Nature faces

Session Beginning

Our beautiful grounds

Hello Everyone,

               For those of you interested in joining our playgroup, it will begin on Tuesday, October 1, 2013. Our program is semi-structured which means we follow a flexible schedule that introduces the girls to transitioning from activity to activity, while still allowing for lots of free play and creativity. We play outdoors, make lots of crafts and art projects and when it's cold, we play inside our indoor gym space with lots of different equipment to keep the girls busy and moving. I try to document much of what we do on our class blog, so feel free to browse previous posts to get a sense of what we're all about.

Playgroup will run from 9:30am to 11:00am Tuesdays and Thursdays until the 28th of January. The cost is $485 payable by check to Visitation Academy on the first day of class. If the class is not full, you may join at a later date and the cost of the program will be pro-rated.

Hope to see you there,

Karen Peters

Big Blue Whale

Thanks to one of our playgroup girls who chose today's activities. When I asked Gwen what she wanted to make, she said, "a whale!", and so we did. Then one of our moms found this book on our shelf, and it was the perfect story for today. What great impromptu lesson!

Felt Pictures

A really nice project for little hands is felt storyboards. They don't have to be glued, as things stay in place as you assemble your picture. Eventually when you have created something you want to save you can add the glue to make it permanent. Last class, I asked the girls what they would like to see in the photo and they suggested apples and butterflies (I had pre-cut the tree and the ground). This week we sat and glued our pictures together. They were a nice change in texture from regular construction
paper.

The Finished Terrariums!

Today we worked on assembling the terrariums with everything we had collected. We sat in a circle on the lawn, and each toddler was given a bag of dirt, rocks, moss, and a small patch of clover. We gave out each "ingredient" one at a time so they would end up in the right order.

Working together

Watching closely to see how it's done.

Adding the clover

The finished product

Inspecting our work

Building Terrariums

We are beginning a little project to get us outdoors and digging in the dirt. I want to start planting something, but the weather is not quite warm enough to start outdoors, and to be honest, I wanted something with immediate results. With older students, the anticipation of seeing the first sprout is one of the best parts of planting, but with the two year olds, I thought it would be nice nice to have a plant to take home the same day. I absolutely love terrariums. When they're finished I think they look like fairy woodlands in a jar. In fact, I have my eyes peeled for little toadstool houses to put inside to make them all the more magical. The first day of our project was all about collecting. I labelled plastic baggies with the words "dirt" and "moss". We first stopped at some pots I had planted in last year, and took out our shovels.

Using the shovels was a challenge at first, but they really got the hang of it.

 

Filling the baggies with dirt from a planter.

One by one the girls came up while I held their dirt bag (he, he, he) and shoveled some dirt in. Our next stop was a hill at the back of the property that is shady and mossy. we took out the other baggies and the girls just went to work ripping up some moss and putting it into their bags. It was a nice damp day, so once the moss was sealed inside it stayed alive and damp for the weekend. If it had been hotter, I would have added a little water. The next step is to assemble the dirt and moss along with some rocks and other plants into the glass jars next class. 

Grabbing moss and other things.

Bags were labelled, and we will hand out a set to each girl next week.

The way the moss peels away like a mini carpet is so much fun!

Can you believe we are in a school yard in Brooklyn?

This is my terrarium that I will use as an example. Everyone is bringing in a different jar or container so they will all be unique. I am thinking of doing this project with some of the older girls at school an using it to talk about the water cycle in French. 

Happy Easter

We are getting ready for Easter here at playgroup. Tuesday is egg painting day which we are really looking forward to but we thought we'd warm-up with paper and watercolors. The girls glued and painted while I read a cute pop-up book about a hatching chick.