Wednesday

Today we continued working on our big Passover projects by using old gift cards to scrape yellow glitter paint to make "sand.' 

Many of our students today seemed to feel the need to put different items in containers, so we brought back out our fine motor activities. They had a blast taking the caps apart and filling the canisters with wooden "coins!" It was awesome to see how far they have come with their social skills while they played. There was a lot of good sharing and communication happening!

Indiana Early Learning Foundations:

ELA1/2: Use simple phrases or simple sentences

ELA1.3: Demonstrate intent of communicating with others

M1.1: Line up or organize objects

M1.3: Give some when asked

SE1.1: Use gestures and actions to reference self in conversation

CA3.1: Enjoy repetition of materials and experiences

PHG3.1: Use hand-eye coordination to manipulate smaller objects with increasing control

 

Revisiting Colors and Learning About Pesach

 This morning we started revisiting our study of colors. We began with red, painting with apples for a special project for the upcoming holiday!

We also brought out the parachute. The children played a little peek a boo before matching our red toys with the red triangles on the parachute!

The provocation table this week includes a seder plate, matzah, and some colorful flowers. The children loved the bright flowers and did a great job matching the items on the seder plate to their corresponding pictures!

The sensory table is covered in different sensory bags this week. There is one each color of the rainbow and they are all different textures. This was a big hit with the Katon kids today!

Look at Our Caterpillars Grow!

Yesterday we were sculpturers! We took pieces of wire and bended them into different shapes to make butterflies.  Friends used playdough to help hold our sculptures together and added other loose parts to their masterpieces!  We used this as an opportunity to talk about the anatomy of a butterfly.  We also constructed the butterfly lifecycle out of tangrams and kinetic sand.  Using photo references, we chose shapes that represented eggs, caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies.

Throughout the week we have been working on constructing butterfly feeders.  Once completed, we plan to hang our feeders in the outdoor classroom and use them to feed our caterpillar class pets!  So far, we have strung beads on wires that will be used as the hangers and painted plates that will hold our butterfly friends' food.  We mixed glue and liquid watercolor paints together and painted on clear plastic plates to give our feeders a stained-glass look.

Today we brought back out our caterpillars to see how they had changed.  We were surprised to see that they have doubled in size since the beginning of the week.  Friends drew new portraits of our pets and we talked about how soon the caterpillars will be creating cocoons. 

Indiana Early Learning Foundations:

ELA3.1 Demonstrate mechanics of writing
M2.2 Demonstrate awareness of patterning
M3.1 Demonstrate understanding of classifying
M4.2 Exhibit ability to identify, describe, analyze, compare, and create shapes
SC3.1 Demonstrate awareness of life
SC5.1 Demonstrate scientific curiosity
CA3.2 Demonstrate creative expression through visual art production
PHG3.1 Demonstrate development of fine and gross motor coordination