Workin' in the MUD Kitchen!

Thanks to one of our wonderful parents (J. Covington), we have this awesome new mud kitchen in our outdoor classroom!  We have been enjoying "cooking" with sand, water, mud, snow, and even ice!

Check out the oven!  It's the perfect size for all the birthday cakes and cupcakes we make.

This day we made lemonade and floated tree biscuit "lemons" in it.  They looked just like real lemons!

Sometimes we make hot chocolate.  You have to measure everything JUST right.

This has been a fantastic addition in the few weeks we've had it!  Spring will only bring more fun to the MUD Kitchen!

February is a Great Month to Share Love

This month at Harmony's House we are remembering Black History and celebrating Valentine's Day!  Every month, every day, is a great time to love others and be kind, but February gives us a special opportunity to think about ways to show it.

Loving others requires noticing hidden qualities that make people unique and special!  In this fun box, the students will be invited to shift, smooth, and organize the pebbles to find the hidden heart.

Speaking of hidden things, can you spot the tiny letters hiding in the Explore Table?  These are fun little things to find, especially when we find our friends' and family members' letters!

Sometimes people are lonely around Valentine's Day, or feel unappreciated and under-represented.  Our Toy and Puzzle Area offers the children a chance to "mend the broken hearts" by counting and matching quantity to number.  

A few days ago, Ms. Harmony was reading to a school friend at her home, and she excitedly said, "Look!  She has a hijab!"  Impressive word use, but even more cool was that she shared her positive feelings about someone who was a different religion and culture than herself.  Ms. Harmony added this puzzle of a young girl wearing hijab to help children feel more familiar and comfortable with diversity.

Let's talk about ATTRACTION... magnetic attraction, that is!  One of our tinker tables has a tray of magnetic, and non-magnetic things to explore.  Even some of the sensory bottles have magnetic surprises inside to discover.  Other bottles just have fun Valentine's tidbits.

Let's make play-doh Valentine's together with our cinnamon sticks, heart cookie cutters, L-U-V letters, red glitter, and stampers.  <3  With such a beautiful set up, this table will surely be irresistible to our little love bugs!

When Curiosity Drives Learning

January has welcomed our students with rich opportunities for learning.  When Ms. Harmony looks through the pictures from the past few weeks, she sees children who are focused, engaged, regulated, and learning.  And what makes this aspect even more beautiful is the fact that the learning is all motivated by the children's natural curiosity and interests.

Children at Harmony's House are developing a sense of volume, motor control, and cultural awareness.

They are learning about animals from polar environments, and building their own small world environments to carry out stories for the animals.

They develop critical thinking skills as they encounter problems inherent in play, and solve them.

They are developing sorting skills, puzzle working abilities, and geographical awareness.

They are appreciating the outdoors during Winter time.

They are socializing and solving problems with friends.

They are learning concepts of cause and effect, animal adaptations for surviving in an extreme climate, and artistic expression.

They exercise fine and gross motor muscle groups.

They are thriving!

The beautiful process of learning is visible in each of these photographs.  Thank you for appreciating the value of these children, their ideas, their projects, and their unique abilities and interests.  It is a blessing to be part of their journey in curiosity!

New Year, New Look!

While the school friends have been with their families over Winter Break, Ms. Harmony has been busy giving a few of the Areas a makeover!  After hours of brainstorming, planning, shopping, building, and gathering materials, Ms. Harmony is very excited to share it all with the school friends.  One of the objectives of this makeover was to provide open-ended, curiosity-invoking, play provocations for the children by incorporating REAL or recycled materials.  Fewer lights, fewer electronic sounds, less plastic.

One tinker station in the Toy and Puzzle Area now houses an Asian tapestry, pitcher, vase, and statue.  While appreciating art and decor from another culture, the children will be invited to use tiny spoons to move gems between vases, pitchers, pots, and trays which serves to develop fine motor, mathematical, and socio-cultural abilities/knowledge.

The second tinker station has animals from the Arctic.  Children have opportunities to use spools, gems, rounds, blocks, and snowflakes to build an original setting and a story over and over again.  They also become familiar with the animals living in this region of the world, and might talk about the animal food chains, habitat preservation issues, behavior, and adaptations.

The Explore Table has been filled with rice, scoops, adapted scissors, polar animals, reusable ice cubes, and sequin balls.  This provocation is specifically designed to facilitate discussion about animal camouflage.  Finding the white furred animals in the white rice (AKA "snow") is difficult, both for school friends and for animal predators!

The Book and Block Areas have been updated to include comfy rugs, providing increased comfort for working on the floor and interesting textures in the room.  The Book Area also has new throw pillows and star lights, pictured here in the dark room to get the full effect!  :)  

Updates will likely continue during 2021 as we continue to move toward more authentic materials and experiences for the children.  This is just the beginning, and what a great beginning it is!

Christmas Elves Give from the Heart

The school friends at Harmony's House know what Christmas is all about: bringing joy to those around you, and sharing in it too!  These are the ways our "Christmas Elves" gave from the heart this season:

Each school friend made ornaments for their families, from helping to roll out the dough, selecting cookie cutters, and painting them with glitter when dry.

They hung ornaments on the trees with great precision and care.  

Some friends reverently arranged the stable to create a Christmas scene, reflecting on who was there, what happened so long ago on a very special night, and what this means for us today.

Some friends made festive decorations to ready the house for a big Christmas party!

The "bakery" was busy with little elves making Christmas cookies and cinnamon toast, and other yummy treats!

And finally, we celebrated all together with songs of joy, yummy Christmas tree snacks, and fellowship.

 Merry Christmas to you from us at Harmony's House!  We'll see you back in the new year!

Christmas is Coming!

And we've been preparing to celebrate this holiday!  These are some of the ways we are getting ready for Christmas.  We like to use these village blocks and magnetic Christmas tree to create a complete Christmas village.  

We've engaged our senses with a variety of textured ornaments, Christmas ducks, finger puppets, chimney tubes, sparkly trees and gingerbread boys, and even cinnamon pinecones.  One of the most enjoyable results from this provocation is hearing the children invent stories about Santa going down the chimneys, snowball fights, gingerbread boys outrunning reindeer, and more.  Additionally, the children engaged their fine motor skills by threading fuzzy sticks through the ornaments and hung them on the Christmas tree.

We've worked with green and white paint at the art easel, determining what happens when these colors are mixed.  

One of the BEST part of the Christmas season is driving after dark and seeing the lights!  Night time field trips for preschoolers are impractical, so we turned off the lights and turned on our glow sticks to play with lights.

Some of our friends have become more interested in letters.  Ms. Harmony planned a Small Group activity where each child was given a large letter 'C' for Christmas with a pencil, a fuzzy stick, and a ball of play dough.  One friend in particular, loves the letter 'C' because it is the letter the starts her name!

The children were encouraged to trace the letter with their fingers or pencil.  We talked about how the letter 'C' has a curvy shape.  We tried to form this shape with the fuzzy sticks and/or play dough.

Some of our friends were even able to hear the /c/ sound that 'C' makes and thought of their own 'C' words: candy cane, Christmas tree, carols, and cookies!

Christmas is coming, and we are almost ready!  Songs, lights, smells, letters, and stories... so many ways to fully experience the joyous holiday.