I Make an Ice-Cream for Mommy

                                       Most popular activity in my Preschool.

                              Children were delighted and excited to play with the Moon Sands.

              Z was carefully scooping the sand and said,"I want to make something".

                             L said ,"I am  making rice for lunch".

                                        Z was really careful not to drop the sand .

                             She was observing what other children were doing?

 I added some marbles to make this activity more interesting for them .

 Z filled the egg cup with the moon sand and made a ball and shouted--"Teacher look what I have made!"

                               She dropped it accidentally and said ,"Oh no it's broken."

She took a long time to scoop the sand again in the egg cup and when she finished ,she said "I made an ice -cream for my Mommy."

Teachers story :
I found that sensory activities in my preschool are really  interesting and engaging for most of my students.Z was distracted that day- she was moving from one activity to another and  was not engaged with any one activity more than one minute.While other children were engaged at the sensory table, I decided to join them and invited Z with me. She joined with me and started to scoop the sand with the ice cream scoop.She was touching it, pouring it from one cup to another.Sometimes attentively observing what other children were doing and trying to follow their activity. I was so surprised to observe that she went to the science table and grabbed some egg cups from there. She filled it with the moon sand and placed it on the table upside down and shouted ,"Teacher look what I made!"She wanted it on her hand,once I helped her to put it on her hand and then she said "I made an ice cream for my  Mommy".

Our Little Architects!

 2:It was amazing to observe a child and his thoughtful style of creating something with the same color and shape

 He was thinking what he should do with three Hexagons?

                                    Teacher I made a tower!

 D picked all red Trapezoids and 1 Green triangle to make a tree.

 M was making a pirate ship and she was taking a long time to set it and match the color as well. Mashallah!

             My boat is sailing

 S decided to make a house for her princess .

Reflection: I often hear, "Children only play at preschool, but I don't see that they bring home any homework or writing from school"-this is a very common comment from parents.

I am an experienced Early Childhood Educator and preschool teacher- yes we do teach children in a fun way, but this is how they learn best.We want to provide the environment where they can have fun, interact with each other,make friends and encourage them to be creative with all the open ended materials. Children learn best from hands-on fun activities.  They do not learn well from worksheets and homework at this age.

The above pictures show some of our last two weeks actively.  As we have a few new children with our older children -it helped for both groups -some of them were learning about basic shapes and colours. On  the other hand, others were creative and thoughtful while they were making something.
It was very interesting to observe them making stories with all the colorful shapes.  They are still interested, so we are continuing with this activity-Mashaallah!