To welcome Spring, we read Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. We also explored this color at choice time — using glue sticks, green paper, and green images from magazines, we created a collaborative collage on a large background piece. The children made marks with the purple-tinted glue sticks on the paper, tested how much glue was needed to make collage pieces stick, and noticed the sticky residue on our hands when we were done. One prompt we used to remember the sequence of steps was “Glue on the paper, then paper on the glue.” This meant that first we put glue on to the background piece, and then we bring the collage piece onto that gluey spot.
We visited our garden, which was waking up from its long winter slumber. Jasmin prompted us to look for something green, and we found so many leaves and stems growing! “Plants!” exclaimed Lily. “One finger touch,” Henry reminded himself and others as he carefully felt the smooth leaves of the tulips. We’re so excited to see the plants continue to grow and bloom.
The children also discovered that the sensory table had been filled with shallow water, pipettes, and large turkey basters! We practiced moving around the water, learning when and how to pinch the pipettes to fill them up. It was a great find motor challenge for everyone that sustained our attention for long periods of time this week.
During circle time, we sang many songs with our shakers. Certain children had strong color preferences when choosing shakers: Eli said, “I want the ladybug shaker!” and Lily requested, “Purple, please!” “Red!” said James. We practiced shaking them high up and down low, fast, slow, and even behind our backs. “Do you hear my loud cymbal?” asked Amari, who used his shaker like a mallet tapping on a pretend cymbal. Next week we plan on moving on to bells as our main musical instrument.
Thank you to everyone for meeting with us during Spring Conferences this week. It was so nice to connect about your wonderful children. We hope you all have a beautiful weekend!
