Dramatic Play
We had the housekeeping center back out, with the kitchen, washer/dryer, baby bath and cradle. This will also be a favorite dramatic play! So simple, too. It coincided with our blocks area.
Blocks
We had our grocery store out. This is a big time favorite too. They love using the shopping cart, and the cash register most of all. I love having this giant dramatic play center out and the kids had a really fun time playing families. This center was constantly busy and buzzing, all 4 days.
Art
Day 1 we made slime. It's super fun to play with, and we also used our dried out markers to color it. I love that we have a good use to dried up markers! They loved playing with this and I loved it too. It's fun, because you can hold it and squeeze it and break it like something solid, but it also drips and flows kind of like a liquid. It's fascinating and just as much fun for adults. I hate that I forgot to get a picture!
It's super easy to make and here's the recipe:
In large bowl, mix 2 cups white glue and 1 1/2 cups water
Then, in 3 small bowls mix until dissolved 1/3 cup warm water, 1 tsp borax
Now add the contents of the small cups to the glue and water mixture. It will quickly coagulate in the bowl, you can lift it out, then add the other small cups. You can add color to the solutions, but I keep it white.
Day 2, we used the art table for snack prep, and made yummy homemade bread. We used this recipe for miracle bread, that can be done in an hour. It took just over that for us. We then brought out the slime again to play with the last half of our self-select time.
Day 3 we just used the classic water colors.
Day 4 we had elmer's glue with googly eyes and wavy hair. Their imaginations went wild and we had some fun, mostly monsterish, creations!
Manips
We played an ABC bingo game, with beginning sound pictures.
We played with magnetic counting books.
We did a puzzle that makes a game board for an ABC safari game. It was super popular and we'll have to do it again.
We played with the giant 123 foam puzzles.
Fun snacks
Nothing says family and home to me like homemade bread, so we did that one day, like I mentioned above. It was delicious and they begged for more!
I also helped them make another one of my favorites snacks from growing up, no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. We were able to make them in an electric frying pan so they could all help. They LOVE cooking and helping and taking turns with all the ingredients and mixing. Here's my family's recipe:
Melt 1 stick butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup and 1 TB evaporated milk. Mix in 3 cups of oatmeal. Drop onto cookie sheet with wax paper or saran wrap, and let sit in the fridge. Easypeasy.
Large Group
I decided to review our vocabulary word from friendship week, Cooperation, since it's so important.
Day 1, I read Love You Forever, and thought I could be all tough, but just cried. It sure got the kids quiet as they just stared at me :) It led to a great discussion about how much our moms love us, and always will! We then drew pictures of our families in our journals.
Day 2, we read Alligator Baby, then graphed our family members. We knew everyone would have parents, but it was fun to see how many brothers, sisters, and pets we have. We also graphed if we had grandparents who live close, or far away. They wrote their names on the post it notes before bringing them up, for more name writing practice.
Day 3, we read The Sand Castle Contest and each child shared their favorite family vacation. I had planned to have them write about it in their journals, but we were short on time and just shared instead.
Day 4, we talked about cooperation in families, and did role playing on how we can cooperate with our families. I explained to them how moms and dads work so hard, but just can't do everything at home themselves. We headed over to dramatic play, assigned a few kids to be parents, and they recruited kids to help them do dishes, make dinner, do laundry, grocery shop, and take care of pets (the dog role-playing was excellent). So if your kids came home amazingly helpful, you're welcome. If they were just the same, like mine, then we'll keep trying :)
Small Group
I started working with the kids on some number books. We're doing a book for each number 1-10. They learn how to write the number (they look pretty good because I'm helping them write them, hand over hand), and also how to count to that number. They will come home when they're all done. They have to count out that number of crayons to color the number, we write the number, then they also draw that many items on the back. When you go over them, you will see some mistakes, but I am working with each of them, one by one, and call it good as they count their items and we fix our mistakes. They're doing great work!
Our first mom volunteers helped the kids sort pictures by babies, children, and adults, and they also played a family memory game with pictures of different types of families.
Our second mom volunteers helped the children color their family trees, drawing themselves, their moms and dads, and their grandparents.
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