Wednesday 27 January 2016

Horse shoes anyone ?

This morning a group of girls decided to make their own horse shoe game. They took some "u" shaped magnets and some construction pipes for the marker post.



Once the game was set up each child tested it to check that the post were at the right distance. And to make sure that they each had the right amount of power in their swing to land their mark. One of the girls said " I'm going to go over the rules first so you know how to play horse shoes." She then listed off her rules and the three children took turns playing the game. 






As the last child went to take her turn she said "OK now I'm going to tell you the real rules of horse shoes. You have to get your horse shoe over the post. And only when it touches you get a point. Do you guys want to try it that way?" The other girls both responded and said "yes".They began the game again.Cheering each other on as the horse shoes came closer and closer to the post. As the game continued other children came to watch and cheer them on.



Written by Mrs.Balharry



Can I take your order ?

This morning a group of children gathered in the housekeeping area. They began to gather some dishes and bring them to the table. One child said to another child "What would you like? Some apple juice or some grape juice? "The other child responded "Grape, but just a little".





Another child joins in  "You need to eat. I'll make you something." She goes to get a pot and a cupcake. She calls over to her peer "Your very hungry. I'll get you lots of food. It's good you know." She places the pot and cupcake in front of the other child. "You eat."




The children begin to "eat" talking about the different meals their going make next. They take orders from the new peers joining them at the table. 

Written by Mrs.Balharry


Tuesday 19 January 2016

Drop Challenge

I'm always amazed at how often children create a task or challenge in their play. Whether something is simple or difficult to them it is the greatest accomplishment when they achieve their goal! I observed a situation like this just this morning. Two of the boys setup a bucket at the bottom of the tree house. They watched and wondered what would happen if they dropped a car from the top of the tree. Would the car land in the bucket? This sounds easy but the challenge grew as they played on. They realized that the tree had different ledges and holes for the cars to drop off of so they didnt always land in the same place. Then the fun began when they figured out if one friend dropped the car while the other moved the bucket,  they would almost always catch the car. They found great joy in watching the car drop and seeing the different ways it would roll and bounce on the way down.  Even when they didn't catch the car at the bottom, this teamwork created a lot of cheering and laughter. These are some of the most rewarding moments a child can have!
 


 

Baking

Today we decided to do a baking experience. 

The first thing we did was gathered all our ingredients. 


                    

Then I asked the children what we need to do first before we start baking, "wash our hands" shouted one of the children. 

                    

After all the children washed their hands we sat down at the table.

I handed one ingredient out to every child. We discussed the different ingredients that we were going to use and talked about waiting for our turn. 



We began adding the ingredients one at a time giving each child a turn to measure and pour the ingredient into the bowl. We used our counting skills to count each scoop, we also used our literacy skills by looking at the recipe to see how much of each ingredient we needed to add. 



After each ingredient was added the children all got a chance to use their fine motor skills  to stir the batter. While stirring one child used both hands to stir "it's hard to stir" she said. While using two hands to stir the bowl began to go around and around. She asked her friends if they could help her hold the bowl while she stirred. The children used teamwork and problem solving to accomplish this task.





While stirring one child started coughing, so we had a discussion about germs. The children told the other child to cover their coughs so the germs don't go into the cookies. All the children then practice cover their coughs. 





Through this experience the children used their literacy skills when reading and looking at the recipe, math skills when counting and adding ingredients and social skills by working together to get the job done. The best part was using their sense of taste to try the cookies!


                    






Wednesday 13 January 2016

Cup construction


This morning the staff put some plastic cups of various sizes out for the children to play with. The children quickly gathered around and began to build different items. The children noticed right away that there were different coloured cups along with different sizes. They experimented with stacking the smaller cups on larger ones and vise versa. Before long they had constructed their own community with the cups.


"I made a grown up castle . This is the bells and this is the door. The small cups are the gate around the castle."


"And these are the bells on this castle. This is the kid castle. The gate protects the people in the castle."

Written by Mrs. Balharry

Tuesday 12 January 2016

How full is your cup?

Today at snack time two boys starting comparing their cups of juice/water. They discussed who's cup has more or less in it. They put the cups close together, bent down to the level of the cup and compared the levels of the liquid. One of the boys took a sip put the cup back down to measure it again. They talked about how the levels go down when you take a sip out of the cup, then the boys both took a big sip from their cups put them back down to see who had more? They measured the liquid using their fingers, moving their finger from one cup to the other.