Splashing into Summer!

Laurence Avenue welcomed summer with an excited splash during their first Water Play Day on Monday, June 21st. Little bodies wearing sunscreen, swim suits and water shoes could be found jumping into puddles, splashing in the water table and filling buckets from the sprinkler.

The slow steady stream of water coming from the sprinkler become a testament of a determined preschooler's patience. Many of them stood with their buckets underneath the falling water droplets until they were almost too heavy to carry. Then they dumped the water from their buckets into the water table. Once the table had a couple of inches of standing water, the kids took turns removing the plug. They watched the water spiral through the small hole back onto the playground and learned a new word, "cyclone".

Puddles of water were encouraging to several of the kids and they repeatedly jumped into them. They were helped to discover that the deeper the water and the harder they jumped, the bigger the splash they made. They also realized that the splash made from their feet was vastly different than that made by a ball; and the splash from a large ball was different than that of a smaller ball.

Our first Water Play Day was warm, wet and full of learning experiences. The children are already excited for the next Water Play Day, next Tuesday.

Heading "Into the Wild"

We kicked off our summer this week and headed "Into the Wild" by turning into scientists and performing a variety of wild experiments. Early in the week we explored what would happen by mixing a couple of mentos (the fresh maker) with a bottle of diet pop. The reaction was quite explosive as we saw a geyser occur right on our very own playground. Throughout the week we also used our scientific skills to explore jelly crystals and energy beads. Our final experiment of the week combined a lot of hands-on work and critical thinking skills as we teamed up to create egg shelters. Using a variety of household objects partners were assigned the task of creating a shelter that would house an egg and prevent it from cracking when dropped a long distance from up high.

When not performing scientific experiments the Youth Group spent some time this week welcoming everyone back for the summer and getting to know one another. We all made collages displaying some of our favorite things and shared our explanation for each picture in the collage. We also created some zany balloon self-portraits using a balloon and other materials such as yarn, markers, and wallpaper samples.

It was a great first week for the Youth Group. We are looking forward to a lot of "wild" experiences throughout the rest of our summer!

Exploring Bugs

In Sesame Street, we have been learning about many different types of bugs. We read The Caterpillar Dance, a book the children love. We spent time learning about the lesson this book illustrates, which is the change from caterpillar to butterfly.

We created various art projects centered around bugs using materials such as paint, glue, rocks, potatoes, paper plates and of course, our hands!

We moved our bodies like bugs; hopping like grasshoppers, flying like... you guessed it, flies, and crawling like ants. We enjoyed an ant race as we crawled around the playground collecting pieces of play food and transporting them to different baskets.

We had fun and learned a lot about bugs during our exploration this week.

The Dress I'll Wear To The Party

This Is The Dress I'll Wear To The Party by Shirley Neitzel started out a small group time that fostered creative thinking, problem solving skills and social skills. As a little girl prepares for a party she chooses a dress and many, many accessories to wear but there is a problem... the decorative outfit she chooses to wear is developed from her mother's wardrobe.

After reading this story we decided that we would have a party of our own. The children were prompted in planning and putting together their party. Through our discussion we discovered that we would need chairs, clothes, shoes, music, food, and cake at our party.

We adorned ourselves in suit jackets, dresses, dress-up shoes, and hats. Ms. Jolene laid out a table cloth and the children gathered food from the fridge and dishes from the shelves that would be helpful for eating the dinner at our party. Many children used pegs and peg boards to "bake" a birthday cake. When the cake was done they carried to the table and everyone sang the "Happy Birthday Song".

Careful questioning allowed Ms. Jolene to prompt the children in discovering, planning, and creating their own party complete with food, music, cake, guests, fun, and ofcourse learning!

Key Developmental Indicators:

Initiating play

Pretending

Relating to children and adults

Having fun with language

Using vocabulary

Problem solving

Listening and responding