Friday, November 9, 2012

Teddy Bear's Picnic!



If you go out in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise. If you go out in the woods today, you’d better go in disguise! This week was the week the Capilano Playschool celebrated teddy bear picnics!


The week began with the transition of our room from Pumpkins to Bears.
We crawled around in our new Bear Cave wearing bear masks and snuggling with Teddy Bears, enjoyed books about bears, played with animal bears in the block center and made bear crafts.












The children got to engage in our fun November sensory bin, which lets the children use their fine motor skills enhancing their 3 finger (pencil) grasp, while using their imagination and playing with small bears exploring a very “rocky mountain” environment.
Included in our forest are trees, various rocks of different textures, a bear cave and a smooth river! The children really enjoyed engaging in this small play experience!




We spent time in circle strengthening our memory skills, after I told the children many interesting facts about 6 bears. After not coming to school again for a couple days, I asked the children what they could remember about each bear. We will continue to talk about these 6 bears and try and remember different facts throughout the month. The bears are:

·         Polar Bear
·         Grizzly Bear
·         Kodiak Bear
·         Panda Bear
·         Black Bear
·         Malaysian Sun Bear

Ask your child if they remember anything they remember about these bears.



On Wednesday & Thursday the children had a Teddy Bear picnic!

The children were invited to bring in their own favorite stuffy from home to share class, show around our classroom and enjoy circle with us. After meeting each child’s stuffed animal we went around the circle and talked about the colour of each stuffy. We documented them on a tally chart to talk about what colour more children had brought in on their suffy, and which colour had less.








We played a fun new game in which we sang “Isn’t it funny how a bear likes honey? Buzz, Buzz, Buzz”.

 During the game we would select a child to hide their eyes while another classmate was secretly offered a “honey pot”. The child then would guess which classmate had the honey pot hidden behind their back. 
It is a great game to teach children patience, turn taking and team work. Watching the children keep the name of the child who they know has the honey pot is hilarious, they are always So excited and eager to see if the person “it” can figure out who is hiding the honey pot. 



  

The children also got to help me tell the story of “Brown Bear Brown Bear what to do you see?” with small Popsicle sticks. While telling the story we all learn the sign language colour for each animal in the story.




I can’t wait to continue talking about bears next week!


I also want to note that we recieved a wonderful donation of a small drawing easel this week, as well as a few other fun things like our bear baskets. It was a hit and made me very excited to see the children using it.

One child even told me she wrote a story on it. I asked her to tell me the story which went:



 


"A horse named Kayla.
She runed away and a girl couldn't find her in the forest. And she [Kayla] was soft."









I always love when children show me sighs in conversation and through their play that they are ready to learn how to write. Children all develop very differently at various times and levels. I feel when children show me at a younger age that they are ready to learn to write it is often a more enjoyable, successful experience for them.  Pressuring children to sit and write will often end up leaving the memory of that time sour. I feel as an educator it is my job with these first 4 months to get to know my children and find play experiences that they enjoy where I can bring writing to them. In our bear cave and around our room I try to create a literacy enriched environment. I have words all over the class including in the bear cave such as "hibernate, teddy bear and brown bear" and much more.Bringing words to children excites them to be long time writers and readers.





Sincerely,
Ms Asha


No comments:

Post a Comment