Hay Bales in the Playground

We are always looking for new things to add to our playground. Early in October, Miss Marta had the idea to add bales of hay to switch it up for the fall. At first we piled the hay for climbing and gave the children the opportunity to explore it. 

 

The next week, I rearranged the hay to make little huts or crawl spaces. I added pumpkins, play dishes, and dolls. We decided to call it the pumpkin patch. 

The children immediately started using the covered spaces as houses.

 

 They took the dolls inside the "houses".

And relaxed on (comfy?) pumpkins.

They also spent time carrying and rolling the pumpkins. 

 This week, Miss Erin turned the area into a boat by rearranging the hay. She added a sail, fishing rods, and paper plate fish.

Cooking in the Outdoor Kitchen with Herbs and Sparkles

 

 

We use sand and water a lot in our outdoor sensory table. Last week I noticed that the children were collecting leaves and grass from the yard to add to the water in the table to make "soup". I decided to set up the sensory table on the porch, where there is more space for the children to work, and to add a few new sensory items that would expand the cooking experience.

 

I had just purchased a big supply of sparkles for the art cupboard that I thought would add an appealing visual element to the sensory experience. I mixed some sand with the sparkles to make them last longer and poured them into some empty spice containers. I also picked some fresh and fragrant herbs from the garden and put them in a basket near the sensory table along with bowls, pots, pans, and mixing spoons.

The sparkles were very popular and we had to refill a few times. I was really glad that I had decided to add sand to the sparkles, otherwise we would have gone through our entire supply. 

 

The children "cooked" lots of different things, but wedding cake and soup were the two most popular dishes today.

Loose Parts In the Playground

I've been away from blogging for several months now mostly because our preschool, Aspen Leaf Preschool, has been very busy. We've been growing so quickly and will soon be opening a third classroom! My classroom has also been busy learning lots of new things. In the next couple of blog posts I want to share some of our favorite activities from the past few months.

Loose Parts in the Playground

Loose parts are items that can be used in a variety of creative ways during play. They promote imagination, team work, and open ended play. Some examples of loose parts are logs, sticks, boards, stone, tires, ropes and other objects that children can move around and use for many different purposes. Our playground has always had some loose parts available to the children but a few weeks ago, I added some sheets to the mix.

These are some of the things we saw:

Tents in all kinds of places

Picnics

Princess veils

Sleeping bags

Team work

Baby beds

As we add more loose parts to our playground, I'll keep you posted on the wonderful ways that the children are using them. If you would like to read more about the theory of loose parts, Let the Children Play has a nice blog post on the topic.

 

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Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

We've had lots of fun getting ready for Valentine's Day this year! Here are some of the things we have been doing.

Tie-dye Hearts

This is a fun and simple activity with beautiful results. The children painted coffee filters with watered down paint. As they painted, the colors ran together to produce a lovely tie dye affect. When they dried, I cut them into heart shapes and we hung them on the window.

Glitter Hearts

This one is also easy but can be messy. Our class loves glitter and glue so they had a blast making these. I cut out heart shapes and had the children glue a smaller heart onto a large heart. Then they put glue all over and sprinkled glitter on top. We hung these from the ceiling in our classroom and I must say they look very pretty!

Sorting Valentine Shapes

I bought most of these shapes at Target last year and decided to bring them out again this year. There are some hearts, Xs, Os, and other shapes. Last year we used them on the sticky board but this year we decided to sort them in bowls.

I also found these heart shaped bowls that are fun for sorting.

Valentine Art Center

I set out art supplies, hearts, and stickers so that the children could create their own Valentines. This free art encourages creativity and was a big hit with our little artists.

Pink Rice

I added pink rice to our sensory table along with some more of the shapes we used for sorting.

Pink Play Dough

I love this microwave play dough recipe because it is easy to whip up in the classroom with the children. We made a batch of pink for Valentine's Day and used heart cookie cutters with it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Christmas Countdown Calendar

I wanted to make a calendar for my class to count down the days to Christmas. I wanted to make it more interesting than simply removing numbers. At the same time, I didn't want to put prizes under each number like the traditional Advent calendars do because it would be difficult to fit enough prizes into each box for eight children. Then I remembered seeing somewhere on the Internet, although I can't remember where, the idea of putting an activity under each number.

I came up with little activities that we could do at circle time each day. Most of them were very simple (balance a bean bag on your head or balance on one foot). Some were longer and a bit more fun (decorate the Christmas tree). For each activity, I found a picture to go along with it, printed out the picture, and glued a sentence explaining the activity on the back.

I had the children paint toilet paper rolls with red and green paint. Once they dried, I cut them in half, stapled one end of each closed, and pasted numbers on them.

I only used the numbers 1-15 because there are 15 days of school in December before Christmas this year. I put one activity paper inside of each box (and marked on my calendar which activity was in each box so that I would remember). Then, I used clothespins to hang them from strings in our circle time area.

Every day a different child chooses a number and opens it for the class. It's very exciting to see what we will do each day!

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Family Style Dining in Preschool: A How-To Guide

Transitioning to family style dining can be an intimidating task for many teachers. Its easy to imagine a free-for-all occurring when the children have direct access to the meal, or mounds of spilled food all over the floor. In order for family style dining to work, you have to be prepared and you will need lots of patience.

To begin, child-sized dishes and utensils are a must. If things are too big, the children will not be able to manipulate them. This will lead to lots of spilled food and both children and adults getting frustrated. Here are the bowls and serving utensils we are using now at Aspen Leaf Preschool. Everything is inexpensive (it's all form Ikea, actually). The silver pitchers are meant to be for frothing milk but they are the perfect size for preschoolers. Our serving bowls are food storage container minus the lids. They came in a pack of five and we usually use the middle-sized ones. The small serving utensils were in the children's section and are meant to be toys, but they are just perfect for serving food. They are even dishwasher safe!

 These are the dishes we use (they're also from Ikea).

I have the children help me put the food into the serving bowls. Usually I'll choose one or two children to help with this, and one or two others to set the table. At the beginning, I'll set a napkin at each seat and instruct the children to place one bowl or plate on top of each napkin.

Then one cup and one spoon or fork on each plate. Later, when they have gotten used to the process, they are able to set the dishes out without the napkins marking the spots.

We always wait for everyone to sit down before starting the meal. To pass the time while we wait for everyone to sit down, I ask the children to open their napkins and "set their places." A set place looks like the picture below.

Once everyone is at the table, we sing (about our hands):

 Open, shut them,
Open, shut them,
Give a little clap, clap, clap.
 Open, shut them,
Open, shut them,
Put them in your lap, lap, lap.
 
This helps to get everyone's attention, calm the children down, and let them know that the meal is about to start. Before passing the bowls around, I show the children how many of each food they should take. I do this by serving myself and narrating what I'm doing. For example I would take two scoops of cereal and say, "This is the cereal. I can take two scoops. One, two. Now I'm going to pass it."

If we are having toast or bagels, I will set out a bowl of jelly. The children take a scoop of jelly with the serving spoon and then spread it with their knives (whenever we use knives we talk about how to be careful with them. Even though they are only plastic, it is important for children to know how to be safe with them).

The hardest part about family style dining is allowing the children to pour their own drinks. Inevitably they are going to spill, and at the beginning they are going to spill every time. But practice makes perfect and after a week or so, everyone will being pouring pretty well. For the first couple of weeks, I will use two pitchers. One big and one small one. I'll fill the big one with milk or water and pour only little bits into the smaller pitcher at a time. The children then pour from the small one. This way they can pour all of it without over-flowing their cups.

Once they get used to pouring, I fill the small pitcher about half way and show them how to stop pouring before the cup over flows.The first time a child pours without spilling is a big deal and I always make sure to compliment him or her.

At the end of the meal, each child cleans up his or her own place. We have a nice big sink in the classroom for all the dirty dishes, while napkins and uneaten food are placed in the trash. Every day we talk about what goes in the trash and what goes in the sink. If you're not mindful, you'll end up losing all of your dishes to the garbage!

Make sure to always sit down with the class and demonstrate the kinds of behaviors you expect from them. In order for this to work, the teachers have to lead by example. So make sure to set a place for yourself! Once everyone gets used to family style dining, you will find that it is much easier than making plates for the children and serving them. It is also much more pleasant to sit at the table with the children and have a conversation than it is to stand over them refilling their plates and cups.

To read about the benefits of using family style dining, check out my earlier post Family Style Dining in Preschool: Why it's Important.