It’s been a wonderful week in room 24! We put out a new material on our art table. Most of this year we have been working with play-dough, fluff, or slime with rollers, cookie cutters, and scissors. This week we put out clay with pipe cleaners. We loved talking to the children about the differences between clay and play-dough- they had so many interesting observations about how the clay felt and explored all of the different things we could make using the new tools. Providing this material promoted conversation such as;
Liam said,” Clay is cold, harder to squeeze” Charlotte added,” Clay is much harder, made spider” Vivienne concluded “it’s muddy puddle, because is brown” Most observed how the clay was harder than play-dough, and had to really work with their hands to mold it. They also noticed that it felt cold. With play-dough, the children usually made cakes, flowers, and animals with the different bright colors we have used all year. With the clay, they changed their choices to reflect the new color (brown) and made trees and muddy puddles. They used the pipe cleaners to make spider legs and to make leaves on the trees. Pushing the pipe cleaners into the hard clay made them exercise their small fine motor skills and to use a pincer grasp, instead of grasping with their whole hand. This is great practice for developing proper grip for markers, crayons, etc. and for using controlled movement and focus. We continued playing with dinosaurs and put out new puzzles, along with large foam "rocks," which we used to make caves and mountains. They have also been making staircases for the dinosaurs to climb, and have had to figure out how to stack rock and place them next to each other, adding an extra rock to each stack. We loved having our all school Shabbat this week. It is so fun to gather with all of the grade levels, especially as the end of the year approaches. It is crazy to think they will soon be in Explorers! We have so much to do in the weeks ahead, and we are so excited to soak up every last minute! Reminders: No school on May 27 m in honor of Memorial Day
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