Work time

One of the kids working on their continent map.  She is pin pricking Australia.  The kids have been enjoying pin pricking!  Most of them ask to do it daily.

We made Sensible Critters for our art lesson!  (We were learning about our 5 senses)

The kids wrote their names in their Open House invitations.

We worked on using our senses and the kids had to guess what they were holding by using only their sense of touch.

Busy, busy workers!

We just finished up learning about the letter "T".  At our discovery table we put out a big piece of paper and a basket with different letters in it.  The kids had to find the letter "T, t" and glue it on our paper. 

One of our friends working with the fruit matching.

We introduced magnetic/non magnetic work this week.  The kids are having a blast finding out what is magnetic and what isn't.  We talked about metal and things that are made of metal.  Here are some friends working with it.  The kids have to use our magnetic and put it in the correct bowl.  One of the bowls has a black yes with a smile in it and one has a red no with a frown. 

I love when the kids work together and share! 

One of our friends working with the heart dropper. 

Chopstick Sorting

Here is one of the kids making a picture in a heart, our shape of the month. 

Numbers:  The kids get to pick a bag with the numbers 1-10 (right now we have hearts but we've had snowflakes) in it.  Once they open the bag they put the numbers in order.  Some of the kids use the number key as a guide.  After they put them in order they get to glue them on the blue rectangle.  Didn't she do a great job and she was so proud of it?  Can't you tell? (: 

They are awesome at washing their hands! 

Some children at work!

The kids are always busy!  Here is some of the work they did this week! 

More Humpty Dumptys!

We brought out the tinker toys.  Most of the kids had never heard of tinker toys so it was fun for the kids to play with them.

Here is one of our spooning activities.

Pin punching!  The kids have been working hard on their pin punching work.  Some of the kids are punching out different shapes and some are working on continent shapes. 

What is pin punching? 
The kids use a push pin or special tool (like the one the girl is using) and they punch out the shape using the pin.  This takes lots of hard work but it is so rewarding for the child.  The kids love doing pin punching and ask to do it often.  This girl is punching out South America.  After she is done punching out the different continents she will make a World map of them.  The kids are so careful when they do this.

The kids get to use tweezers to pick up colored beads and place them on the mat.  Some kids put all one color on, some make patterns and some put them all on.  (:

One of our girls is working on our Care Bear number matching.  We have a 6-10 Care Bear number matching also.

The kids really liked the Humpty Dumpty cutting and pasting this week!  As you can see in the picture they get to pick a Humpty Dumpty, cut out the egg, glue in on and color it. 

In the upper right hand corner is our scrap bowl, this is where to kids throw their paper scraps away.  When the kids are working on a project that has paper scraps we always have a scrap bowl for them to throw their paper in.  It keeps them more focused when they don't have to keep getting up to throw their garbage away or have it laying all over the table.    

I love how much concentration the kids have working on their sewing.  We put sewing out and the kids are loving it.  We cut plastic canvas into square pieces (the pieces have different shapes on drawn on) and the kids get to sew using plastic lanyard string.  Another favorite! 

Beads on a rod

The kids love the heart dropper! 

Some of our friends worked on their shapes.  They got to use heart stickers to follow the dotted lines on their shape.  This is great hand-eye coordination and was difficult for some but they tried their best! 

One of our friends writing his name (or at least trying to) on his letter T.  We've been having everyone try to write their name on the work they do.  If they aren't ready to write it on their own, we write it in pencil and they try to trace it. 

Some of our children at work!

I only got a few pictures of the kids today; I forgot to charge my camera and my battery only made it for a little while. Here are some of our children working hard. The children are always very busy and sometimes I don't have my camera on me to take pictures and we are having such a great time that I don't want to stop and get my camera. I do my best getting as many kids as I can!

This boy is working with our knobbed cylinders. He took out all the knobbed cylinders then matched them with the knobless cylinders. This is hard work and he did it all himself. He was so proud!! I love how the kids help each other. Here is one of our students helping another with our fruit matching. First the child has to put the fruit in pairs (in its own square), next the teacher reads a fruit word to the child and they match it with the fruit. In the pictures, I am reading the fruit words and one child is showing the other child where that fruit word goes.

The kids love to snip!! When kids are ready, we take this work a bit further by having them glue their snips onto their name. This is great for fine motor skills. We use real glue and they have to "paint" the snips and put it on the line. Sometimes this will take a couple of class periods because it does take a long time snipping all the paper and gluing it on. There are normally quite a few students working on their name at a time because once the students see one child working on this they want to do it too! (:

Here is one of our kids making a number book. First they stamped a dinosaur the number it said on that page, then they wrote the number on the page. This was done by one of our older students who was ready to do this on her own.

This friend colored a picture and before she put it in her work folder we had her write her name on the back. She is not writing her name by herself yet so I wrote her name in pencil and she traced over it with a fine marker. I think she did a fabulous job (she just turned 3 the end of September)!! We are having all of our students try to write their name this semester. If they aren't ready to do it on their own we've been writing their name in pencil and having them trace it with a thin marker. When the child does some sort of paper work they have been writing their name on it. This gives them lots of practice writing their name without them realizing it.

This little girl was counting and writing her numbers. She knew all the numbers herself but needed help on how to write the numbers. She would tell me the number, I wrote it down and she copied it.