Purple Week!

Purple Week added another color to our Spanish repertoire; "Morado"!  The children have enthusiastically embraced Spanish, routinely identifying the color of objects in both English and Spanish.  A large part of our week was spent preparing for our field trip as we talked about fire safety and demonstrated the intricacies of the fire fighter's clothing.  Ultimately, the children loved trying on and exploring the "real" fire clothes.  At story time, we read non-fiction and fiction books on the topic, and learned several fire safety songs.  Our field trip was both fun and informative as it brought all of this information together for the children in concrete way.  Many thanks to Reid's dad, Max for donning all the fire gear at the fire station, and to all of the parents who were able to drive and join us on our field trip.  As follow-up on Thursday, the children "wrote" thank you notes to Fire Fighters Diane, Bill, Joe, and Bart.

  

Happy Birthday to Louisa, who turned "Three" on Wednesday!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play!

We will look deeper at Dramatic Play often over the course of this year, as it is one of the most fundamental vehicles of learning for young children.  Within Dramatic Play, children literally "try on" roles as they seek to expand and learn about their world.  Dramatic Play utilizes and extends the children's language skills.  It is also a catalyst for cooperation, creative thinking, problem solving and sharing.  Additionally, it is often a vehicle for teaching Social Studies, as the children often take on the role of various Community Helpers within their play.  This week as we talked about fire safety, our discussions were often reflected in the children's play.  They consistently took the information gleaned at story time and incorporated it into the scripts of their play scenarios.  On any given day in the dress up area, one was apt to hear the following exclamations, "don't touch the stove" or "call 911".   The children processed and applied new information within their play, and that is indeed indicative of learning!

Have a fun and restful weekend!