The Spooky Things are Here!

Halloween has been a much anticipated Fall holiday here at Harmony's House!  We started a count down on our Greeting Board and discovered Halloweenie fun in every Area!  Here's some festive work that we did.  Our paintbrushes at the art easel resemble witch's brooms, and we are exploring color mixing between white and black paint.

So much to explore in the Explore Table... we found pumpkins, skeletons, bouncy ball eye balls, bracelets, black beans, bugs, and jack-o-lantern bags!  We pretended to trick-or-treat!

 

This Small Group activity was super "creepy!"  We had to pick out all of these creepy-crawlies from the spider web with tweezers!  Some friends said, "Eww yuck!  This is too creepy!" when the bugs would get tangled in the web with their many many legs!

Stay tuned for more Halloween adventures coming up!

Tell Me a Story... about Friends

This week for one Small Group activity, we used fabric squares and Little People to create a story about friends.  First we chose which person we wanted to be.  Then we looked at the fabric squares and decided where our story would happen.  We used blue fabric to be a swimming pool; the balloon fabric pieces were for the birthday party; the flower fabric is where we would picnic.

Ms. Harmony chose to be this boy named "Nick."  He was six and introduced himself to everyone at the park.  He especially liked jumping off the diving board at the pool.

Friend "S" chose to be the baby and Mommy in the story.  The baby wasn't big enough to jump off the diving board, so "Nick" played with the baby on the steps of the water.  We can play with people who are smaller than us.

Friend "B" was a girl named "Sophie" who was three.  She liked jumping off the diving board with "Nick" and carried the PBJ sandwiches in her purse for the picnic.  She shared sandwiches with everyone at the park.

Friend "K" was a girl named "Kaylee."  She didn't want to join us in the pool, but she did participate at the picnic in the garden.  Sometimes friends like to do the same activities as you, and sometimes they'd rather do something else.  To be a good friend, you have listen to other's ideas too.  This is why "Nick," "Sophie, "baby," and "Mommy" went to the garden after swimming, instead of swimming the whole time.

What makes this activity so interesting is that it is 100% open-ended.  From the Little People to the setting to the plot, the school friends use their imaginations, language, and real life experience to tell a story.  Through play, they met the developmental objectives to

• make a plan
• use objects to symbolically represent something real
• balance the rights of self and others
• take turns in conversation
• use empathy to animate the characters
• develop a story with a beginning, middle, and end
• practice elements of friendship including self-introductions, invitations to play, joining others in play, playing with children of different ages and abilities, talking about sharing, taking turns, and trading, etc.

That's a whole lot of objectives that we practiced in a simple activity for a few minutes!  But the benefits are immediately obvious when the school friends leave the table and begin Work Time.  They take the language and ideas and apply them to their own plans.  Following this activity, we saw more collaborative play between the three school friends and they were more successful in including Baby "K" in their plans as well.

Art, with a Little Help from our Friends

Today we did an art project for Small Group that we couldn't do alone!  We needed friends to make this possible, and we had to communicate with each other during the process.  First we put paint in bowls and dipped an assortment of sensory balls in each color.

After tossing all the balls into the swimming pool covered with paper, we stood up and made the balls roll around, and even bounce like popcorn.  We decided who was going high, low, and when to shake it or jump up and down.  We put it down together to add more paint to the balls, and picked it up at the same time in a team lift.  This was super fun!

Old Friends, New Friends

We are welcoming back old friends and new at the beginning of the Fall Session.  :)  For this Small Group activity we worked on hearing beginning sounds of friends' names, and matching up the correct letter link.  Ms. Harmony printed the names and letter links separately, and reused this idea later as a Planning tool.  This activity was a great way to practice reading and saying our friends' names and developing phonemic awareness.

Another way we talked about friendship this week was through finger painting and storytelling.  Here, Ms. Harmony presented the idea by talking about "Red Friend" who liked to play alone.  She had a great ideas and really liked working on her own plans.  Another friend at school, "Blue Friend," also liked to play alone.  That's why we have an Alone Table.  Sometimes that's a great place to choose.  But one day, Red Friend and Blue Friend started working together.  They SHARED their ideas by working on the same plan at the same time!  When they worked together, they got something new!  "Purple ideas!"  When we work with other friends, we also get to play in new ways and hear new ideas.  Sharing a plan is fun!

Then the school friends were given their own opportunity to tell a story about Blue Friend and Red Friend.  We talked about whether the friends were playing alone, next to each other, or if they were playing WITH each other.  

(Friend "K" prefers not to put her fingers in the paint.  She solved her problem by getting paintbrushes from the art easel so that she could still participate in the activity.  Good thinking "K!")

Then when friends moved into Work Time, we could use the same language that we had just practiced in Small Group.  When we work together on the same plan at the same time it's called "sharing."

We can also choose to work alone and that's a great way to hear and practice doing our own ideas!  Friend "S" was celebrating her birthday and used the monkey peg board to make a birthday cake!  Happy Birthday, Friend "S."  You are going to have a great time being FOUR!  Wow!  :-O

Camping is Just TOO Much Fun!

The last two weeks have been full of "camping" adventures at Harmony's House!  One of Friend "H's" top plans has been to go camping with his bunny.  He usually tells me about his plans for his rabbit as soon as he comes in the door.  He can't wait to get to the House Area, find the rabbit, pack him up in the carrier and get going into the tent!  He takes such good care of his rabbit, making sure the bunny has food, water, bandages when he needs them, and a soft bed for naps. 

Friend "K's" favorite plan for the tent is to read.  Her top stories include Acorns Everywhere!, Green, and Count to Ten with a Mouse.  She most frequently chooses the baby deer to work with.  Her deer listens to stories, takes naps, and eats in the tent.  She uses fabric squares to make fluffy beds for her deer.

Today, the school friends elaborated in their camping plans to include packing for, and preparing food, for an outdoor picnic.  We had everything including sunglasses, food and silverware, forest pets, and a ring toss game!  It was awesome!

Outside of the House Area, we have worked with forest animals in the Toy and Puzzle Area.  Today we built a forest "small world" with trees, Native Americans, animals, acorns, and pine cones.  In addition to naming different animals that live in the forest, we had interesting discussions about the usefulness of acorns and pinecones to both flora and fauna of the woods.

During Small Group, we used counting bears to think about forest animals and math.  Friend "H" worked on sorting into "family groups."  He put all the yellow bears together into one family, all the red bears together, etc.  He also worked on making A-B patterns and used the cards as a guide to build a pattern.

Friend "K" has practiced A-B patterns a lot.  She was challenged to make more difficult patterns based on bear size and color.  She used her bears to make A-A-B and A-B-B types of patterns.  She really focused and enjoyed making patterns, "something that happens over and over."








Bears, bunnies, and deer aren't the only animals you find in the forest while camping.  Bugs are a big part of the natural world!  Both children enjoyed working at the Alone Table where they matched insect x-rays to the picture cards.

For snack, we also really got a kick out of eating "worms" and "dirt!"  You can't go camping without getting a bit dirty!  But thankfully this dirt was totally edible and super yummy: chocolate pudding, crushed oreo cookies, and gummy worms.

Camping, however, usually includes eating fun snacks and meals!  Although we didn't have a real fire to make foil dinners, roast hot dogs, or fire up a s'more, we did do s'mores in the microwave for snack one day, and they were super yummy!

We also worked some literacy and math into making trail mix.  Sometimes you hike when you are camping, and taking trail mix with you on the trail is a good idea.  We used a pretty fancy recipe to mix up our trail mix!  ;)  Stir it up!  Fill your bag!  And now we are ready to hit the trails!