Snow Day Down Time, Camping, New Stuff, Meeting Miss Mary!

Our school week was very short due to all the snow/ice days and cold temperatures. We only had one day together, but we made the most of it.

Upon arriving at school, the kiddos and I looked around the room to see what was new (as is our custom each week). We had a new dramatic play area set up: Camping. A strange choice for January, but they loved it! We have a tent, a cardboard camping grill, a campfire, a cooler for the food, and more! 

 

At one point I think they had every single kiddo in that tent. I was impressed that they were able to share it without any problems or interference from me.

In our discovery area we extended the camping dramatic play to include homemade books about Michigan animals/tracks and plants and maps of hiking trails. 

We also created a "pond" in our water table with fishing equipment: bobbers, lures, worms, frogs, crayfish, fish, and rubber duckies with letters on the bottom. The worms, frogs, crayfish, and fish are not real, but they certainly feel like it. 

The real feel of the fish, frogs, worms, and crayfish really amazed them!

 We continued our "pond" over to the blue rug in the library where the kiddos were able to use magnetic fishing poles to fish for letter and number fish that they then identified.

 

We also got some new "big and bright" brick blocks and a car ramp in our block area (thanks to my friend Melody and her son for letting us use them!)

We took turns at large group telling our friends what our favorite present was and one thing we did over break. At small group we did a sorting activity with pictures of polar animals and winter activities. We sorted them by size first and then talked about what other ways we could sort them. My group had polar animals. We also sorted ours by color and by type of animal. Miss Marty's (who was subbing for Miss Lorri) group had winter activities. They also sorted theirs by activity and color.

Our kiddos were excited to find out that we had a new teacher joining us at the school. Miss Mary started teaching in the other classroom with Miss Pauline. We joined them in the "Quiet Room" for indoor recess/movement time. Miss Mary led us in some stretches and yoga then I got out our bean bags and we did several bean bag activities.

Arm circles

Butterfly Stretches

Back Bend

Crab Walk

Sit Ups

Practicing our breathing exercises we use in our safe place. This is called the pretzel.

 We packed a lot into our one day of school this week, but we sure had a lot of fun. Looking forward to getting back into the groove of things next week!