Today we began the day reading  “Commotion in the Ocean”.  We talked about ocean animals and tried to emulate the way they look and move. The book showed us animals like sharks, whales, lobsters, swordfishes, octopuses and sea turtles. We also listened to “There Were Ten in Bed” a book about counting backwards from 10 to 1, in the same fashion as “Ten Little Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed”.

Children enjoyed music time on the bridge again today, and Hokey Pokey is being mastered!!! Ms. Tami and Marty joined us today for the fun!

We also went for another wagon ride around the neighborhood and noticed more about the changes around us. Today we paid special attention to the blooming Redbuds!

For reading aloud children listened to Paulina read “Little Engine” by Lois Lenkin and “Brown Bear” by Eric Carle. This time Brown Bear was read singing to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle”.

Attempting to help our children with learning to communicate emotions in peaceful ways, we have decided to scale down on the bigger activities for a few days and “go back to the basics”. The combination of VERY strong emotions and little language and social skills makes the stage around the 2 years old extremely intense. Some deal with these issues by hitting, biting, pushing, crying, yelling or staying away from others. Our plan is to closely shadow children’s interactions to do more emotional coaching and preventive intervention. Helping them by modeling what to say and do when the situation arises is key. Consistency here is also an essential strategy, all the teachers (and parents) need to have similar responses to the problem. So we are inviting you to join us in what is perhaps the most important and essential skill to be learned at this stage; to communicate emotions in non-aggressive ways.

Here is our basic script:

Sometimes it is necessary to physically stop the action, staying calm and separating them, we can say:

–“ I will not let you bite __(name)___” or “ I will help you stop biting___________”

It is also important to “honor the impulse” :

–“Are you trying to say “stop” ?

–“ Can you say, I AM ANGRY”? (or the emotion that applies to the situation, making guesses is a good tool, it helps the grown up to tune in to the child’s emotions and fosters the bonding and connection between them)

It is good to give some “social information”

–“Biting (hitting, pushing) hurts, we do not bite your friends”

Redirecting to bite something else or to channel the impulse in a more acceptable way:

–“Looks like you need something to chew (hit or push) on, you can bite (hit or push) on this”

–“It looks like you are really mad, you can stomp your feet (or roar!)”

It is also important for us to figure out at what time of the day and in what situations are all these events happening. Tami mentioned to us that in all daycares, the most biting and hitting happens between 10:30 and noon. The combination of getting tired and hungry makes this more possible. This is why we have added a crunchy snack at around 10:30 everyday. Snacks like carrots and pretzels are ideal for this purpose since it may help preventing biting as well.

Putting special attention to our transitions is also necessary when emotions are running high for our WWF. We are revising and trying to make them as smooth as possible, right now we still feel that our transitions from outside to lunchtime and departures at the end of the day need the most attention. We will continue working on finding the procedures.

So! May PEACE be with all of you and our little ones!

Cheers,

Paulina, Lisa and Marty.

After spending some time coloring, working with play dough and going outside with Lisa,this morning WW’s worked on matching and memory games. Some worked with Amy at the housekeeping table and some used their small rugs to sit on the floor to work with Paulina.

For reading aloud today the children read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” by Eric Carle for second time this week and “Dancing Feet” (another favorite) by Craig & Brown. Children at WWF’s have been especially interested in colors, animals and numbers. Books like “Brown Bear” (and the whole series), the “Blue Chameleon” and “My Many Colored Days” by Dr. Seuss have been of great use and inspiration for this new interest.

Yesterday afternoon WWF’s spent a lot of time outside enjoying the warmer weather.  They continued transferring bean sprouts into small transparent pots. Children are watering the bean plants daily and have also learned to be careful when handling them.

In a more practical note, our “Wee Wee-ests” (Olivia, Sloane and Elizabeth) have been learning to drink from a cup using a straw. In doing this we have realized that they are all very good at sucking from the straw and getting the liquid into their mouths, but sometimes they don’t keep it in. We keep practicing and observing the results.

In our constant search for more insight into the world of 2 year olds we had the pleasure to sit in two of Dr. Medina’s talks yesterday. We are very interested in his findings and would like to recommend to our parents reading these books. Here’s a link to more information about his work.

Despite another rainy day, we have made the best of it by taping a big piece of paper to the floor, squeezing glue all over it, and having fun with glitter.  Rubbing our fingers through it was a great sensory experience.  Our wee ones enjoyed shaking it on to the paper and watching an array of colors appear.  We also glued various shapes in all colors and sizes and made circles with our dot markers.

Since we can’t be outside, we brought the sand in to us, and opened our sandbox.  We put some of our seashells and shovels in our box, and enjoyed the morning.

Miss Paulina did a great job with yoga this morning.  They stretched and relaxed to her great music selections.

At lunch time, WWF’s are working on learning how to serve themselves. Using tongs and big spoons they take turns serving their food transferring food from big bowls to their own plates.

After lunch we had a birthday party with our brand new birthday hats. We sang, blew out the candles, counted and talked about how old we are.

Lisa

Today some of our WWFs began the day playing birthday party in the housekeeping area.  They pretended to cut their birthday cake, put them on plates and offered pieces to their friends. Everyone seemed to be interested in the topic, so we decided it was time to finally get our hands on the birthday hats project that had been waiting for us.

Beginning with a brief look to the “Birthday at the Zoo” book,  children stamped dots of paint, choosing their own colors on a birthday hat printed template. The teachers cut the hats while the children practiced using scissors on craft paper. Making little holes on the side we used pipe cleaners for holding the hats in place. Children and teachers sang Happy Birthday to each child as they finished their hats. We are waiting for another opportunity to play birthday party again and bring the hats out and add some more interest to this long lived theme!

This morning we also did our regular music session. After our ussual greeting song and some well known popular songs, the focus seemed to shift into drumming. With a sequence of three songs the children improvised their own rhythmic accompaniments, echoed rhythmic patterns and created thir own. Our youngest ones joined in by bouncing, clapping and tapping on their legs.

We also had a surprise visit!!! Our friend Mac (who began the year with us but left us for care closer to his home) visited us and stayed for some play time and lunch!

For reading aloud the children read “My Friend Bunny” and “Hush. A Thai Lullaby”.

Have a wonderful day!

Today,the WWF’s worked with Lisa coloring boiled eggs. The children assisted Lisa on the preparation of the project materials and they selected the colors to for their egg dipping. They also stirred the eggs with a spoon to ensure each egg would be totally covered with the coloring mixture.

This morning we also had a very productive music session. Children sang “Aram Sam Sam” creating their own movement using the colored scarves. We also talked about the colors they chose to have as we took the scarves out. With the scarves too, we sung “The wheels on the bus” WF’s style (When Maite is on the buss, go “m, m, m. When Finn is on the bus, go f, f, f..).

For reading aloud today we read “Bunny Tale” and “You and Me, Little Bear”

What a great start to the week!  We enjoyed some simple collaging of many different things today: tissue paper, shapes in all different sizes & colors, letters, cotton balls, and straws just to name a few.

When we engage in art activities, we always make your child aware of what they are doing and help them to reflect on their work. We use art for a time of vocabulary development, concept development (learning shapes, colors, big versus small) and problem solving (what goes first, what will we need).  Conversations also help children appreciate art.   We try to convey the following messages:  I am aware of what you are doing, I am interested in your efforts and in you, I will help you look closely at your own work, and I appreciate your growing confidence!

We had fun dancing today!  Due to winter weather this morning, we needed to burn off some energy inside.   Finn and Jonathon loved the fire truck song!  Our WWF can sure use their bodies to express their ideas, to respond to music,  and to convey their feelings.  Encouraging them to vary their responses to different musical phrases, helps them to learn about the body’s ability to move and they use time and space in many different ways!
Looking for different textures to explore for the infants in our house, we taped a big piece of bubble wrap to the floor. Olivia, Sloane and Pnei’el were very interested in the sounds it made and the feeling in their fingers and knees when they experimented with it.

For story time WWF’s read Bunny Days byao Nyeu.

We also spent  some time outside this afternoon.  We are loving our “circle” for our wheeled toys!  They are really getting the hang of peddling!  These toys are great for building muscle strength while promoting balance and coordination!

Hats off to Tami, her husband, and children for working on our “WWF” gated area this weekend.  Check it our for yourselves, you will be amazed!  They also installed an outdoor art easel for us on the back of our house!

 

Have a great week, and we will have another update soon!

 

Today WWFs worked on sorting buttons by attributes (colors and shapes). Using their individual rugs to define their space and to help them work without being interrupted, children lined up their buttons in rows according to the attribute they chose. They also counted them.

Some children chose to work with playdough and practice making candles (work that we started departing from our reading aloud “Birthday Zoo”) and singing happy birthday. We have also linked our playdough time to “Patty Cake” making little buns and patting and pricking as we chant this rhyme. Finn has specially enjoyed making the playdough look like mud and getting animals and trains stuck in it.

This week we have added bubbles and color to our water play. Children have especially enjoyed this, feeling excited and curious. We have also added opportunities for them to learn to squeeze water off of cloth rugs. This a sophisticated skill to learn for 2 year olds and they specially enjoy it. We have broken this activity into the following steps:

Our WWFs finally seem to be old enough for larger group story times to become part of our daily routine. Before this, reading had been done mostly to 1-3 children with a teachuer. We are using individual rugs to help them with identifying their own sitting space and learning to listen to the story without interrupting or distracting their friends.

We can also officially say that for most of our WWF sippy cups are a thing from the past. And they are VERY proud! (all that pouring work is paying off :)).