Winter Tray Play

First day back at school and in a new school.

It has been a fun day watching the families become with familiar with the new centre.

I'll post about the new centre soon.

But today I want to share our winter play trays.

Four trays are available to play with on this table but the most attractive to the children this morning involved marshmallows.

It was almost automatic for each child to want to eat the marshmallows but once explained that they were to play with them, they were okay with it.

I heard counting, saw matching marshmallows to circles and cups of hot chocolate.

As well as fine motor control by using the strawberry huller to pick up the marshmallows.

Here are quick pics of the other trays out today.

 Kaleidoscopes,

 snowglobes on a mirror,

scale with snowflakes.

I'm really hoping for snow soon.

Here is the worksheet.  Feel free to copy, paste and print.

Pete the Cat On Tour

I've had to close a few days early this December because of our school closing and relocating.
So I planned a field trip to our local library.
I mentioned to the librarian that Pete the Cat would be with us and would like a tour of the library.
This is how our morning went.

Pete met the families and had them sign in.

While we waited for everyone to arrive there was gingerbread to decorate and books to read.

This is Mary, the librarian, talking to the families about what the library has to offer (check out the Lit Kits - they're great) and how to get a library card.

 When we turned to get Pete to start the tour, he had disappeared.

But we found this note where he was sitting.

 Ahh, a clue.

 We searched by the music CDs but didn't find Pete only another clue.

 Then he sent us over by the children's cookbooks but we found cat kibbles.
Pete must have been hungry.
One more clue led us to one of Pete's favourite authors, Mo Wilhems. 

 We searched all the shelves till we found the 'w'.

 And there he was beside the book "Don't let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus"

The children were happy to have him back.

We had one more stop on our field trip.

That was to see the gingerbread displays.

Our Candy Castle won first place in the children's category.

But this was Pete's favourite - the Three Little Pigs.

The children liked it too.

It caused a discussion of what on it we could eat and what we couldn't.

They used toy pigs and a wolf 

but everything else was edible.

All That Glitters

Our sensory table this past week was full of tinsel garland and a variety of bells.

One morning the sun was shining through the window when the children started to notice little lights shimmering around the table as they played with the garland.

Where are the lights? What is it?  How does it do that?

Great questions.

The more she played the more she figured out how it worked.

Christmas Thrift Store Find

Thrift stores are awesome for finding treasures.
A couple of weeks ago I found bells and beads and wonderful Barvarian decorated wooden people.
But my favourite was this tree shaped tray with small containers.

As I finished my shopping my mind was wandering to what to use the tray for.
Since I had bells in my basket I thought they may work.
Then I thought if we used coloured pom poms the play may be more diversified.

Santa Hat Snack

I found this idea on Pinterest at http://daisyt13.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/santa-hat-brownies/
I made them last week for a bake sale at school.  Unfortunately I under-cooked the brownies and couldn't use them.  For a quick fix I grabbed ginger snaps.

Today was our last day of school so I thought these would make a special treat.

I quickly made up a recipe sheet for snack this morning.

All you need are gingersnaps, strawberries, and whip cream.

The children are learning how to follow instructions by reading the pictures.

They were a lot of fun to eat.

But for this little one, if she hesitated, her dad snuck a lick.

Yum!

Linked to:

Playdough Tree Decorating

Play dough is such a great toy.
You can add a variety of tools or materials to make it seem like a whole new toy.
This month I made green play dough and set it out with rolling pins and tree cookie cutters.

Then I added a tray with buttons, little white styrofoam balls and tinsel pipe cleaners.

The play dough is a busy centre everyday.

 Such a simple addition allows the play to change over and over again.