What Do Birds Eat?

We have been studying birds in preparation for a field trip next week up to the mountain.

We'll feed the birds, play in the snow and enjoy a snack and story time.

But that is for another post.

I posted an 'I wonder' this week 

to get the children thinking about what birds eat.

Most children responded that birds eat bird seeds.

We will make feeders with seeds in a few days

but today we used cheerios.

 The children (and grown ups) wondered if the birds will really eat Cheerios.

 As the children were busy stringing cheerios

 a discussion followed about what birds they see in their yards.

 Chickadees, Robins were a couple mentioned.

I wanted to expand their thinking to other birds

so I brought a few other stuffies to the table.

We have a lot of eagles here and we see them mostly by the water.

This was a clue that we gave the children.

What do you think the eagles eat?

What about birds we see hopping on the ground?

What do they eat?

As for the question "will birds eat Cheerios?"

I asked the children to take them home, hang them on a tree

and watch.

Then come back to tell me what happens.

Tray Play Week #8

I saw this great idea for a homemade marble mazes at Teach Preschool.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Deborah's blog yet, I highly recommend it.

I really like to offer activities for families that they could replicate at home.

This is one of them.

All you need is a box lid and straws.

Glue the straws in any format to make a maze.

Add a marble and you're set to go.

 Another tray has magnet wands and marbles,

 bingo chips with wire in them and some without.

The children have been experimenting with the wands.

How many will stick to it?

Which ones don't stick?

It's also an easy tray to clean up - you use the wand to pick up

all the pieces.

 Magik Stix was on the last tray.

This provides fine motor and creative work.

At first the children and parents didn't know what to do with it.

But as they experimented they made bracelets, letters and

butterflies.

Each day we see something new.

In our sensory table this week I placed pom poms and a variety of tongs.

I'm always on the look out at thrift stores for unusual tongs.

 There are bamboo and metal tongs but

I especially like these tea strainers.

You have to squeeze to open them.

The opposite of regular tongs.

How Long Will Chocolate Play dough Last?

That is what I'm wondering.

We have been playing with chocolate play dough for two weeks now 

and the play doesn't seem to be stopping.

I made it with Valentines Day in mind.

Added heart shaped cookie cutters and cupcake liners.

The smell of chocolate drew the adults to play too.

The past two weeks has been the busiest in the house area because, I think,

of the chocolate play dough.

A huge benefit of the StrongStart program is having 

so many role models in the room at one time.

No matter how tempting the play dough smells,

we don't eat it, is what this parent is modeling.

 

Closer to Valentines I found these wonderful,

 real looking strawberries 

at a thrift store.

A teacher donated the empty chocolate trays 

and the play continued.

 The strawberries were also very tempting to try.

This girl was smelling them to see if they were real.

Something I learned about having chocolate play dough is

the smell attracts.

I need to look where else I can add aromas to our play areas.

Do you add any and where?

Story - Mushroom in the Rain

A story we did last week is called "Mushroom in the Rain".
It does come in print form by author Mirra Ginsburg.
Hope you enjoy it.

Tickle Stick Waiting Your Turn

I posted earlier that I've introduced Yoga stretching into our gym time.
It is so much fun.
The children know when they hear the chime they move into 'seed' (child) pose.

We've created a story of the seed curled in the ground and the rain is gently falling on it.
When the rain stops the tree plants it's roots (our feet) and begins to grow.
The trunk of the tree (our bodies) grow straight and tall.
The branches (our arms) spread out far.
The leaves (our fingers) unfurl and stretch towards the sun.
Then the wind begins to blow us around.
The children may not realize but we have just gone through the life cycle of a tree and what it needs to grow.  This is science happening in our gym time.

I found when we finished our stretching it was a bit of a mad chaos trying to put our mats away at the same time so I was inspired by Vanessa's (from Storyoga) way of finishing her yoga sessions.
She has this beautiful stick, I forget what she calls it, but it is covered with ribbon and fluffy pompoms.  I created one for our group and it has been so well received.

 We refer to it as our Tickle Turn stick.
When we are finished stretching the children can lay anyway they choose on their mat.

They relax and wait for their tickle.
After they have a tickle with the stick, they get up and put their mat away.
When the ribbons pass over them I label the parts of the body that it is touching.
This turn taking is helping them to self-regulate.
Even the parents get into it.
After this little boy had his tickle (mom was my photographer) he insisted mom have her tickle too.

 So I passed the stick for him to tickle momma.

I've noticed that the energy level back in the classroom is a little lower and calmer.
It has been wonderful learning and passing on these techniques.

Dog's Colorful Day

Dog's Colorful Day is a new book for me.

I've seen it referenced on several blogs from Flannel Friday.

 like so tomorrow

The book covers so many areas of learning.

Colours, counting, body parts, literacy

(how many descriptive words start with 'sp'?).

I made this quick felt story to go with it.

 I handed out the coloured spots to the children and as I read 

the story the children added the spots to Dog.

Which makes it a great interactive story, if you have a small group.

At the art table, I copied pictures of Dog and put them out

with bingo daubbers and markers.

The parents picked up the book and read it while the children

matched their art to the telling.

 I love how this grandmother is holding the book and pointing at the words.

The children were so involved in the story.

After making each spot they would count them just like in the book.

Some children just enjoyed using the bingo daubbers.

When I asked them how many spots were on their dog,

they both shouted out numbers, "89" "17".

f

This child was thrilled that he made the colour brown.

I didn't have a brown bingo daubber so we were using a brown marker.

But he told me he mixed the green, orange and red and it made brown.

I recommended this book to our kindergarten teacher and she was taken with it too.

She has ideas for more centre ideas that I'm looking forward to seeing.

Valentine Follow Up

Here are a few Valentine activities that we had fun with this week.

Valentine calendar toss.

Toss the bean bag at the calendar.

Will it land on the heart?

 A growth chart.

How many hearts tall are you?

The chart will stay up for the remainder of the school year.

We'll revisit it to see if we've grown.

Rose petals in the sensory table.

 But buried under the rose petals were....

trolls!