Run! Run! As Fast as You Can...

The touch and feel was all about red, blue, and green letters today.  We talked about the color of the letters and found all of the letters in both Ryan and Bristol's names.  We also worked on producing the sound that each letter made.

The rainy weather kept us off the playground today, but we were invited to socialize and work in centers with the Busy Beginners and Terrific Transitions.  Bristol and Ryan both enjoyed strengthening their fine motor skills using lacing cards and also playing with hard clay that we shaped into long and short snakes, and mama, daddy, and baby snakes.  We made big and small balls out of the clay and attempted to roll them back and forth to each other.  Bristol stacked several balls on top of each other, which we called a snowman!  Ryan also enjoyed rolling trucks through different shaped pasta with another friend.  The rain cleared just long enough for us to get some fresh air and walk around the block.  All the kiddos enjoyed looking at Christmas decorations, and we noticed that some houses still had their pumpkins out.  We saw leaves falling and tons of acorns on the sidewalk, which we decided would make the squirrels very happy!  The highlight of the walk was definitely splashing in the millions of puddles.  Sorry about the extra laundry today!  

 After some much needed fresh air and exercise, we changed our puddle-soaked clothes and got ready for language circle.  We eased into the holiday season today by reading The Gingerbread Man retold by Eric A. Kimmel.  The repetitive nature of this classic fairytale was a great way to target action verbs run and catch in addition to common farm animals pig, dog, cow, horse, and fox.  

Instead of using pictures to further comprehension, we used finger puppets that went along with the story, which were a huge hit with Bristol and Ryan!  Once we practiced re-telling the story with our finger puppets, Bristol and Ryan enjoyed making their own gingerbread men.  They used stickers for the eyes, puff balls for the buttons, and added a smile with markers.  They each added their own creative touch with do-a-dot paints.  

We concluded our gingerbread unit with a short video found on YouTube. 

After language circle, Bristol and Ryan loved playing with their own big tubs of water.  Each tub was full of small, colorful farm animals and also had several bowls and cups.  They poured water back and forth between cups and bowls, made waterfalls that fell from the sky back into the tub.  They gave the animals a bath and made them swim and splash in a pool.  They practiced the animal sounds, and we also talked about which farm animals were in our Gingerbread story today.  There was almost as much water on them and on the floor as there was in the tub...resulting in change of clothes #2.  Sorry once again for the additional laundry today, but they sure had fun and weren't even aware that they were learning at the same time!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  I can't wait to see Bristol and Ryan on Tuesday to learn all about Christmas Trees!