Spider Mini-Project

I often hear comments, about my program, that there are so many things happening.  I explain that a challenge for StrongStart facilitators is how to plan for a drop in program?

My centre averages about 30 children a morning which about three fourths are different children everyday.

This makes it a challenge for planning around the interests of the children.  With so many possible interests from so many children, how can I plan an emergent curriculum?

Another challenge may be that the children that are interested in certain activities may not attend at the time the activities are present.

Here's an example:
              
Last week as we were playing with animals that live in trees
one child took a strong interest in a spider in a web in the tree.  I
learned from him that he likes spiders.  His mom told me that he
likes spiders a lot.  The child asked if I had more spiders.  That was
my motivation to plan for this week.

  
At the beginning of the week the children were greeted with a book
and a message on the carpet.
 
They were encourage to help build a spider's web using tape.  Each
day more tape threads were added to the web.  They played with the
different sized spiders moving them around and catching bugs.
    
Another book, with props, was added and we began to sing
             Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Each day at the art table we created webs too.

       We wrapped yarn around styrofoam trays.
       
 
    We used magnet balls and wands to paint a web.
      
 
We printed webs by pressing a web design in to a piece of styrofoam
then painting over it before pressing paper on it to lift off a print.


      
There was black play dough with pipe cleaners and googly eyes to
              create spiders.

      
There was colour matching of spiders to their same coloured mat.

And we learned another song about spiders “There’s a Spider on the Floor”.

I gave each child a spider to use as we sang the song together.

There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.  There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.  There’s a spider on the floor, he came in through the door.  There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.

There’s a spider on my toe, on my toe.  There’s a spider on my toe, on my toe.  There’s a spider on my toe, oh I wish that he would go.  there’s a spider on the go, on the go.

Continue having the spider climb up your body, stopping at different parts to make a rhyme.
 
These are the majority of spider activities that were available to play with this week.  Some will remain for next week.  And yes the child, who showed the strongest interest, did attend one day this week.
      
Tomorrow I’ll share how we tied up this mini project by searching for webs in the woods.

What Lives in Trees?

                 
Awhile back I shared a post about leaves falling and how the
children played with chipmunks in and around our tree.
       
That led to a question, “Which animals like trees?”  and
“Who lives in trees?”.
  
As the children played they thought of animals that like trees; owl, eagle,
small birds, raccoon, and deer were a few they mentioned and I found them
as stuffies.
     
We started to gather quite a few toy animals and used a variety of
baskets for nests and homes.  But I noticed that the tree we were using
was limiting their play and understanding of how the animals used trees. 
       
So a new tree was created out of boxes stacked on top of each other,
covered with paper and holes cut into it so the animals could hide away.
       
More animals were added to the list; snakes, mice, bats and spiders.
          
Books were provided to help us answer questions that the children
have about the animals.

New Play Toys in the House Area

This is really two posts in one.  The first part is about the changes I've made in our house dramatic play area, the second is about a new toy for that same area. 

This year I decided to remove the plastic food and dishes from the house play area.   I found that some children were distracted by the colours, red for girls – blue for boys, and that they were only used one particular way.

Now for dishes, the children have wicker hotpads, wooden plates, bowls and utensils and shells from the beach.  We kept the metal pots and pans.

I’ve kept the wooden and felt food plus we are using more materials from the art area. The children have discovered that yarn works great for spaghetti, noodles or rice and that pom poms can become any type of food (plus they work really well in the spoons for serving and squeeze into the pots easily).

Play dough is always available as well.
  

So when I saw felted acorns on Playful Learning website I loved them and thought they would fit in to our play.  Then one of our families brought in a baggie of acorn tops and I knew I had to get busy creating. 
         
They are not difficult to make.  It took a little patience to get the wool into a small ball shape but after that it took just minutes to finish.  I tried to use white glue to attach the tops to the felting, as she suggested, but it was very easy to pull them apart so I switched to a hot glue gun.
          
I made two of each colour and placed them in our house play area.
          
 
The children were instantly attracted to them and began to serve them from dish to dish.  Carefully with the spoons or dumping them from the shells.
               
Today I watched as this little girl noticed, while serving them in the dishes for everyone at the table, that some of the colours matched.
         

She used the muffin tin to separate them by colour.  Even sorting them together by shades of the same colour.  She has all the greens in the same cup when she ran out of space.  Now colours are a learning experience instead of a gender identifier.
     
As she was sorting, her grandpa talked to her about the chestnuts they found at the park the day before.  What they looked like and how they felt.  He talked about the top part of the acorns as being real and I shared how I made them.

What I’ve noticed, and communicate to families, with our new food and dishes at the house area, is that we don’t need to buy toys for the children.  When using materials that you find around your house or out in nature takes them back to authentic play.  Allowing the children and their imaginations to decide what each item is to be used for. 

Plus we can use these items in other play areas too; in the sand table or at the art table.  Each day can be a new discovery.

I’ve only had one family ask about the plastic dishes.  I explained my reasons for changing and it started a short discussion about the benefits.  It has been a very positive experience.

Pumpkin Donuts

Today we baked donuts.  Pumpkin donuts using my donut baker.

 
        
After mixing all the ingredients I brought out the donut machine and showed an easy way to pipe the batter into the pan.  Use a ziplock bag and snip one of the corners then squeeze it out.
      
We wondered how many donuts could be cooked in this machine.

So we counted as I filled each spot.  7 donuts are baked at once.
                 
     It bakes them fairly fast, 6 minutes in total.
    
  We were all ready to give a pumpkin donut a try.
  
        The majority really enjoyed them. 
     I found the recipe at Blue Eyed Bakers.