Skip to main content

Fun with Fish - FAS T/Th Class

Since Spring has arrived and warmer days are on the way, we thought it would be enjoyable for the children to explore fish and their habitat in many multi-sensory ways.

Prior to our approaching field trip to the Britannia Shipyards, we wanted to extend different sea life opportunities to each preschool student in the classroom.  Last week the boys and girls spent time building sea life puzzles as well as manipulating marine blue playdough, plying and moving the soft substance side by side.  A collection of sea life puppets were provided to stimulate their imagination and encourage collaborative dramatic creativity amongst them.  The fishing game provided in the water was enjoyed by many as they used fishing rods to retrieve the colorful sea creatures!
We were able to provide artistic opportunities for the children to collaborate and create “water waves” with large pieces of paper and various brushes and their hands to resemble rolling water (see our bulletin board!).  It was wonderful to watch them mix the colors and move around the table, enjoying these “messy” moments.  Our indoor gross motor play even included games of “Fish, Fish, Swim” and “What Time Is It Mr. Shark”!  These fun group games gave all of the students the chance to share, take turns, and watch each other enjoy the experience.  Our circle times created chances for the children to move to creative sea life songs and listen to engaging sea life stories!

Since it is so important for the children to be able to see, hear, touch and try many different things in our educational preschool environment, we try to provide a large variety of learning experiences for them to explore.  However, the most meaningful moments come when we are able to observe the children effectively interacting with each other.  Seeing them come up with ideas of how they can investigate the props provided together means so much to us as educators.  Watching their imaginations flourish as they start to create stories with puppets and other props is what we find so fascinating when we spend time together with your precious children.
As we continue learning about sea life, we hope the boys and girls bring home comments and stories of all we are experiencing together!  Looking forward to more fun as we finish the year together!



Sincerely,

Teacher Lori Moore

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mosaic Garden Stones

Today our children had an amazing opportunity to work with Glen Anderson, a local artist specializing in mosaics. You can see his work at http://www.mosaicplanet.net . I met Glen last year at Urban Weavers Studio in Strathcona. I asked him many, many questions about mosaics, all of which he patiently answered with expertise. I was gearing up for an art project in our preschool class so I really wanted to get any pointers I could from him. The plan was to have our students make mosaic tiles to place along our fence at the garden plot at Terra Nova Farm. They worked out very well, thanks to Glen's great advice and it was a beautiful moment when child and parent hung the stones at the farm on our last day of school. It was a moment of great pride for all of us. The garden that they cared for with their own hands- tended to its needs in sunshine and in rain. They will always remain part of that space, that land and their stone will remind them of this connection. Even though they turne...

A Love for Cabbage

Another day of working with cabbage-our prized cabbage that I babied throughout the summer. The cabbage that I saved from the demise of cabbage worms, watered, and surrounded with copper to scare away slugs. So, yes, babied. After all that care and love I was hoping the children would enjoy working with this gorgeous vegetable and like the taste of it. The coleslaw was a hit last week but would cooked cabbage get the same positive response? We assembled our ingredients for cabbage rolls and showed all the children. They smelled all the spices that were in the recipe and many of them loved the smell of the fresh garlic! They took great pride in recognizing onion, salt, pepper, tomato sauce and ground beef. I wanted to introduce them to another herb so we passed around marjoram, which many agreed smelled sweet. We pre-cooked the meat just so the children could work with the food without any cause for concern. The smell of the onions and meat simmering sparked the interest of many ...

A Day at the Farm... with a twist

We were all looking forward to heading to the farm. We had not been in two whole weeks so we were all experiencing farm deprivation disorder! We craved outdoor time, running on the paths, and checking out our favourite spots. We had no particular agenda- nothing to plant, nothing to weed, nothing to harvest and literally nothing to do! Perfect!!  Actually, we did have one special thing happening there but I will get to that in a moment. The children could not get off the bus fast enough, bounding down the tall stairs. Jackets on, zipped up, hats and mitts on, ready to face the chill of December. The children tossed their knapsacks onto the picnic table with abandon, and began to run around the courtyard area, obediently staying on the paths  ( finally, four months later they have learnt to stay out of the garden beds). They shouted, they chased and fell down! Once our initial burst of energy was out (only slightly), we walked over to the compost to see what the worms w...