Paint, Games, and Outside Time

Circle Time was a lot of fun today. We read Valentine's are for Saying I Love You, by Margaret Sutherland. It is such a cute little book. The 2's were able to enjoy it and understand it because it was short, sweet and lots of cute illustrations by Amy Wummer.

We introduced the letter Nn (which I guess we will spend 2 weeks on, since we didn't get to start until today) and talked about it's sound, and came up with a little phrase....

Nutty Nelli never nagged new nuts.

We then count the Nn's and say the phrase fast and slow, all while jumping around. I am trying to come up with lots of different ways for them to learn the letter. Something they will remember and be able to recall (even if it's me dancing around the room that they picture in their heads :) )

Princess brought her Hi Ho Cheerio game to play. They have really begun to enjoy board games and puzzles. We waited for Little Man to go down for his morning nap and got the game out. They enjoyed it, I don't know if you can tell, but Sprout is pumping her arms ups and down because she got to put her cherry's in her basket. To cute. Everyone learned about turn taking, patience, problem solving (we were down a few cherry's) and manners (sometimes it's hard to watch a 2 yr old keep putting their cherry's back on the tree)


Our Mini Water Tub became our Mini Valentine's Sensory Tub... it looked to nice when I put all the things in the tub, but when I went to get the camera this is what I found when I came back.

They enjoyed it!!


After reading our Valentine's Day book, I thought we could make our own cards (the little girl in the book makes lots of cards for her family & friends). So, I set out some paper with pencils, so we could write our names or messages... then set up the table with cookie cutters & paint, hoping they would use the cookie cutters like stamps.



Which they did, with 1 piece of paper

Then I found this...

I was told Finger Painting worked much better :)

Outside Time!!! Yeah!!!

It actually wasn't that cold out today, I bundled them up... Just In Case :)

MY FAVORITE PHOTO OF THE DAY!!!

Little Man found that 1 stamped paper...

Outside Fun

We started out Water/Ocean/Lake Theme this week. We wanted to learn about Ocean Animals, fish, and frogs... we don't have access to the ocean here, but we live near the beautiful Lake Norman. So, we decided to kinda mix it all together and then take our 3rd Summer Field Trip to Lake Norman State Park... We can't wait. Our beach is like a huge clay pit... we want to take some home with us and see if we can make something out of it. The kids can't wait.

Any way, we read Rainbow Fish, talked about friendship, fantasy -vs- reality... do fish really talk and exchange scales??? :) We loved that one! We then made our own Rainbow Fish...

We also brought the sand in to the sensory table and made a "beach" We bought some really cute boats and such from the store, but they didn't FLOAT!! Can you believe it... we at first we disappointed, but then we laughed and laughed!!! We pretended they were subs :)

We then decided to try the Chalk/Body paint I found at preschool daze that I have been dying to make. We were going to make it for the 4th of July... we even made a shower to help wash it off, but I didn't have any cornstarch and we couldn't. I picked some up last night and we got to make it this morning and what a time we had... loved it!!

We tried painting our bodies... some loved it!!

I think mostly we just liked the mess and the way it dried on the ground.

We wrote our names, the name of our daycare, and drew funny pictures!!

FUNNY FACE!!

Chipping the "Chalk" off the table




Loved playing in the sand and mud... Soup anyone??

Tea??

What's this??

Whoa!! How Cool!!!

Outside Painting... the bubble wrap added a lot of texture and popping it was a lot of fun too!!

This guy thought he was quite cool with his "cut" on his head!! What a Jokester!!


Lastly, I found this on the inside table... Montessori at work and what fun it is to be able to paint whenever they want... just take out their tray, paper, get their water and paint... When they are done they put it away... This little girl wasn't finished and came back to it after we did our outside chalk/body painting... She told me her watercolor picture was of all the kids outside doing the body painting... I love my job!!!