5-Day: Friendship, Community and Learning Our Names
Hello everyone! 5-Day is off to an awesome start. We have had a fun and amazing week. It was so nice to see old friends and make new friends.
Our focus this week was learning the classroom routines and being safe. During meetings, we discussed how we take care of ourselves -- washing hands, walking feet, hanging up our coats, and, etc. We also talked about how to take care of our friends by sharing, listening and caring, which were all ideas the children had. The class thought about ways to take care of their school by cleaning up the toys and reading books with care. They played a game of red and green choices. With much excitement and discussion, the children shared their thoughts about what constitutes a red choice and a green choice. Red choices are bad ones to make, like pushing. Green choices are good, like sharing. You may hear them thinking about this at home. The children really enjoyed this game and were very happy that they knew so much.
Our theme this week centered around friendship, community and learning our names. The children created their own labels for their classroom art baskets, carefully decorated their names with small mosaic paper tiles, and designed their own placemats.
They practiced cutting up paint chips with scissors, then gluing a beautiful collage, making water colored people shapes to create a linking friendship chain, cooperative stamping with friends, and squeezing and smooshing different paint together under plastic wrap for a beautiful art project.
Sensory areas were available with foam, shapes, rice and various containers and pourers. The class played a matching shape game with Caroline, figured out some challenging puzzles and gave a friend a friendship bracelet they made themselves.
We also built driveways, stores, and ramps, took care of the babies and cooked in dramatic play. We peered at flowers through magnifying glasses and picked out the sunflower seeds at the science center; we read books and drew at the writing table.
And, we can't forget our first Creative Movement class as 5-Day! So good to see Coach again.
We have had a great week. Looking forward to a great year!!
Caroline and Cathy
