Click below to download the Tots 2 Snack Calendar for easier viewing alongside your personal calendar:
Happy New Year!
Hope you are all doing well! We wanted to pass along a few reminders and notes on what's going on in our classroom.
Monday, 1/16 - No School, Dr. Martin Luther King Day
We also wanted to share with you some information about how we choose what to put out in the classroom each week. You've likely noticed that we always have a few areas set up for sensory play (the water table and the sand table) and also will frequently include a messier sensory activity at an additional table in the classroom. Why messy play? Believe it or not, it's not just so you don't have to clean up at home! Messy sensory play also provides whole body developmental opportunities for your kids:
Physical Development - squishing, squeezing and spreading materials of varying textures, weight, and viscosity encourages fine motor development and provides important feedback to children's developing muscles and to their sensory systems.
Language Development - describing what you see in messy play can help children's language development. Hearing the words slippery, sticky, stretchy while experiencing them physically, gives a different understanding than simply hearing these words without context. Think about all the wonderful conversations that are sparked through sitting at a table, playing with dough!
Cognitive Development - messy play is early science! Kids learn about cause and effect as well as how different materials react in different ways to the same stimulus.
On top of this, messy play is fun! For various reasons, many toddlers and preschoolers these days have less experience with messy play than children in earlier generations. Your kids might need some coaxing, and it may take several times before they are ready to dive into messy play. That's ok! Just because they aren't interested in it yet, doesn't mean they'll never be interested in it.
If you'd like to try some messy play at home, we're including a few recipes below.
And a quick thank you for the holiday cards and gifts! We feel incredibly grateful to have you and your children in our lives.
We look forward to seeing you on Monday, January 23rd!
Kristin and Byl
“All learning starts as a sensory experience. Playing with [playdoh, silly putty, etc..] or anything, is how we begin to understand and appreciate it. The lessons we learn may not lead to new innovations or inventions, but the act of allowing the world to enter us through our senses, to process those sensations, to make connections between other sensations both past and in the future is where learning begins.”
Tom Hobson
Playdough
2 cups flour
2 cups water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 cup salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
Food Coloring
Combine dry ingredients in large saucepan. Add wet ingredients (including food coloring) and mix over low heat, until you get the consistency of dough. This will take awhile. Take the hot dough out of the pan and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth. I would do this for about 5 minutes until the dough cools down a bit and then let your child help. Even if the dough initially feels a little sticky when you take it out of the pan, it will become smoother with the kneading. This dough will last a really long time if sealed in an airtight container.
Silly Putty
Combine 2 parts white Elmer’s glue with 1 part liquid starch. Stir, mix, and knead until you've reached the desired consistency. This mixing part can take a long time! If your silly putty is too sticky, add more liquid starch. If it's too slippery, add more glue. When finished, you can put the putty in a ziplock bag and it will last a long time. You can also add food coloring during the mixing stage of this recipe if you'd like your silly putty to be colored.
Oobleck
Combine 1 ½ cups cornstarch with 1 cup water. If you’d like to, you can also add 3 tablespoons tempera paint. Mix until desired consistency is reached - you may need to add slightly more cornstarch or water. Remember, the cool thing about oobleck is that depending on the amount of pressure you apply to it, it will act either like a solid (more pressure) or liquid (less pressure).