October 17th-28th Happenings!

Dramatic Play

This area changed into a pumpkin patch with a corn maze inspired by our love of the tunnel! We loved playing with the pumpkins and putting them in the baskets to carry around. We continued to enjoy raking the leaves and we had so much fun running through the maze. We used it to hide from each other and play peek-a-boo!

Block Area

We have loved reading the books about trucks, so construction vehicles were added to the space as well as farm animals to mimic the "Little Blue Truck" book. New building blocks were added that we enjoyed building different structures and knocking them down. Alexander built "smoke stacks" with the foam blocks and Aria made a "spider."

Quiet Area

The family pictures have been fun to remove and rearrange and we have continued to love reading books, both together and by ourselves! We have tried to dress and undress the babies, which is hard work! Bo found that he could fit in the baby cradle and it was fun to rock back and forth!

Art/Literacy

We worked on our imagination and coloring skills with both paper and the "magic" sketch pads making monsters and people. We worked on a fall project adding tissue paper to a tree branch talking about how it looked like flowers and leaves. We also practiced our fine motor skills painting with pincher tools and cotton balls.

Cognitive Area

We enjoyed using the new bristle builders, coming up with all sorts of creations, from princess castles to race cars. We enjoyed the construction and farm puzzles, matching them to the trucks and animals in the block area. We are still using the hammer toys and experimenting with tapping them hard and soft to see what happens.

Gross Motor

The mattress continues to be a fun imaginative spot for play or just for jumping! We still love to run and chase with scarves, stuffed animals, animal hats,  and even necklaces. Bo liked wearing them all!

Nature Area

We continue to use the magnifying glasses on lots of different objects, including the collection of materials from our nature walk. The shells have become many different tools in our play.

Outside

We went on a nature discovery adventure into Golden Gate Park again. This time we went to find different natural materials: leaves, acorns, flowers, and sticks. We tried finding different types of leaves and figuring out what tree they might have come from. We found many different color flowers and worked on naming the colors. We walked and saw the big wind mill and learned about how they work and saw the beach and ocean! In our yard we continue to love the swing and sand pit. We found other uses for the big shovels, using them to push the swing in circles! We enjoyed the rainy weather in our boots and seeing how the rain changed our space: making the ground muddy, and the slides wet! We love to take turns going over the bridge and jumping off of it. We pretended there was a great big spider living by the slides like in our circle time song and loved checking on it then running away.

October 3rd- 14th Happenings!

We went on our first "A-Benture!" Inspired by the "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" book, we decided we wanted to go on our own, and Joe quickly called it a-benture. We also welcomed another new friend, Reza, into school and have enjoyed seeing all the changes to inspire our learning!

Dramatic Play

With the start of fall, we saw this area change into an Apple Orchard! We enjoyed picking the different colored apples, paying for them, sorting them in baskets and back on to the trees. We also loved raking up all the leaves and finding other ways to use the rakes too! The baskets became fun vessels to carry other things around, like necklaces and animals!

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Block Area

We have continued to enjoy the trains, both big and small. The dinosaurs have been lots of fun to add into all kinds of play all over the room. We continue to build houses for them, give them rides, and scare each other with their loud roars! Children were added to the people area, and we had fun lining them up and talking about how they were like us.

Quiet Area

We have been loving the stuffed animals, and take them all over. We also continue to love reading books, to ourselves and our friends. Our family wall has also been fun to explore!

Nature Area

We added some Jasmine, which has been fun to smell and watch the flowers open and change from pink to white! We still love looking at the shells and pinecones (and books!)  with the magnifying glasses.

Art/Literacy

We continue to enjoy playing with the play dough, usually asking for it on the days it is not out. We tried out lacing, and enjoyed practicing our fine motor skills trying to put the lace through the holes of the different shapes. The laces were also fun to make other things with, like leashes for our animals! Aria enjoyed making necklaces, putting the lace through just one hole and them tying it around her neck.

Gross Motor

Running up and down the classroom is still one of our favorite things to do. We found the animal hats again and have been enjoying role playing them with each other and talking about how they act and what noises they make. "What sound does a butterfly make?" Everyone had a different thought! The mattress is still a fun place to jump around and use our imaginations, making it into a boat, a pool, and a cloud!

Music Area

The scarves and tambourines have continued to be fun, but the addition of the xylophones have us practicing patterns and colors while playing some great music! 

Cognitive Area

Because of out interest in banging the drums and tapping different things both inside and outside, we saw the addition of hammer and peg boards. They have been fun to use along side the xylophones since they use the same motion and both make loud sounds. We have like switching the colors around into different patterns and making them into "beds" when all of the pegs are flattened down, and even helping the puppies do it!

Outside

On our first "a-benture", we went on a walk into golden gate park inspired by both the "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" book and the 'Five Little Ducks" song/felt that we often request to sing at circle time. We started searching for ducks, and found many both swimming and sleeping in the ponds. We wanted to look for something bigger, like a bear so we went to find the Bison. Along the way, we enjoyed looking at the big tall trees, listening to the different birds, waving to everyone passing by, and even finding some squirrels! 

In our yard, we still love the sand pit and playing with the dump trucks. The new big shovels have been lots of fun to dig with. We continue to test out riding the tricycles and spinning the hula hoops. The new table has been fun to sit at and have our water breaks. We have drawn and erased lots of new drawings on the chalkboard and love to try to fill it all the way up. We have discovered putting different items in the mud kitchen and cooking things for each other. The balls have been lots of fun to throw around especially trying to see how high they will go and if we can catch them again!

September 19th-30th Happenings!

The last few weeks we have become even more confident in the classroom and have been extending many past ideas, using our imaginations and social skills to play with our friends! We have loved all of the nice weather and have been especially excited to get new fish!                      

                                                    Dramatic Play

The dramatic play area transformed into a doctor's office and we have had so much fun pretending to be doctors and patients! We loved dressing up with the lab coats and using the stethoscopes to hear our heartbeats. We gave lots of check-ups to ourselves, our friends, Teacher Rebecca, the dolls, and even the dinosaurs! We talked about all the different tools and how real doctors use them on us!

Block Area

We had new people figures to play with, including a doctor and a nurse, and the doll house became a hospital as well as a home for the dinosaurs! We are acting out different scenes and using our imaginations to make the characters come to life! We continue to enjoy the trains, finding new ways to build and incorporate the other materials in the area.

They were acting out with the puppets and animals, telling a story about their home, and the footprints and river on the carpet.

Nature Area

We been enjoying exploring our nature materials some more, practicing sorting by type as well as shape. Aria liked to line up the long shells and Joe was inspecting them for cracks. The magnifying glassed have made there way to many areas of the room, to see what else they can "make bigger!"

Quiet Area

We have continued to love reading books and playing in the tee-pee with each other and all of the animals. Aria and Joe had some time together taking turns reading different stories to their puppies in the big white chair. We also have loved holding, rocking, and feeding the baby dolls.

Art/ Literacy

We explored our interest in animals with a sensory activity with shaving cream and the safari animals. We talked about the thick and soapy foam and how the animals disappeared in it until we wiped them off. After wanting the animals "clean" we added water to the foam to make it thinner and easier to clean them off. We explored how the consistency changed when we added more water! We also had fun with the play dough, bringing the doctor kit tools over to use the scissors and knifes with it!

Gross Motor

The addition of the mattress to jump on has been so fun and open-ended, and we have used it for many different forms of play. We also have continued to love running around and dancing with the scarves.

Cognitive Area

We have found so many different things to build with the magna-tiles and have needed to pull out more because of how elaborate our structures are becoming! Joe liked building a home for the dinosaurs and Aria and Bo joined in, while Alexander brought the dinosaur puppet to oversee! We all liked witching the dinosaurs fall into the towers to their house.

Music Area

The drums have still be lots of fun and we continue to try new ways of making different sounds. We especially love to play them at the same time with a friend! When the music plays, we always want to use the scarves!

Outside

We spent lots of time outside it the hot weather. We did an outdoor art project painting with ice cubes! It was so much fun to watch them slowly melt and see how the paint changed! We started painting with the cubes but quickly learned that using our hands to spear it around and make handprints was even more fun! We still love filling and dumping the trucks in the sandbox, practicing taking turns with them. On another hot day we added water to the mud kitchen and enjoyed splashing it and filling the pots. Aria found that adding some mulch and sage leaves smelled good and was fun to stir around. The tricycles, chalkboard and slides have continued to be exciting and we have discovered we can swing together for even more fun! Aria and Alexander discovered that walking through the creek bed is a bit challenging and they enjoyed walking over and jumping off the bridge. Our peas keep growing and we have found a few more ripe strawberries to eat!

Weeks 3 and 4 Happenings!

We have had another fun couple weeks! We are really enjoying school and all of our new friends. We are learning so much, using our imaginations and building new skills.

Dramatic Play

We were loving playing with all the food and putting them in and out of different containers so we saw the dramatic play area change into a Grocery Store! The shopping carts were so much fun and we practiced loading them, then paying for and bagging our groceries! We pretended to read our shopping lists and even dressed up as grocers! Bo enjoyed using the carts for carrying around the water bottles.

Block Area

The addition of the train set has us working on building different roads and playing together.  We continue to use the large wooden train, and animals, driving them around the room. The doll house has been a great space for us to act out different scenarios.

Nature Area

Magnifying glasses have been added to the nature area, and we have loved discovering how they work, inspecting the details of the pine cones, shells and even our fish friends in the new fish tank!

Quiet Area

We have loved reading books to ourselves and our friends and have enjoyed looking at and talking about everyone's family photos.

Gross Motor

We still love to run up and down the classroom and are enjoying the addition of the tunnel both for crawling and hiding! And of course the balls, have made their way into all areas of our play!

Art/ Literacy

The play dough is still a big hit. We are using it to make cakes, pizzas and different animal shapes. We are learning how to roll it flat and what happens when we mix colors! The drawing boards have been a fun way to draw out stories and watch them disappear and we still love drawing on paper with the markers and crayons. We tested out some animal stamps, after loving all of the animal figures, and loved using them as well as our hands to make hand prints! The new water/sensory table with cloud dough has been so much fun. We filled containers and explored the different textures when it is pressed together or when it crumbled apart.

Cognitive Area

We have been enjoying doing the puzzles as a group, especially the alphabet. We practice taking turns saying the letters and pointing or placing them where they go! The magnatiles have gotten lots of use, building towers and knocking them down. Joe has enjoyed building houses for the animals, especially the elephants!

Music Area

The drums and shakers continue to be well used, and we are enjoying dancing together with the silk scarves either to requested music or our own!

Outside

We have found so many ways to use the new hula hoops outside: trying to spin them on our hips and arms, sliding down the slide with them, and making and obstacle course to jump through to just name a few! We are working hard to learn to pedal the tricycles and the space under the slide continues to be a fun hideout especially in this heat! We are loving drawing on the chalkboard and filling all of the blank space and well as drawing with the chalk of the tree stumps and blocks. We worked together to build a "bed" for all the chalk with the outdoor blocks. The sandpit is still very fun, especially the dump trucks! Our Peas are finally ready to eat and we have been loving picking them off and eating them as a crunchy snack outside!

The First 2 Weeks of School!

*I will do a new post about the happenings at school every 2 weeks. I didn't document as well as I would have liked, so look out for many more pictures next time! Enjoy!

We have had so much fun the first two weeks of school! We've been adjusting to the schedule and exploring all the different areas of the classroom. Look at all that we are learning!

Dramatic Play

We've been busy dressing up as chefs and using our imaginations in the restaurant to create many exciting dishes. We have been practicing patience and imitation as we wait for things to "cook" in the oven just like our parents do! We have also been utilizing our social skills to explain what we are making and include our friends in our play.

The eggs have been a big hit! Who knew so many different dishes could utilize eggs?! Our imaginations have definitely been put to good use.

Music Area

We have enjoyed playing the drums both with the sticks and our hands. We have explored sound and cause and effect when we hit it both hard and soft, and fast and slow. The egg shakers and tambourines have been great additions to our band.

Gross Motor

We have spent a lot of time just running up and down the long open stretch of the classroom and crashing into the couch, enjoying yelling "Ready, Set, GO!" When Bo joined us, we all played a lot with the balls, throwing and kicking them and rolling them back and forth. We discovered that the round shapes roll much better than the triangular and square ones! But, the different shapes don't go straight which makes it fun to guess where they will end up!

Block Area

We have spent a lot of time in this area, even if it may not be well documented (oops!). The blocks have not been used as much, but the cars, trucks, and trains have gone on many trips around the classroom and on the activity rug carrying all sorts of people, cars, and animals. The doll house has been filled with lots of furniture, and exotic pets! Bo explored volume and sorting by trying to fit balls into all the different train cars.

Nature Area

Bo discovered the lemons, prompting the other boys to join in tasting them. They thought they tasted sour, but Bo enjoyed sucking the juice!

Art/ Literacy

We have played a lot with play dough, using rolling pins to flatten it and cookie cutters to make fun shapes! We have also enjoyed using the "finger" crayons to make drawings. Joe played waiter and took orders for the restaurant on the clipboard. We also made many creations outside on the big chalkboard!

Outside

We have loved playing outside as the weather has started to warm up again for Indian summer! We have spent lots of time in the sand pit, with Joe and Alex going back and forth dumping sand from their truck into the other's. We practiced taking turns of the net swing, and have enjoyed riding the tricycles around, both facing forwards and backwards! The fort under the slide structure became a clubhouse, and we tasted out first items from the garden, strawberries, lettuce, and carrots!