Families

Dramatic Play and Blocks
What else says family week like housekeeping and chores? We have lots of them this week! I kept up the housekeeping area, although it did get rearranged to accommodate our grocery store in the block area. This is always one of my personal favorite centers! It was popular both days, and we learned a lot of patience and turn-taking, or at least tried. 1 register and 3 carts and never enough.
I love watching kids act like adults as they shop and count money and talk. The dialogue is so cute and entertaining! They love acting like us. We also had to learn responsibility as we put groceries back, over and over again, so others could keep playing. This center was constantly busy for 2 days. The housekeeping side of it only got a little bit of traffic, and we're ready for a change.

I love the grocery store for many reasons. One, it's cheap and easy! I just use garbage, and reinforce it with packing tape. I've been using many of these food boxes for 3 years of Kinder, plus 2 years of preschool, and they're in great condition. I have some "dramatic play" food boxes too, but it doesn't get played with as much, because I don't think they recognize it. They know their environmental print.
I also love how easy it is to tie in literacy and math, with the labels, counting, numbers, money, and sorting. So much learning as they play!

Art
Tuesday, was snack prep. I shared my family's favorite bread recipe and we made bread together. We took turns and counted scoops, and each got to add in and mix things. I like keeping this a free choice center, because they're not forced to help, but most of them choose to at some point. I was surprised some watched it mix the whole 10 minutes.
Their favorite part was kneading with their hands, so one we had the loaves rising, I pulled out play dough, and unlike last week, the table was busy with kids playing the whole rest of the time.

Thursday, we got the paint out, and people shaped stamps. Here's some samples:


Small Manipulatives
Tuesday, was bristle blocks

Thursday, was number peg puzzles (forgot a pic)

Writing
I added colored pens on the table and they loved them.

Outside
I got out the sensory table for the first time, and we learned about keeping things inside the table and not splashing, as it was filled with water this week. Since our dishes had done a wonderful job at making mud food, I decided the kids could help wash them. Like grocery shopping, doing dishes is one of those other menial chores families love. And they actually really loved washing these dishes, and ended up throwing in all the play food too. It was a hit, and they were excellent rule followers!


Large Group
We learned the word "relative," and also reviewed "unique" as we talked about how each family is unique. It's fun to talk about and read about families, because they all yell to me at once who is in their family, where their grandparents live, their cousins' names, etc. They get so excited to talk about their families!
We drew our family members in our journals, and also in a family tree. We "sang" (mostly danced) to "All I Really Need" by Raffi while we played instruments. It's all about only really needing love in our families. They loved getting to use the instruments.


Small Group
I introduced patterns with these Lakeshore people. We played with them last week, so they wouldn't be brand new today. I have learned to never expect learning with a toy the first time they use it. They need that chance to play first. I was pleasantly surprised how many could copy and extend my patterns, and a few kids even made their own patterns!

Miss Kim played a family matching game with her groups, and they talked about types of families and things families do together from the pictures.