This week was pyjama’s week so every day we had the chance to admire the elegant night clothes we all wear at home. This event allowed us to talk about what do we do before we go to bed, how to deal with refusing bedtime and what dreams are and how special they are. 

We would like to thank families to make this week possible by bringing their children in their best night clothing. We would also like to extend our gratitude to everyone who had been supporting us in different ways during this time. 

Next week, Laura is back and so the physical and wellbeing wonderful activites she prepares for us every day. Early childhood is the ideal time for children to develop and practice healthy physical activity habits; this includes learning a range of fundamental movement skills that will help children take part in and enjoy physical activity throughout their lives. Laura promotes a healthy lifestyle through a range of different games and experiences in Spanish that help children to learn vocabulary while they have fun. 

Preschoolers

Friday 16^th May: Digging our names out!

Today we went on a letter fossil hunt. Children were encouraged to write the letters of their name inside dinosaur footprints and then they cut them out and hid them in a sand tray. Using a soft paintbrush, we uncover the footprints with letters. Once all the letters were found, we glued them on a paper in the proper order to form our names. Experiences such as this encourage early reading and writing skills.

We also got to practice our eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills and taking turns thanks to the amazing caterpillar game Luna brought in. We had so much fun trying to place those little balls into its moving hands.

Monday 18^th May: First Pyjama’s Party!

 Today we repeated our letter fossil hunt, where in small groups we used a sand tray and a soft paintbrush to uncover footprints with letters written on them, hidden in the sand. Children were encouraged to talk about what letter they had found and try to name items that began with that letter. Once all the letters were found, some of the children used them to put the alphabet in order! Experiences such as this encourage group learning and early reading and writing skills such as letter to sound correspondence.

As it is also pyjama week, we participated n different pyjama’s experiences: 

– A matching game where we had to match the pyjama tops with the pyjama bottoms. This type of experience improves concentration, trains visual memory (including increasing short term memory and attention to detail), improves the ability to find similarities and differences in objects and helps to classify objects that are grouped by similar traits. 

– A story called “Dinosaurs in Pyjamas” where we could let our imagination free to create a comic on the blackboard about a little dinosaur called Rafa who was cold every night. He tried to cover himself with leaves but didn’t work. When his parents saw it, they decided to knit him some night clothes to keep him warm at night and since that day on, everyone wears comfy warm clothes called pyjamas at night. 

Tuesday 19^th May: Designing PYjamas 

Today we did our letter fossil hunt in a large group setting, which added the elements of turn taking, manners and further group learning to the experience.

We did some pyjama design, where children drew their own pyjamas, choosing which type of outline they wanted to use (long sleeved, short sleeved, dressing gown etc), cutting out and gluing to another sheet. This gives children a sense of identity and purpose, and also helps them recognize similarities and differences in themselves and others. Completing a task from beginning to end is something to be proud of!

Wednesday 20^th May: Preparing special gifts 

Today we made some dinosaur biscuits! This was a fun and relaxing way to have an informal chat about what we have learned about dinosaurs, and eating something we have baked ourselves is always great! Cooking holds many elements for learning, such as turn taking, measuring, muscle strength, patience, following a recipe, and learning some science skills. There are even bits and pieces to learn while rolling out dough to cut, such as how much flour to sprinkle on so the dough is soft and not sticky, how much force we need to use when rolling so the dough is an adequate thickness, how to cut a shape and remove it from the cutter to gently place on the tray.

Today we also spoke about dreams, to do so, we participate in the creation of another interactive story about a girl called Lucy who had a bad dream about a T-Rex who scared her when she hid in a cave. After that, everyone had the chance to talk about what a dream is and a dream they remember. Later on, we drew our favourite dream inside a cloud shape. 

 Wednesday 21^st May: Preparing special gifts 

 Today, before we went back to talk about dinosaurs, some of us were interested into knowing what a mutant is. Therefore our educators thought we could increase our scientific knowledge by learning about DNA using some Lego bocks. First we all collected blocks of the 4 same colors and made some towers with them. Then, we compared the structures and we saw that even all of us we used the same colors, every tower was different. This is exactly what happens with the DNA that it’s form with the same particles organized in different ways for each person. Then we learned that a mutation it’s when something different gets into the DNA chain and changes some of the features, giving that person, animal or plant, an special quality that it’s not natural in their structure.   

After the science class, we made a class dinosaur graph where we looked at which dinosaurs were everyone’s favourites, and we used their images and voted as to which ones we liked best. First we graphed the results on our blackboard and talked about what we could see and the parts that make up a graph, and then the preschoolers used stickers to replicate the class graph on paper. This experience teaches children in a different way about numbers and how to determine ‘most’ and ‘least’, also introducing such language to children’s vocabulary.

Toddlers

Monday 18 ^th May:Talking about feelings!

Keeping working on emotions, we let children make their own face according how were they feeling today. We used a balloon as the base to cover it with glue and paper. Once it was dry, we could work on the most important; how we feel today. Most of the children made happy face, copying of what their friend were making. What make you happy today? My mammy replied Z.F. Working on fine motors skills helps children to make their muscles stronger and work on their eye hand coordination, improving physical skills.

tuesday 19^th May: Organizing my emotions!

After reading the book “El monstruo de los colores” we made a small explanation about colors and emotions, where children made the link of these two. Angry is for red, Happy for yellow, children painted the faces according what were they showing and feelings. This experience helped them to work on cognitive skills, reinforcing colours in Spanish and make the relationship between both.

Wednesday 20^th May: Pyjama party!

To celebrate this event, we encouraged children to dress their dolls as they wanted to make it. We provided plenty of designs, colors and decoration for them to use their creativity making their dolls according their interests, likes and favourite colors. Children are exploring new textures and colours, finding what they feel more comfortable too, getting their sense of belonging

Thursday 21^th May: Jirafas y elefantes!

As children have been very interested in these two special animals, I printed out drawing of and elephant and giraffes.  Before we started I introduced children with a video of real elephants and giraffes. Children observed the families and the colors of these animals, to color it after. Children were learning about colors, and exploring how the animals live on the wildlife.

babies

Continuing with the animal farm theme, these past two weeks the babies learned about horses, sheep, cows and pigs and their sound. We had fun painting to recognize what color each animal was; the brown horse, the pink pig, the white sheep, and the multi-colored black and white cow. In addition, we spend time doing sensory activities working with cotton which we use to fill our sheep. Completing the week, the babies had a cocoa experience, making a muddy animal. Babies loved this experience because they had the opportunity to touch and taste a new flavor, and also, we made horses with cocoa and our hand prints.

Our amazing educator Silvia hand created a wonderful farm for us to play and a hen house for the chickens we painted that is displayed in our room.

Our youngest babies had been adjusting to our routines; They are very calm and like to be surrounded by their peers and educators. They both love being on the outdoors exploring the surroundings and finding things to put in their mouth as a way of recognition.