Dramatic Play
The dramatic play area turned into a zoo! We have been loving stuffed animals have especially been obsessed with the "Good Night Gorilla" book! There were many different types of animals living in the cages including: lions, tigers, pandas, rhinos, and more! There were also water animals swimming in the pool. We really liked putting on our zookeeper uniforms and taking care of all the animals. It was fun unlocking the cages to let the animals out and bringing food to them. Sometimes friends also pretended to be animals and got into the cages with the animals! We had fun acting out parts of the book and especially playing with the keys. We also loved swimming with all the water animals and getting rides from the turtle and sharks!
Art & Literacy
With had lots of fun celebrating several birthdays and painting canvases! It was interesting to see how mixing colors could create new ones. We also used beads to create necklaces and bracelets for our friends. It was fun creating different types of patterns. Some friends used the same colors with different shapes, while others used different colors and different shapes. We also have been using the magic drawing boards a lot, enjoying making and then erasing our drawings.
Block Area
We had a lot of fun building train tracks, especially when friends help. When we worked together, we were able to build really big and long train tracks that would loop around multiple ways! The trains were able to go to so many different destinations! We have been really focused in our setup and execution of building the tracks and love trying to use all the pieces. We also really enjoyed decorating and playing with the dollhouse. We had fun playing with our friends, as we took over different roles in the house. We loved the idea of having lions, tigers, and rhinos as pets in the house; it reminded us of the zoo!
Quiet Area
It was fun gathering our friends and reading some of our favorite books together. Some of our favorite books include, “Good Night, Gorilla,” by Peggy Rathmann and “Cars and Trucks and Things that Go,” by Richard Scarry. We really liked pointing out the different types of animals from Goodnight Gorilla and looking for the same animal that is living in our dramatic play area. We also liked matching the trains and cars we have from the block area to the ones in the book, “Cars and Trucks and Things that Go.” Several of our friends have really enjoyed "reading" to us and have memorized a lot of the words from our favorite books! We love sitting and reading them together.
Gross Motor
We had a lot of fun using the tunnel as a boat; we used it to sail around the world. We also loved chasing each other through it and hiding in it too for friends to come find us. We enjoyed using the climbing structure as a ladder that we need to climb to get away from dinosaurs that lived in the tunnel or just friends that were chasing us. We also pretended that underneath was a house or car to climb and and save us.
Cognitive
The new gears have been a lot of fun to explore! We have loved building with them and they reminded us of machines. It was interesting seeing which pieces would make the gears spin and what made them stop spinning. We still love the puzzles and enjoyed figuring out the words that go along with the alphabet letters. We also liked thinking of letters that were in our friends’ names and finding them on the puzzle.
Outside
With the beautiful sunny weather, we went on lots of adventures! First we head into Golden Gate Park to see what we could find. We loved looking for leaves and acorns and especially watching the ducks and talking about them. We were very curious about which were boys and girls and where the babies were. It was hard to learn that we have to wait for spring! We also loved going to the playground and running around with all our friends there! We loved climbing and swinging together and looking at all the different things to see on the walk.
Then we went on a couple trips to the zoo! We got to ride on the train (N Judah) and the bus to get there and that was almost as exciting as the zoo. It was really fun getting to see the different types of animals there. Some of our favorites are the lions, giraffes, and tigers. We loved the gorillas and monkeys too. We saw the penguins and got to talk to the zoo keepers about them while they got fed. We learned about how they eat and stay warm in the cold water! One of the days we went to the petting zoo and got to meet some friendly animals there; we even got to feed and brush them! Although the highlight was probably our trips on the Little Puffer Train- We had so much fun riding- especially going through the tunnel and waving to all the people and animals we passed by! We ate lunch with animals too- the baby bears one day, and the gorillas the next- and we loved talking about what they were doing while enjoying our picnic!
Outside in our backyard we had lots of fun too. The climbing structure and slides still are exciting and used all the time. We love the swing and riding the tricycles. We even have been trying to figure out how to ride together! The kale growing has been a really tasty treat and we love to pick it ourselves and munch on pieces while playing! We've been doing a lot of digging, both in the sand pit and the bark, and have been building lots of interesting structures with the pipes and sticks.