Sensory Play
2/29/2020
Children use their senses to explore and understand the world around them. One of the most popular centers in our Early Kindergarten classroom is the Sensory Center. This center is designed to stimulate a child's senses: sight, smell, touch, movement, balance, and hearing. Sensory Play is crucial to a child's brain development and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross/ fine motor skills, social interaction and problem solving skills. This week, we have been learning about dinosaurs. This unit of study offers several sensory experiences for children. The students combined all purpose flour, coffee grinds, salt and water to create salt dough fossils. As they squished and kneaded the dough, they exercised the small muscles in their fingers. The same muscles that are used to write, color, cut and paint. The children enjoyed the smell of coffee as they sniffed the dough. This sensory activity also taught literacy, math, science and social skills. During the activity, I heard children note changes in shape and size by saying “My fossil is round” or “My fossil is small and yours is bigger”. They used several measuring tools and counted ingredients to make the dough. The students practiced literacy and language skills as they invented stories about their fossils. Lastly, they strengthened social skills by sharing, taking turns, and communicating with each other. Our sensory bin consisted of dinosaurs, plastic eggs and kinetic sand. The students were encouraged to use their creativity and fine motor muscles to squeeze, roll and flatten the sand. They packed the sand into plastic eggs and imagined that the dinosaur eggs were hatching.
A Warm Welcome!
2/22/2020
In our Early Kindergarten class, we greet each other with a warm welcome each morning. Greeting students at the door sets a positive tone for the day and gives students a sense of belonging. According to a study from the Journal of Positive Behavior, positive greetings at the door increased students' academic engagement by 20% and decreased disruptive classroom behavior by 9%. After students have settled into the classroom, we begin Morning Meeting. During this time, students and teachers gather around in a circle to greet each other, share stories, and engage in an activity together. There are four components to Morning Meeting. Greeting: Children greet each other by name. This helps create an atmosphere of trust and establishes a friendly tone for the day. Sharing: In around the circle sharing, every student has the opportunity to share ideas, tell stories and discuss the study topic while the rest of the students listen and respond with questions/comments. In EK, we practice showing respect and take turns speaking. Group Activity: After sharing, students participate in a lively whole group activity. This might include singing, chanting, or playing a game. Morning Message: Students read and interact with a short message written by their teacher. The morning message is designed to serve as a transition to the rest of the school day. During morning meeting, we also discuss the date and weather. Calendar time introduces the concept of time to young children. It also teaches numeracy, vocabulary (month, year, week), sequencing (yesterday, today, tomorrow), and patterning (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). We sing songs like “Days of the Week” and “Months of the Year” to reinforce these concepts. Morning Meeting is also a time to go over the daily schedule and weekly classroom jobs. We end our meeting by answering the Question of the Day that is written on the board. The question is typically related to our unit of study and is designed to make circle time engaging and educational at the same time. There are many benefits to morning meeting. It builds a sense of community in the classroom, sets a positive tone for the day, merges academic and social learning and gives students a sense of belonging.
Source: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/sites/default/files/pdf_files/SMMbooklet.pdf Learning through Play!
2/14/2020
“Play Is The Work of the Child” |
Anna RamseyArchives
April 2021
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