leaving on a jetplane...

When the kiddos are outside in our small play yard I do busywork in the kitchen and watch them through the windows. They get so involved in their play and I find that when I am close they check themselves as if any grown-up will make them stop what they are doing so I stay hidden. The outside play began with two groups. One group in the sandbox dig, dig, digging away, and the other at the table with the magical tea set that they so love carefully holding the dainty ceramic cups as they poured cup after cup of glittery orange tea.

The children played and I washed our paint cups. They screeched and laughed and clamored and negotiated. I wiped down the tables and stacked our chairs. One of the kiddos ran into the kitchen to get a chair but they were all stacked up save for one. She grabbed it and took off. Next, another kiddo came in and found all the chairs stacked up and groaned in dismay. I reminded him that there were more chairs in the classroom and he stood there in the classroom concentrating on finding the chairs. The chairs they use everyday at the art table, light table, and play kitchen. When he spied one he grabbed it and dashed outside exclaiming "Guys! Guys! We can use all the chairs in the room!"

And so they did. They lined up all the chairs they could carry atop the black mats that I find irritating as we have no place to store them and they slip from their stack every day (can you imagine if I had removed them from our yard?). They lined up the mats, carefully connecting them to each other then placed the chairs on top. There was a tea set to serve refreshments and an inflatable intertube as steering wheel. The sandbox had been abandoned. The firetruck play was put on hold. The ever popular marble run was discarded. They all worked together to build a plane that was to fly them away to great adventures.

I think the adventure has already started.

ice play with a twist

 

We at the 'do! live in a pretty sunny climate. Our winter temps can get pretty chilly at night but for the most part we can get away without a sweater for much of the year. During our week of The Mitten, I thought it would be fun to fill our outside sensory tub with ice and when I found these awesome ice sphere molds from ZOKU on sale an idea was born!

It took me a few days to freeze about 10 spheres mostly because I kept forgetting to do so and partly because it does take quite a few hours. I played with adding a little and/or a lot of food color for variety and got a kick out of each sphere as I removed them from the molds. Really, it takes very little to please me. I wish I had taken photos of them, they were so pretty!

Just before outside play time, I put a little bit of water into our two sensory bins and separated the ice spheres by cool and warm colors (the food color leached out qucikly enough to tint the water so I thought it would be prettier plus we've been working on cool colors and warm colors in the classroom). The kiddos were very curious and there were shouts of "circle ice! spheres! snow balls!"

 

 

It did not take long for the kiddos to realize just how cold the spheres actually were and there was a discussion about how to play with them other than dropping them on the ground to see them break (which did happen rather quickly because ice balls!) After a little debate the children realized mittens would work and after much running around was had, one of the kiddos returned with a single mitten on his hand followed by others, each one bearing only one mitten a piece (or a glove). I loved that...thank you happy thrift store mitten find!

After the mittens got completely soaked, the kiddos returned to the room to retrieve another mitten (I am just now wondering where did all those mittens go?) to continue their investigations.

 

 

 

Play narratives came out, color matching, rich language, songs, math, and science all made an appearance. They had so much fun I think I need to make more...once I remember where I put the mittens...