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Today was a fun day filled with pretend play.
We began as usual with our calendar, weather, and circle time routines, then we decided we wanted to play at grocery store. I've saved up even more empty food containers for the children, so we had lots for them to select from the shelves, bring to the counter, and ring up.
We worked lots of early math fun into the equation by counting our currency (high fives) and practicing counting by 1's, 5's and 10's. Skip counting is a little tough, but once you get the hang of it it's fun! We also counted how many items in our bags and how many of a certain type we had (cereal or pasta for example). Even the littles got in on the grocery store action and brought items to the "checkout."
We had so much fun that we played past our regular snack time- all of a sudden we looked and we five minutes past snack!
After we put away all the grocery items, we enjoyed some music time. Today we selected several traditional children's songs like The Wheels on the Bus, If You're Happy and You Know It, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It was lots of fun working on the movements for each song and a great opportunity to link motor skills and cognition. Research has shown a link between movement and enhanced literacy. Here's an article about it. Fingerplays and movement songs are an irreplacable and extremely valuable part of children's early learning and are never overlooked here at Blue Sky Daycare!
After music, we took some time for free play for the big kids and one-on-one time for the littles. The littles and I focused on learning the names of some common items around the house as we took apart the play kitchen and put our hands on each item.
We wanted to have one last structured activity before lunch, so we worked on coloring.
The big kids focused on coloring inside the lines while the littles worked on making marks on the paper and putting the proper amount of pressur on the crayons.
After naps, we read a book of opposites, a book about shapes, and some nursery rhymes. The big kids listened to Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. It was a nice day!
See you tomorrow!