Welcome back! We’re off to a great start on our last few weeks before the winter holiday with our new unit Little Movers Make Great Strides. This unit is all about being active. But being active is more than just PE and exercise. Play is so important to little learners. We’ll be playing a lot both inside and outside. Our trip to Grand Park was a great way to show how important it is for us to play. Fresh air and Vitamin D are essential to our mood and brain development.
Despite having such a great week, I didn’t get that many photos taken so this update is largely Mr. Green’s wonderful photos of our trip to Grand Park.
We began our week with our Entry Point which started with our Finger Gym. The students practiced their fine motor skills by doing activities like putting pegs in a pegboard, making structures from interlocking lattice blocks, and transferring pompoms from a basket to a cup with tweezers. We also had an obstacle course with Mr. Green in PE and we went outside to practice painting with water. Not only was this a great gross motor activity using our whole bodies to paint and write on the walls, floors, and benches, we got an impromptu science lesson as it was a sunny day and their paintings started to disappear.
As most of you know, we had a great time at the Grand Park. All that running and jumping and climbing sure tired the children out. Our afternoon play time when we got back to school was very relaxed. Many students chose just to colour or read books.
During the rest of the week we talked a lot about how important it is for us to play and how difficult it can be to play with so many toys in the classroom. We’ve been working a little every day to pare down our toys so we have some really special ones in the classroom that we really want to play with. We organized our dress up outfits to those which both fit us and that we were interested in playing with. We also cut back on how much kitchen toys we have. In the coming weeks we’ll be organizing more and also bringing in some other elements to make our own toys or use our imaginations with.
Additionally we talked about how important it is to play outside. During this unit we will have an extra play time (sometimes guided play, sometimes developmental play) outdoors every day that the weather permits. We have an Outside Box so we can bring things with us from the school to our outdoor area to help spark our imaginations. Incidentally, that outdoor play is what I need those songs with a great beat for. We’re going to really move around to the music! If you haven’t sent me some song titles yet, please do!
That’s it for this week. Stay fit and have fun!
