A Very Busy Season

Now that I'm teaching full time again, I'm remembering how exhausted I get after spending all day in the classroom. While I may not have time to keep up with my posts as regularly as I would like, I still want to share what I've been working on, so until I can find the time to write more, I'll be sticking with more photo documentation. Here's a sneak peak at what we've been up to this holiday season...

We've started making a weekly batch of homemade play dough and the kids have really gotten into it. Perhaps it's because we skipped on the food coloring, but the kids have focused all of their play dough energy into baking. They started out right away pretending to be making pancakes describing to me all their favorite toppings for this beloved breakfast food including syrup, strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, etc. I am always one to encourage a person's interest in food and cooking, as it happens to be a personal passion of mine, so I jumped at the chance to share one of my favorite Eric Carle stories with our group. It's a longer and more wordy story so instead of sharing it with the class as a whole during one of our circle time meetings, I offered it as one of the choices during our morning work time (aka free play) session. A few of my regular story kids chose to come join my in the book nook for a reading and liked it so much that I ended up reading the book more times than I can count throughout the day and following weeks. It was incredible to see how the story added volumes to their play dough creations, giving them the language to describe what they were making and the understanding of the process of making actual pancakes from scratch. As the holidays drew closer, I came across Amy Rosenthal's story and shared it with my kids, offering them holiday cookie cutters to their play dough tools and a bunch of nutmeg to the batch so it smelled like cookies. The last day before Christmas vacation started, we re-read the cookie book and made our own batch of moon shaped sugar cookies following the recipe printed at the end of the story. As we were mixing the cookie dough, the kids all crowding around and anxiously awaiting their turn to mix the dough, they noticed how similar it was to the process of making play dough. Next step to expanding their knowledge of the many uses for flour, fresh, hand-rolled pasta and a good old Strega Nona story.

Behind the playdough display, you'll notice my classroom's play kitchen. To further bring these stories to life, I plan to start working on some pasta and pancake felt food to add showcase in the kitchen, along with the appropriate play tools for making them, like a pot and colander and a frying pan and spatula. We also have a variety of different kinds of dried pasta in our sensory table currently for the kids to explore. You can check out my inspiration for projects on the Welcome to My Classroom pinboard, and find more inspiration for bringing food into focus in early education on my Kids in the Kitchen pinboard. While the kids were busy playing with playdough, I was working on some seasonal, simpler felt projects that I got out just in time for our very snowy Christmas season here in Maine. Hope all of your Holidays were as filled with enjoyment as ours were.

I cut and sewed together a handful of simple felt ornaments and offered them alonside a rather large felt tree which I set out as one of our daily table activities during the few weeks leading up to Christmas so that our little 2 and 3 year olds had a tree at school that they could decorate however they pleased. The project was a big hit and the kids loved watching me stitch up the ornaments and making suggestions on what I should make next for the tree. 

Here's the tree all decorated, the kids always insisted that the star go on top :)

The success of the felt Christmas tree inspired my co-teacher and I to set up a permanent felt board in our classroom. We put it in the story corner as an alternative quiet time activity, since not all of our kids are interested in looking at books all the time, and there are many times, like right after snack when we are cleaning up before transitioning into either getting dressed for outside, or an indoor session of group movement activities like yoga and dancing. So to start off our felt board, I threw together some basic shapes so the kids can build snowmen on the days its too cold or rainy to build them outside. A few of the girls in my group were interested in the activity while I was making it and were psyched when I asked for advice on what to make next. They asked me for "green feet" and "yellow arms" and hats and extra eyes, and lips. So far the snowman felt board has only been out for 2 days but it's been a big hit and I can't wait to get started on the next board themed, "Space & Sky."

Snowman Decorated Felt Board

Basket of Snowman Parts