Author Study: Robert Munsch

 

I'm changing up long range planning this year and focusing my monthly themes around author studies, instead of specific topics.  That gives me more flexibility to account for the interests and skills of a wide age range of children (age 1 thru 7) while still incorporating a rich variety of literature into our activities.  February has been all about Robert Munsch.  After reading "The Paper Bag Princess", we decided to make our own paper bag characters.

 

I pulled out some brown paper bags, scissors, glue and open ended craft materials, and let the children create without specific direction.  They each had their own different take on project, but using popsicle sticks as arms and legs became a popular idea.

Some of the children asked for self-portraits of themselves to glue to their paper bags, so we cut them out of photographs.

Robert Munsch's books are always rich in fun and exciting details.  After reading his story, "Purple, Green and Yellow", my oldest daughter wanted to paint fingernails.  Since most of the children in care are boys, I decided we would do a more inclusive color activity.  We decided to pull out the paint supplies, and experiment with different methods of painting and mixing color. 

Instead of just using paintbrushes, the children were able to explore making art with paper tubes, Q-tips and cotton balls.

They really enjoyed the change in painting tool, and the results were both beautiful and colorful!

Cookie Monsters!

I found the most fantastic new resource to add to my kitchen center:  A felt cookie cutout activity.  There are so many different applications for this resource:  We've talked about shapes, pattern, color, matching and baking.  The children have also enjoyed the imaginary play that comes from 'cutting' out the cookie shapes, scooping them on the cookie sheet, pretending to bake them and then decorate them.

Now when they ask to bake cookies, I have to clarify: the real kind, or the play kind?  How fun!

Polar Expedition

 

Well, winter in Edmonton means a lot of cold, and a lot of snow.  We tried to take advantage of that and be optimistic by exploring the sensory and gross motor aspects of this cold, white season.  This included a lot of opportunities to explore outside, and a science/sensory experience.

 

We decided to turn our water table into a polar expedition.  First the children helped me pick out cartons of various sizes from the recycling, then we filled them with water, and set them outside.  The next day, we threw them in the water table, along with our collection of smurf toys (at the children's request). 

One of the children suggested we added ice cubes for variation.  This was a fantastic idea, as it showed the children the difference in melting times for various sizes of ice.  At first, the kids stacked the ice, and took turns pushing it around the table with their figurines.  As it began to melt, a curious thing happened - the water melted from the inside out, so that soon, the children were left with large hollow ice cylinders.  It didn't take long to figure out that they could break holes through these boxes and use them in play, as boats or homes, or a variety of different imaginary items.

They also had a first hand experience with temperature, as they would often remark, "My fingers feel so cold!" before pulling them up into their sleeves for a break.  We will definitely be repeating this experience again, for as long as the temperature outside is favorable to giant homemade ice cubes (my freezer just isn't big enough, sadly!).

Messy Art

I was going back through some pictures and realized I had missed some of the great messy art activities we had done over the past few months.  I think it is really important that children have the chance to get messy/dirty/sticky sometimes when creating art.  It can be something as simple as painting their hands for a guided activity (like the spider and turkey above) or fine motor development by adding glue sticks and sequins to a Christmas stocking (I've removed the names the children printed).

 

But sometimes, the best part of getting messy is the chance to extend that experience into another sensory realm - from the sense of touch to the sense of taste.  These were the birthday cupcakes we made together and then decorated individually to celebrate the birthday of one of the children in care.

Nuts For Squirrels

I decided to change the way I do thematic planning this year.  Instead of picking a specific theme (say...bugs) I'm going to plan around a certain author or type of book.  I'm hoping that by doing this, I can integrate more literature rich activities into my planning, and incorporate learning opportunities that fit the wide spectrum of ages and abilities.  So to start out the new year, the author I picked was Melanie Watt, with a specific focus on her Scaredy Squirrel series (though we did spend time with the rest of her phenomenal books).

Scaredy Squirrel gave me some great opportunities to incorporate open ended crafts and natural resources.

This is the children working on their squirrel mural.  I didn't anticipate how much they would enjoy this crafting experience, but we spent an entire afternoon immersed in this creative opportunity.

I decided to broaden the activity for the younger children by working on some fine motor skills - I let them experiment with scissor cutting.  To do this, I sat one-on-one with each child in turn, and let them choose to cut their picture as they wished (after some modelling and guidance).  They were so focused, and handled the scissors with great care.  It was a huge success!

In the end, the murals turned out more beautiful than I could have ever imagined!

Winter Fun

November and December turned out to be haunted by frigid cold, so when Christmas break rolled around, and brought with it warmer weather, we took advantage of the sunny skies and went outside to play in the snow.

Math Can Be Fun and Games!

It used to be widely believed that learning math skills early in life was best achieved by use of flashcards or workbooks.  Researchers in the past few years have learned a lot about the way that young children gain and process numeracy skills, and educational systems are following suit by adapting their programs and curriculum's to model the results of this research.

 

So what can we, as professional child care givers do to increase the numeracy skills of the preschool and young school age children in our care?

 

It's not as hard - and much more fun - than at first it may sound.

 

In fact, you probably have most of the materials right on hand in your own home.  Maybe you've already incorporated some of the basic methodology.  If you  have children aged about 4 - 8 in your home (whether your own, or under your care), chances are they no longer nap.  This is the prime opportunity to pull out activities such as these that will give them a head start, or encourage the skills they are already gaining at school.

 

There is a lot of information on this topic (too much for one blog post), and I would encourage you to go research it further.  But to give you a taste at how easy it is to incorporate these types of activities, here is a look at some of the fun games we play in the afternoon (I have two kindergarten age children in care while three toddlers are napping after lunch).

 

The best part?  They're learning sportsmanship skills and math, spending quality time with you, and having fun all the while...

 

Subitizing:  This is the fancy word for the skill that allows to read a dice at a glance (in other words, we recognize a six on a die or a domino without having to count each individual dot).  Best way to gain this skill?  Play games with dice and dominoes (the younger the child, the less dice you require them to roll).

 

Game: Horse Race - using an empty ice cube try and two small plastic animal figurines, have each child roll dice simultaneously.  The child with the higher number (encourage them to tell you what they rolled) gets to move one spot in the 'race track'.  A tie results in no one moving.  First one to reach the other side wins.  To increase the difficulty for older children, have them roll two dice and add the numbers.

 

Game: Take Away - using a numbered strip of paper, dice and small plastic figurines (or blocks, or coins, or whatever you have on hand), have the children set all the animals up, from 1-20.  Then they each take turns rolling, and taking away the number of animals that matches their roll.  First one to take away to zero wins!

Game: The Parking Lot - this is similar to take away, and you can use cut out paper cars like here, or actual toy cars.  This teaches ten frame skills, which will be useful in grade 1/2.  We like to roll the dice, and park the corresponding number of cars.  The first to properly fill their lot ( and you have to roll the exact number at the end - if there are only three spots left, you have to roll a three or less), wins!

Games: Board and Card Games - Don't be afraid to go through your closet and pull out family favorites, such as UNO, Go Fish, Candyland, Memory, Etc.  Or, head down to the local thrift store to see what others have donated.

 Anything that uses numbers, patterns or matching, and has simple rules with little text or clear symbols, can make a great preschool game.  These two can't get enough of bright and colorful UNO, and many days you can find us playing and exciting game of WAR (with the Kings, Queens, Jacks and Jokers removed from the deck).  They are learning number correspondence, greater than/less than, and fair game play, and they are having fun while they are at it.