Cutting Squares!

Again, it was raining outside second day in a row. We miss going to the park. However, we can also have a great adventure in the classroom because we can find many things that we can play with. On our activity tables, we still saw the painting that we did yesterday. Then, we had our cutting activity on the other. Some of our friends found the toy blocks and some soft toys on the carpet. Some of our friends took out the connecting trains and tried to sort everything out. We also had some soft toys that we shared together and it was amazing how we are learning to play cooperatively. We started our cutting activity and it was nice how most of us volunteered to do it. We are always willing to try new things and challenge ourselves with the daily activities. Now, some of our friends needed some time to learn how to cut. With our tiny hands, it was understandable that we somehow couldn’t open and close the scissors. But with the help of our teachers, they held our hands and started to guide us on how to grip it nicely and be able to cut straight on the line. We had some strips of paper on the table and we chose which color we wanted to use. We had green, brown, red, yellow, blue and so on. We didn’t only practice our fine motor skills but we also learned how to recognize colors and count the lines that we can see. When we were done cutting the strips, we then went to the other table and stuck the pieces of paper on the body. But before that, our teachers asked to put them on certain body parts. For example, he asked us to put the strips on the eyes, nose, shoulders, knees, toes, mouth and etc. This is one way of learning our body parts through play. The information absorption was truly fantastic and we were very happy that we can learn more than five names of our body parts.

Before we had our snacks, we had some music and movement session. We tried to move as much as we can in classroom so that we will develop our active minds and bodies. The moments of letting us move throughout the day increase our learning opportunities. At Ohana, we truly believe that music helps us a lot to focus and prolong our concentration. Also, dancing and singing are the key points of developing our social interaction. Our teachers gave us the scarves. We danced and got so creative with it. We also did a magic trick by hiding the scarf in our hands and when our teachers would say 1, 2, 3… we all have to throw it up in the air! We also sang the “Five Little Ducks” and we put our tails (scarves) behind us and started to dance. It really made our day seeing our friends and teachers having a great time together.

After snacks, we went to the library and listened to the “Katy the cat and Beaky Boo” by Lucy Cousins. It was a really nice book because it taught us to know more about patterns, colors, numbers and characteristics. We went to our circle time corner and talked about “body actions”. We jumped, turned around, marched, stomped our feet just like a big dinosaur. Lastly, we practiced playing the bells while we were blindfolded. It was a very good time for our sensory and auditory practice.

Thank you so much Ohana for the wonderful day indoors! See you all again tomorrow!

Lots of love,

All the children from Buds class 2015-2016