Skip to main content

    



Happy New Year! The last few weeks of January has just flown by so quickly! The children and staff have been so busy and immersed in the New Year and winter season. 


Upon our morning arrival, the staff at Merry King Preschool start the day with our room set up. We feel children’s growth and development are enhanced with the support of open ended play and learning. With this said, the materials offered in their play have the purpose of development in all areas: imaginary, cognitive, social/emotional, fine and gross motor. It is so fun to stand back and observe the group as a whole, while capturing such organic and genuine play amongst the children!

One of the many highlights that we offer in our classroom include sensory activities: art, cooking and table top activities. Many children often enter the room and one of the first things they notice is at the sensory table. The texture, smell, and colours capture their attention almost immediately! This may be playdough, shaving cream, sand pellets, or a baking activity that is ready to go! “G” played with the shaving cream for a long period of time! He was having so much fun, that some of it ended up on his face and up his sleeve! Baking is another activity that the children really enjoy. This activity develops skills such as turn taking, sharing, following directions and working together to complete a common goal. 




“This shaving cream looks like whipping cream!”

“I’m making pizza with my playdough.”

“I bake cookies at home with my Mommy.”








Our Winter has been fairly mild and dry this year. This gave us many opportunities to be outside to enjoy our Westcoast weather. The children use their whole body and mind to develop gross motor skills. This includes hanging upside down on monkeys bars, climbing up/down with alternative feet and coordinating their whole body. Digging in sand is one of their favorite activities outside! We often observe so many creative play and great conversations amongst the children.





On our outing to the library, we just happen to witness the dump trunk dumping off more ice to the ice rink. This was such a great spontaneous learning opportunity. Where does ice for ice rinks come from? How is it brought into the ice rink? Who does skating lessons? 



Puddles, puddles everywhere! Winter isn’t winter without puddles! There is just something so genuine and natural when you observe a child play with puddles. Whether this may be using a stick to “fish.” Or fully running/jumping through a puddle…children show so much joy in the simple things in nature. They find “treasures” They have the biggest smiles on their faces. And they are just using all their senses to enjoy this one little (or big) puddle. 

    

To wrap up January, once again, we had our monthly visit to “Courtyard Gardens” to visit our Grand Pals. The staff prepared for us to play BINGO! The majority of the children have never seen or played Bingo before. With that said, most children understood and learned the objective of the game fairly quickly. We observed children and seniors helping each other and counting the numbers out loud. As usual, our visit with our Grand Pals is always so inviting and memorable. 

      


“I have number 27!” 

“I like to flip the bingo pad.”

“I want a turn to find the numbers!”

“BINGO!!!”


We look forward to February and the upcoming Spring season! 




Warm Regards, from the staff at Merry King Preschool, 

Matt, Silvia and Bickie

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volunteering at Richmond Food Bank

Today was our last day volunteering at the Richmond Food Bank. I am so grateful we had this opportunity– it has been an extraordinary experience for all of us. I, myself, have been very lucky to work in a community where I have seen dedicated volunteers working countless hours for people and projects they believe in. In my own community centre, the staff devote extra hours for many events, all to help strengthen our community. From these experiences grew a desire within me to try to share this with our children. How can we make them generous with their time and energy for the good of others? How can we teach them to be giving people– people that think of others? Are they too young for these concepts? In my need to answer these questions, I sought to find a volunteer opportunity for them. I thought about many different ideas but the food bank always came out ahead. I was lucky enough to come across an open-minded and risk-taking individual– let's face it, preschoolers gett...
Post a Comment
Read more