to make sure our passengers had a smooth ride! We used the walkie talkies to talk to the other conductors, as well as lots of members of our families! We gave reminders to friends to obtain a ticket before getting on the train because it will get checked and stamped during the ride and to make sure they don’t miss their trains! We loved packing our luggage and taking it with us wherever we went. The train rides brought us all over the world, including Spain, New York, and London— what a ride! Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo!
Block Area
We really enjoyed building large towers, crashing them, and rebuilding new towers! We also liked sharing ideas on how to prevent our buildings from falling down. We spent lots of time creating large and long ramps for our trucks to ride through; testing how fast the balls rolled on the ramps was also very interesting! We loved the dinosaurs and incorporated them into lots of play. The doll house got lots of use too, becoming a home for the people, vehicles and dinosaurs!
We also really enjoyed building highways and putting up different types of street signs for the cars. There were many types of signs! Some of the ones we used often includes the STOP, pedestrian awareness, and street light ahead signs.
Quiet Area
Having so much fun with the train station, we really enjoyed reading stories about different types of trains and engines! We loved looking at the different types of colors trains could be and compared them to our own. We read lots of books together and by ourselves. We also love the family wall and often find our pictures to hold and find all of our friends' to talk about who is in their family.
Nature Area
We really enjoyed using the view finders to look for different types of animals! Our favorites include the lion, humming bird, and clown fish! We loved sharing what we saw with our our friends. We also really enjoyed listening to the sounds of seashells; if you listen closely, you could hear the ocean waves! It was also very fun when we used the magnifying glass to look closely at the different patterns of the shells.
Art & Literacy
We really enjoyed creating our own craft pieces with all the different types of stickers, such as dinosaurs and farm animals! We made a barn for the animals and we also created a forest for the dinosaurs to live in. We also really enjoyed using the different colored tapes to create masterpieces! Sometimes we used the tape to create a picture and sometimes we used them to make popsicles and other 3-D creations. The sensory table was filled with Oatmeal, bugs, containers, and scoopers and we loved catching and sorting them! We also celebrated 2 birthdays (Wilder and Ryan) by collaborating on beautiful paintings with colors picked by the special child.
Gross Motor
We had a lot of fun playing 5 little monkeys on the mattress. Our favorite part is when we turn the game into a tickling party. We love it when our friends giggle and laugh uncontrollable from the tickle monster. We also like riding on the rocking horse throughout the day and going really fast! We often run up and down the classroom "chasing" each other too!
Music Area
We really enjoyed having piano duet sessions with our friends! It was very fun when friends joined in with the drums and egg shakers too! At times we played music to celebrate birthdays. We explored the different sounds when using different things to play the keys from fingers to drumsticks and cars. We sure make a good band!
Cognitive Area
We really enjoyed figuring out how to put together the different puzzles! Our favorites are the dinosaur and farm animal puzzles. We also really enjoyed opening an ice cream shop with the rings. The flavor possibilities were endless, and we made lots of different combinations! The pieces also became food for the baby dolls and stuffed animals as well as money for lots of different items.
Outside
With the hot weather, we really enjoyed going outside and playing with water; it sure helped us cool down! We had a lot of fun playing in the water tubs with our friends. We worked together to wash the chalkboard with sponges and towels so it would be clean for new drawings. We also loved helping teacher Becca water the plants! The best part was getting to taste the ripe tomatoes we grew together! We learned that green tomatoes aren’t ready yet, and they taste best when they’re bright orange. We loved pretending in the mud kitchen! We used dump trucks, pans, and buckets to make different types of “food,” including soups, juices, and cakes! It was fun sharing the different dishes with our friends. The tubes were used to build all sorts of gadgets, including a water shooter, a bubble machine, and a dryer! We really enjoyed getting our friends wet with the water shooter, but we always made sure to dry them off with a dryer too! We spent a lot of time on the climbing wall going up and down the slides together as well as underneath it to stay cool. We found a spider friend in the sand pit and helped Teacher Becca catch it so we could all get a good look. We continue to love filling dump trucks and buckets in the sand too. We discovered lots of ways to get up and down on the climbing structure, and even discovered we can jump off the different level stump steps and pretend to fly!