This week we had a younger crowd joining us but it seemed like they were still able to do at least some of the things with us. It's never too young to start! Our focus ended up being on fine motor skills and feelings. To start our "class" this week I wrote every one's name on the back of a paper plate.
I gathered everyone in our "circle" area and reviewed each name before placing it on the ground. I then put on some music and we all danced around until I paused it. When the music stopped the kids were supposed to find the plate with their name on it. Basically working on name recognition. We repeated this several times until the song was over. Then we set out the pillows for each kid to sit on and we read "The Feelings Book" by Todd Parr.
It goes over lots of different feelings - including several silly ones. I tried to get everyone to make the faces for the different feelings. Once we were done with that it was time for everyone to work at the different centers. There was one for each kid, so everyone took a turn working with their Mom on the specific "skill" at each center.
Two of the centers were a string between two chairs - like a clothes line.
The child had to pick the green (blue at the next center) felt out of the basket and hang it up with the clothes pin.
They had to differentiate between the colors and practice pinching open the clothes pin.
The next station had a box full of cotton balls, a pair of tongs, and a Tupperware container. The child had to pick up the cotton balls with the tongs and transfer them to the Tupperware container. They could repeat back and forth.
Next was geared more for the younger ones, but the older ones still seemed to enjoy it too. A colander and pipe cleaners. They just stick the pipe cleaners through the holes, the older ones can do both ends and arch them over each other.
The last station was more for the older ones. There were a couple sewing cards. They used the string and went in and out of the different holes, threading the string through the card.
I had a timer set and when it went off we would all rotate to the next station. Three minutes at each one seemed like plenty of time. We then went to the table for a little drawing activity. They were supposed to draw a happy face and a sad face.
Of course most started coloring on them right away or were too young to draw a face - so that didn't work out as well as I hoped! I would find another activity for this part in the future.
Next up was snack. I asked if some people could bring something green to share, reinforcing the color and hoping the kids (primarily mine) would be encouraged to try new things. I have been told several times by Little Lady that she doesn't like "green" - she has apparently decided it is a food category, like fruit or nuts.
We had kiwi, celery and green jello. The faces some of the kids made while tasting some of the things was priceless! I will say though, they did TRY everything. Whether they FINISHED is a whole other story! We then ended with free play. I really like the "skill" centers and plan to do more of them in the future. I can then also leave them out for my daughter to use while getting lunch ready and tidying up!
It is tough to fit much into an hour, which seems to be their max attention span for this stuff. I might move it up to twice a week in the future. I want to start getting in stuff about the seasons and more work with letters and numbers. I'm deciding what to do next week. I printed out some neat cards for teaching children about playing well with each other when I was doing daycare. That is always a good lesson for two year olds! Now I just need to find them.....
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