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Beetle Painting
Drawing is a skill which helps children begin to perfect the usage of their hands. Using a crayon, colored pencil, or a paintbrush, the children have to use their hands to begin to make shapes which will translate into the picture they want to make. This allows them to begin to use their hands in a carefully detailed way. It teaches them to gain a level of control over what their hands do.
Color Find-and-Seek
During Circle Time, we played a came called "Color Find-and-Seek". We pulled a color flashcard and showed it to the kids, they then had to call out the color and quickly find something in the classroom that was the same color of the card. The kids had a lot of fun fiding objects around the room, then sharing what they found with the rest of the class.
Finn rushed right to the tools when the color "orange" was shown. He remembered that one of his favorite toys had an orange handle :)
Myla went to the dramatic play area of the room and found a slice of an orange melon.
Austin found a yellow bed frame in the "playhouse" bin.
Austin said "same, same!" as he showed his found object and the color card to the rest of the class.
Myla went to the dramatic play area of the room and found a slice of an orange melon.
Austin said "same, same!" as he showed his found object and the color card to the rest of the class.
Open Gym
Today the Centipedes headed over to Hiawatha Community Center for their open gym. The kids loved sliding down the bouncy slide, riding the rocking unicorn, playing basketball and making new friends. One of their favorite thing to do at the open gym was make their own train! They connected the sliding scooters together and took turns pulling each other with the water noodles. Check out all of the fun pictures from today.
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Myla and Luka Lead Beetle Circle Time
Luka and Myla were the Beetle helpers today, a role that both of them enjoy immensely.
They led the Beetle circle time and talked about all our different feelings, with the help of our emotion cards.
Giving children the opportunity to teach younger children the skills that understand, helps them gain further mastery of the subject. The challenge for anyone helping another person understand something, helps the one doing the teaching gain a more in-depth understanding.
Kaya takes a close look at the emotion card called "lovable" as Myla and Luka told her about some of the things that they love and how love feels to them.
Chase looked at the card showing a mad child and the girls demonstrated their mad faces. Luka asked the Beetles to show their mad faces, just like the adult teachers do.
Lena shared her favorite card and her happy face.
It is important to take the time to shift the learning experience from the adult facilitating learning for the children to the children getting to share their thoughts and ideas on different thing with each other.
The importance of experiencing peer education is beginning to be more largely understood and utilized in our schools and universities today. Luka and Myla explored new roles of being the teachers and the younger Beetles gained from their experiences and a better understanding of their own emotions and feelings.
Share Day Show and Tell :)
Today was a Share and Show and Tell day. It is important for the children to get to share things that matter to them and get to talk about it with their friends. They don't always want to share them because they are special to them. They have a sense of pride about getting to show them and tell their friend about their special something in a safe setting. Each of them glowed a bit as they shared their following items, sat in the "teacher spot" and told their friends about them.
Myla shared her Joey doll. She said she has purple, pink and green clothes. She said how she lost it at her house and her Mom said 'we can get it later, want a cookie?'
John shared his Lego book. He said Gagi let me have it, it has a fire truck. It was Daddy's book when he was a kid.
Bodhi shared a special book about his trip to Minnesota to visit his Grammy. He showed us the pictures and told us about how at he zoo he saw tigers. then he went swimming at the water park. A picture of Momma and Dadda going bye-bye. The fair that they went to and saw fishies and alligator and riding horsies (carousel). We told us how he saw Mickey Mouse at the ball game and the next day he was swinging a bat of his own. He finished up with showing us the bouncy house he played in at the Mall of America.
Finn shared his Backhoe Loader and then his Flatbed Truck. He told us that a loader is like one of the buckets, the chair can turn around but it is stuck. They use those in construction sites. Can I show my flatbed truck too? (of course) The doors come out so they can get in and out and the hood opens up to see the engine.
Ava shared her pumpkin bear and she showed us how it dances.
Aliza said I show my friends my giraffe, I love so much! See it !!
Dancing- Expressing Ourselves Through Movement
Before we can talk, we can dance. Dancing is a primal experience and it
is innate. Before children master language they can express their
emotions through dance.
Children move naturally to explore mobility and
to
express a thoughts or feelings. They move because dancing feels good.
Children learn and develop movement patterns as readily as they learn
language.
Many ancient cultures organize movement and rhythm
into one or more forms of dance.
Through dance, children develop enhanced
sensory awareness, cognition,
and consciousness. It is this heightened state that creates the magic of
movement that is dance.
It is essential that early childhood
education provide our children with the developmental benefits and
unique learning opportunities that come from organizing movement into
the aesthetic experience of dance.
Dance provides young children
multiple perspectives. There's no right way to dance and we can learn to
appreciate and acknowledge each others unique preferences.
Creating Clovers
The first one said, “I’d like to play!”
The second one stood beside a rainbow.
The third one waved and said, “Hello!”
The fourth one said, “Good luck to the bold.”
The fifth one said, “Just don’t touch my gold!”
Plink, plink went the harp – they all danced around,
Then five leprechauns ran off with a bound.
I'm A Big Kid Now!
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