Sing-Song Game

Ms. Kate recently brought in a new game she created called the

 "Sing-Song Game."   

It is a lovely addition to her morning music class.

When Ms. Kate arrived at school the other days, she was carrying a huge orange mat.  As soon as she unrolled it, the two children who were at school instantly began jumping on the mat and hopping onto colored shapes she had taped onto the mat.   It is always a good sign when the kids are excited right from the get-go.  

The objective of the games is to do the sound or action that is written out on a card.  When this is completed they hop the number of spaces that was indicated on the card.  Some examples were to make the sound of a trumpet, or thunder, or an animal.  Others were to sing their name or clap to three.  It is a wonderful way to help the children be comfortable singing or making sounds, especially in front of others, because most of the children were excited about the game aspect and were not aware of the audience as they performed.  Those children who were a little shy were encouraged by their friends by clapping, or others helping out with the sounds if they were too shy to do it themselves.

Cosmic Skies

I love these "Cosmic Sky" paintings as one of the children have named them.

We have made several version of them at school, including the covers of their school folders, and here are some of their most recent ones, as well as photos of them enjoying the Process of making art.

 

It is simple to understand why the children love this process, who wouldn't enjoy spraying watered down paint on paper, and watching as the colors mix and make their own magical picture.

Eventually the paper starts to get saturated with the paint, and then the next experiment takes place.  The children pour off the excess paint into  a cup, and the colors begin to merge and spread out even more.

 

The first time we worked with the spray paint, the children had more choices in color, but the day we did these, we limited the choices to see how the cool colors worked together.  After they dried, the children were given water colors to paint the parts of the paintings they wanted to add more colors to.  They were also given liquid water colors to paint with or squirt onto their paintings with a pipette. 

When they finished with their watercolors I asked if they wanted to add anything else to their paintings, and one group of children said they wanted to add glitter.  So we made some watered down glue to a squirt bottle, which they sprayed on their paintings and then added the glitter.  This is when one of the children exclaimed, "It looks like a cosmic sky," and so, that is what they are.  Now I am excited to take that idea of a cosmic sky and explore this concept more with the children.

Oh How They Play!

Well, it is a new year and I have fallen behind on the blog these last couple months, so this post is a series a photos showcasing some of the play the children enjoy at school.  

I love our light projector and so do the children.  It is a delight to see them play with the shadow puppets, they get very into their characters.

I love the unexpected, such as when a parent donated these buckets to the school and they became stepping stones and mountains for the children to climb and walk across.

We have a set of tiles I purchased at Lowes that the children love to configure on block sculptures they make.  It is fun to see the designs and patterns they come up with.

Our Mirrored grates are always a wonderful sensory and fine motor skill play option. 

It is also a place where children can settle their bodies and re-center themselves.  Usually they toss some pompoms into the grate and try to get them out with tweezers.

Just before break we were blessed with a ton of beautiful snow, and there is nothing like seeing these little ones excite in being able to play in it.

The start of a snowman.

 These boys attempting to make a really big snow ball, nothing like team work.

Dress up has exploded at school, everyday we have some very fancy characters visiting the school!

Robot Boy

Below is a series of dramatic play activities that joined forces so that the whole class was involved as a character in one way or another.

A group of boys had been working on a construction project, that ended up becoming a castle for the princesses.  These princesses ended up wanting to see a show, fortunately, the castle was built in front of a puppet stage.  It was interesting to see how the dress up play, block area, and puppet performance all merged into a unified game

The construction crew hard at work

The Foreman giving orders and the princesses sitting in their castle waiting for the show to begin.

There is also the play of creative movement

 

They all enjoy their moment to shine in the middle of the dance circle.