Monster Feet!

Mr. Sky was blue but the Buds had no time to be blue - our hands were busy making a new batch of playdough and painting tissue boxes and our feet were busy as ever making a lot of racket across the room!  Here is what the day looked like…

Halloween Playdough Fun

Yesterday with Seila, we made fun monster faces using our green playdough which we made a while ago.  With the nearing of our Halloween Party, it was about time to make a new batch with a different Halloween featured color…Can you guess what color(s) we added?  K and J immediately joined the table knowing that a cooking activity was about to start.  K helped measure 2 cups of flour and ½ cup of salt.  After adding in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and vegetable oil, J helped mix the dough with a spoon.  With a bit of help from the teachers, we added 1 cup of boiling water.  Then we kneaded the dough until the texture was just right, nice and soft :)  By then, K joined in with curiosity and helped add some colors.  If you combine yellow and red, did you know that you can make…ORANGE!?  Once our new batch of playdough was ready, it was time to play!  At this point, N arrived and joined the fun :)  

Monster Feet 

In the last weeks, we have made and talked about one of the main characters in Halloween: MONSTERS.  There are some friends who feel a bit scared of hearing the word, “monsters” so in Buds, we have been introducing various monsters to show that there can be funny, silly, colorful, cute monsters as well as scary monsters.  For this activity, we used empty tissue boxes.   E and Y colored one in purple paint and W and N colored the other in green paint using paint brushes.  After we made sure that all the sides were covered in paint we let the paint dry up.  Please wait and see how these feet will evolve and how we will incorporate these feet in our play ;)   

Balance Beam + Plastic Balls + Cushion Slides

Together with S, R and L enjoyed doing lots of gross motor movements playing inside a ball pool, going up and down the cushion slides and moving their feet busily across the room.  We also enjoyed connecting the traintrucks and moving about busily in front of the kitchen set serving plates full of yummy food to our friends and teachers.

Circle Time 1

We gathered in a circle hearing the familiar sound of We Are the Dinosaurs, and shook the room stomping and roaring like dinosaurs.  We greeted ourselves with a Good Morning song passing a ball from one friend to another.  This seemingly simple activity was quite challenging for us  because it required eye-hand coordination to pass the ball while keeping track of who to pass the ball to.  Then for the next activity, we used something really exciting: a parachute!  We played a game resembling freeze dance while we listened to the Adams Family theme song.  We each held onto the rope and we stretched the parachute from every direction and walked together until the music stopped and we stopped too.  Naomie noticed the ball that we used during our Good Morning song and popped it on the parachute.  We tried rustling the parachute without dropping the ball out.  Seeing this, E dropped in her Sunlight and N, her Ao-chan.  It was so much fun feeling the breeze that the parachute was creating and seeing the ball and soft toys shooting up in the air!  

For story time, we read another monster related story, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.  It was a bit spine-chilling anticipating what this Gruffalo would look like and at the same time, we were relieved to find out that the mouse was so small but clever and outwitted all the creatures including Gruffalo himself.  “The mouse found the nut and the nut was good.”  Hearing the last line from the story, we heard the grumble in our tummy and we were happy to have our snacks!

Circle Time 2

Lately, our feet are very busy and maybe at times, perhaps too busy since we also need to learn how to use our gentle feet in the classroom.  Also with bad weather and when we cannot go to the park, we can have excess energy reserved in our body.  We started running, running and running in a circle until our legs got tired.  Then, we switched the music to a slower tempo and this time, we practiced using our gentle walking feet like ballerinas.  J proudly walked saying, “How about me?”  We all did such a good job!  Sitting down in a circle, we each got a pair of rhythm sticks and we made lots of loud noises and came up with many fun ways to use the sticks.  Once we let out all our energy, we had a so-called golden quiet moment to work on a group activity.  We took out the painted tissue boxes and we stuck pointy claws on them to add to our monster feet :)

Thank you for another lovely day! 

Love from all the children in Buds