It has been a while!

Wow! It has been a while since I have posted anything recent! This month has come and gone in a blink of an eye! The kids and I had so much fun this month learning all about our 5 senses and playing with our new props(vintage suitcases and the steamer trunk). We also added white and purple to our painter's palette.
The five senses are so important when you are working with children. They learn so much through touching different textures, seeing things that are esthetically pleasing, smelling, hearing(listening) and of course their favorite exploring the world by tasting it! I always make sure I am teaching all five senses. This month we had the chance to do different activities to make the children more aware of their senses. I love having a different theme every month! It is so fun to see the children look at the world in different ways! Not only does our theme change but the children's way of thinking!( keeps evolving)

Something is fishy

More nonsense......I stuck a fish decal on the stove and made up a whole story about last nights dinner. It went something like this...I asked Amelia "what do you want for dinner?"and she said "fish". I looked in the refrigerator, I looked in the dryer, I looked in the dishwasher, I looked in the shower, and I even looked in Nicks lunch box. I couldn't find fish anywhere. Then we put our shoes, our coats, a scarf, and a hat on and went to the market. When we got to the market the fish had already gone to bed for the night. I asked Amelia "what should we do?" She said "lets go fishing." We went back home I packed our fishing poles, tackle box and Amelia loaded the boat! When we got to the lake we ran into more problems and more adventures. But to make a long story short, when we got home to cook our dinner one of the fish tried to escape. So we named him Henry, the singing fish(because he is singing).
The kids got a lot of laughs out of my story and had fun with the fish all day long. Of course they knew it was just a silly story.

Unclaimed Baggage Center

Yes, it is a new month and we have tucked away all of our ticket booth manipulative's. We worked hard on creating an unclaimed baggage center for this month's theme "Suitcase Senses." We filled four vintage suitcases with dress up clothes and props. We packed for grandma's house, counted them, stacked them, sorted them, counted the items inside them and worked our fine motor skills opening and closing them. What all will we put in our suitcase's this month? I am wondering how many squashes will they hold? Of course we have to add some nonsense to our curriculum and daily exploring!

GZA Post Office

We went down to our local Post Office. After we explored the post office we went home to design and make a post office in our dramatic child size village. It was their idea to use two rooms. One for weighing, sorting and sending and the other room for mailbox's just like the real post office! Introducing a post office into our tiny town opens up endless opportunities to teach the kids through play.
Airmail.... sending a bird
balloon through the mail was not my idea.
That is nonsense!

Ahoy!

Red sky at night sailors delight.
Red sky in morning sailor take warning!
We've been pirates, pilgrims, fisherman and sailors! They learned some new vocabulary such as sail, anchor, pilgrim, arrr and mate to name a few. We also sailed through a great lagoon full of crocodiles!
We learned how and why a boat floats and explored the different makes and models. It was perfect.....right before Thanksgiving! Of course they learned about the first Thanksgiving :o)

Color.....

Every month we add two colors to our painters' palette. It is by far one of the children's favorite activities. Not only do I teach them colors in English, but Spanish and Sign Language as well. We also play a game called "Painted People" we look around at our friends and see what colors they are wearing. Then we paint them with the corresponding paintbrush.

Ready, Set, Count!

Not everything we do consist of group activities! Sometimes it is one on one or small groups during freeplay. Each month I recieve a different board game that compliments our curriculum. This month it is a racing boardgame. I sat down with all the kids and we practiced taking turns, picking out what color we wanted, rolling the dice and counting. I love teaching such young people. Everything is a learning opportunity.

Airport Explorer

We had so much fun exploring the airport! We went into the Boeing KC-97 Fuel Tanker. We had fun looking out all the windows and getting different views of the wings. We got a chance to sit in the cockpit, Punch buttons and pretend fly!

Flying really worked up an appetite. After we landed we decided to go have some brunch at the Sky House Bar and Grill. The airport has endless opportunities.....taxi station, shuttle station, bus station, arrivals and departures, flights, road signs, baggage claims etc. We all had a great time and what a nice addition to our curriculum this month.

Choo Choo Trains

Chug a chug a choo choo.......so many train noises! The kids were full of excitement as I pulled the box of trains from the garage. They each got a rag and started helping clean and set them up for play! They decided we can keep them in the parking garage. The kids are such big helpers and love making choices on how and where they want things set up! They are learning problem solving skills.

Seatbelts and Carseats

Today we made a car out of our dining room chairs! The kids had so much fun taking turns driving, riding and deciding where to go! We also learned about safety belts and car seats. They all colored their own carseat and then we installed them into our make shift car. We talked about things we do while we are in the car with our mommy's and daddy's and why we wear seat belts and ride in a carseat. We drove through Wildlife Safari, we went to Target and bought slurpees,the carwash,we bought some gas and of course the toy store! What a morning!

Beep! Beep!

Watch out when you come into our house! Everybody just got their license and we have a bunch of crazy drivers. We set up a DMV and drivers' ed. I love nonsense, things out of the ordinary or putting things where they don't belong! Like a highway through my kitchen!

After our trip to drive up and down the parking garage the kids decided to turn the construction shop into a parking garage so they would have a place to park.

We are having so much fun exploring things that go. One month doesn't seem long enough!

For the month of November we will be exploring things that go. We have already changed our ballet studio into a ticket booth with money, train tickets, airplane tickets, bus tickets, a world map and a new sign. I love it! Language arts, counting, social skills, geography etc. Kids learn so much!
We are going to change our grocery shop into a post office after we take a field trip to the post office to get some ideas. While we are there we plan on mailing a letter to ourselves!