Monday, January 25, 2010

Slime Revisited

We started our morning with lots of free-play. On Mondays I like for the kids to get reacquainted by having a nice block of time for free play. We start all of our mornings off with free play, but usually we start our circle time at around 9 or 9:30... but Monday's we don't start until 10 or so. I also decided to change up our week a little. I was going to read The Mitten by Jan Brett and focus on the letter Oo... but I changed it up to do the letter Gg for Groundhog, and read some of the Groundhog books I have. It fits into the Winter/Animal theme we have for the month... so I ran with it. (Which I love that I can do!!!)



We have calendar, introduction of our Theme for the week, letter, shape, etc... then we break up into our Quiet Work Time (which is really Center Time... using the word Quiet helps with the noise level). We read Groundhog Day by Margaret McNamara to understand what Groundhog Day is all about. This book also helped us with the concept of Pretend, as they use a Hamster to be the Groundhog, and Shadow. We also went outside and played with all our riding toys with the School Aged Kids, who were home from school due to a Teacher Work Day. (I need some of those :) ) While outside we ran after our Shadow's and wondered what it meant if WE saw our Shadows.



During Free Play we took the Slime our of the fridge again and had a grand time... We started off on the table. We love how cold it is when you first take it out of the fridge and how it doesn't stick to your hands to much.






The kids then decided that the Sensory Table looked lonely without any flour in it and moved the Slime there. We then added some animals.


The animals were a great hit and got some of the more apprehensive kids involved, since they didn't really need to touch it. They just moved it around with their animal.



Though Mr A decided to try it. "It's COLD Shell!!!" We only got him to play with it with that 1 finger and his animals... but he did and that is great!!!


The kids also loved the suction noise the Slime would make when they would press one of the animals into it and then take it out. (The School Agers taught them that) It was also interesting that when they took the toy out of the Slime the Slime didn't stick to the bottom of the animal, just to the top. HUM....


So, even though we wanted to focus on the Groundhog today, Slime was the hands down winner of the morning. Fun was had by all!!! Tomorrow is a new day :)


Yesterday I posted about my dismal organization skills. Thank you Bev and Ms Debbie... It is nice to know I am not alone!!! I did get to that area next to the fridge. OK, I know it doesn't look perfect and I haven't really addressed the issue of the pile (that keeps piling up) yet, but I will get there. Baby Steps :) I think I may follow Bev's advice and put up a couple of those plastic magazine rack kinda things on the wall over there, that will at least help make the counter stay clean. I also will look into where I can put some sort of desk/Armoire thingy to hold my "office." IKEA might be a good place for that.


Before After :)




3 comments:

  1. The counter's looking great! I actually just came here to ask if you have a laptop...which I spotted in the picture! We have all of our computers networked, so I can print from the laptop just as easily as from the main computer. As long as the printer is loaded with paper, I can print to my heart's content from upstairs on the laptop.

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  2. We are doing slime this week too during our day we focus on " touch". How did you make it such a pretty blue?

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  3. Sounds like a fun day!

    I have a great solution to my disorganization. When I started teaching, I had a room called an "office." As it got messier, I insisted that everyone call it the "work room." Now I call it a "storage room," and no one is allowed to go in there but me. It's cut down the parent offers to help me tidy up to zilch!

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