Dramatic Play
At the City Sprouts doctor’s office, we have been working very hard to keep our friends, babies, and teachers as healthy as can be! Before we meet up with the doctor, we call in to book an appointment and then check in at the front desk. We love listening to friends’ and teachers’ heartbeats and breathing with the stethoscope, as well as taking their blood pressure. Much to our surprise, we found that our teachers often have high blood pressure! As part of our routine checkup, we use the otoscope to look into their ears and take their temperature with the thermometer. When our patients have high fevers, we prescribe medicine for them and advise them to get lots of rest! Some of our patients come in with broken/injured legs or arms so we often have to perform surgery on them and put bandages on their wounds. Our favorite part of the day is giving shots to our patients because we understand how important they are to keep us healthy.
Nature Area
We love looking through the animal encyclopedia and have been fascinated with bats and birds in particular. We love learning about their habitats, diets, and characteristics. We also like looking at the different types of bacteria and learning about which ones can make us sick.
Block Area
With new firetrucks and signs, we have been busy in the block area. We love taking the firetrucks out around town to see who needs saving. Usually the house and doctor’s office are the ones that need help. Our favorite is when the fires are in high places and we need to set up all of the ladders. It is most fun when many friends come together and help build one big town and a house where multiple families live. It is exciting that we get to build something new every time!
Quiet Area
When we want to calm our bodies down, we look at books. This time around, we have been enjoying “The Berenstain Bears Go to the Doctor,” “Germs Make You Sick,” and “Corduroy Goes to the Doctor.” We have been reading a lot together with friends and to the stuffed animals and baby dolls too. We also have loved using the couch as a vehicle to take us places together, or as a bed where we act out house rolls and put our friends to bed with blankets and stories.
Music Area
We are still very much obsessed with Jingle Bells and sing it while using the rhythm sticks and egg-shaped maracas to create the beat. We also love dancing along to the music with the ribbon sticks and scarves. On music days with Teacher Charity, we’ve been singing and dancing along to “Happy Fluffy,” “Keep a Green Tree in Your Heart,” “PB & J,” and the peace song. We’ve also been learning about inclusion in the “We Include Everyone” song and love dancing and making up the lyrics to the silly scarf song!
Art Area
We have discovered our new favorite art medium. It’s scissors! We love seeing what different ways we can cut the paper, sometimes only making slits or other times making shapes. It’s most fun when we cut them into super tiny pieces, but we know we’ll have to clean it up at the end. We also enjoy practicing our patience with the stencils. It is challenging, but exciting to see how our drawing will turn out. In art class we have also been exploring different mediums. We recently learned what a Polaroid camera does and were able to see our class pictures instantly. We enjoyed decorating our pictures with paint and washi-tape so we could then give them to our parents a presents!
Gross Motor Area
We have found other ways to play with the ladder and ramp. Our new favorite thing to do is to see what we can slide down the ramp, such as; cars, stuffed animals, people, and balls. It is so funny when the objects don't make it all the way and fall off. In yoga, we continue to practice being present with our bodies. We do this by doing bumble-bee breath, amongst other breathing exercises. We also practice balancing, even though we may fall over sometimes. The newest poses we have learned have been bug poses. Exploring the forest on rainy days has made us very interested in what bugs come out when it’s wet. We love the “deadbug” pose, where we lay on our backs and wiggle our legs in the air. We also love “slug” pose where we crawl on our bellies.
Cognitive Area
Magnatiles have always been our favorite, but just recently we have been working on seeing what different shapes we can create. We have become masters at towers and trains, but now we try to see what we can build with the triangles, like cars and rocket ships. We are also interested in letters and seeing which ones we recognize from our name. It is fun lining them all up and seeing how high we can count.
Outside
The rainy weather has not scared us away, we think rainy days in the forest are the best! We have gone on adventures in search of the biggest puddle. It is so much fun when we get to see how big of a splash we can make. On our puddle search we also found/learned about our new obsession, sourgrass. We know that it’s only a good idea to get it from the forest and not from the street. It has been exciting learning about this edible plant and experiencing that sour taste that reminds us of lemons. In the backyard, we have been busy building, cooking, and swinging. We love being able to fully immerse ourselves in the mud kitchen and not being afraid of getting dirty. The specialties at our restaurant include; rainbow cake, banana bread, hot tamales, witch soup, and cupcakes. When we’re not cooking, we like to pretend the swing is our form of transportation. It is a magic swing that can turn into a spaceship, car, dump truck, ambulance, or rollercoaster. It is really exciting when we see how many friends we can fit on there. We also have a new basketball goal that has been a hit. We are working on our hand-eye coordination to be able to dribble and catch the ball. We love exploring and learning new ways to play outside!