This week found our housekeeping space transformed into a cookie bakery! We are using the large alphabet puzzle pieces as ‘cookies’ and together with a baking tray, tongs, a spatula and little plates, the children got right into our new cookie play. The tongs and spatula give the children another opportunity to work on their fine motor skills and when I offered a bag for the children to pack the cookies in, the counting play began as well. Here’s one scene:
B makes tea at the table. T is placing some of the cookies on the tray and puts them into the kitchen cupboard (which doubles as an oven). “Now we cook them for twelve minutes” he announces. B then counts out 10 cookies for a bag. Then B calls out to us “T, Hazel and V, I’m baking some cookies and they’re hot!”
I am calling attention to each letter of cookie I am ‘served’. If you decide to continue this play at your own house, keep it fun and remember that we are just introducing the names of each letter to the children. If we begin to quiz them about what they remember (other than a few letters in their name) they’ll often clam up and want to move on…
We also played a new Name Game at Gathering on Wednesday. This game goes as follows: each child is asked to recognize their name on a card I hold up. The child then receives the card and begins to match up letters from a pool of them on the floor. (All the letters in the pool belong to our names.) We then line up the letters either above or below the name on the printed card, taking care to orient them correctly. This can be tricky with some letters (e and l were noticeably challenging and took a few tries). Sometimes, too, some letters can become confused with other ones- a lower-case‘t’ and ‘r’ are a good case in point. We are focusing on names because these are the words that hold the most relevance to your children right now, and I’ve also been inviting the children to sign their letters to each other with their first initial.
At the easel, too, I drew big letters of each child’s first initial for the children to print-paint, using a tube and some corks. They’ll be bringing these cut-out letters home next week.
Play on the big carpet this week took on some new themes. We’ve been doing a lot of work on ‘skateboard parks’ recently, but when V was home sick on Tuesday, this prompted T to say “If V was here, I’d build a skateboard park. (With the magnetic blocks) Now what can I do?” I invited him look at the blocks and “see what you think they could make”. Two minutes later he presented a little car with three seats in a row: “This one is for the mama and this one is for the kid and this one is for the baby”. B joined T, making a car too, drove her car along the dark border of our rug, singing “I’m going around in circles! It’s going around in circles!” Then, of course, we did have to move into skate park play. B watched T build his park, arranging and then rearranging blocks, and then followed suit, lining up three blocks in a row, two inclined on the first block. T then imitated B’s work for his already-existent park.
On Wednesday, the block play continued: T and V were making rocket ships. The children began by using the colored blocks, and when they ran out of the sizes they needed, I reminded them of the shelves of unit blocks. T’s creation had “these yellow things are so there can’t get cold inside it. So it can lift off.” Then V and T talk about making an airport. Lots of discussion follows, and B builds “something to make chocolate things. I’m making a tall tower.”
A few more interesting moments from our week:
We worked with glue sticks at the table, making ‘leaf pictures’ by pasting lovely paper leaves onto paper. We’ll be sending this home soon. It was interesting to observe how some children were specific about putting a lot of glue onto a designated space while others ‘drew’ with the glue sticks.
At the big table this week: stamp pads and stamps; some children make ‘mail’ with this while others took their work home. Also, soapy fun as we ran our cars through the suds on top of the table. Lots of dramatic play conversation emerged from this.
Tongs and horse chestnuts at the little puzzle table. The children loaded the nuts into a plastic artists palate from a beautiful blue bowl. Just in case you want to do some of this sort of work at home, I’ve found wooden tongs at Finnegans for around $3. Your child may need a little help in positioning their hand on the tongs. (they tend to want to hold it up near the top instead of the center, and some children try using two hands to hold it; I ask them to place their second hand on the table or in their laps once their first hand is positioned correctly.) Puff balls, nuts, round stones are all great props for this activity. They can be pulled out/ put into bowls, egg cartons (place in is easier for this), Kleenex boxes, muffin tins, palates and more.
At the rice bin, T asked me for a cap to a container. I handed him three to try out (only one was correct, or so I thought) and another one worked. The kids are always teaching me too…
As I made a real cup of tea in a clear mug, we observed the sugar crystals as they were in the sugar bowl, at the bottom of the mug, and after stirring for a moment. Were they still there? Some were, and then, stirred again, they all dissolved. And the color changed when milk was added…interesting…Your house, too, is filled with ‘everyday’ teachable moments.
We had fun at our Tuesday Gathering, each of us with a wooden spindle of different shapes, onto which different shapes and amounts of pieces fit. All the pieces were in a pool on the rug, and as we chose our spindles, we fitted the pieces on, talking about the shapes as we went. We also read a great book entitled “Owl and Woodpecker”, about two forest creatures whose living habits cause conflict. What happens when a day-sleeping owl moves into the tree next to a noisy woodpecker? Can they resolve their disagreement and become friends? Even when their forest friends chime in and attempt to help, nature has it’s own way of bringing creatures together.
Next week, we’ll be moving into some Thanksgiving and giving-thanks stories and planting jars of paperwhite bulbs to observe. I’m looking forward to our time together. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Tuesday!
