Many Ways To Play With My Blocks

                                                     I am making a building for my dad.

                                           I am making a city

                                           My animal house.

       M just started his preschool this week--he was enjoying stacking the wooden blocks, Mashallah!

                                           I made a boat --

My reflection:
Few new students joined with us this week -so I wanted to keep my classroom activities with simple and open ended materials for both older and new children to explore, communicate, and interact with each other.Today I found out children were more interested to engage with all the wooden blocks.  At the beginning, all of them started to work individually.  I was observing M, he was the youngest one in my class. He was observing carefully what other children were doing and gradually he started to pick up large wooden blocks from the block unit. I was amazed to see the way he stacked each block on the other blocks. He was holding it gently and putting it so that it would not fall on the floor. E told me, "Teacher look at my boat-it is ready to sail now." Z stopped playing at the dramatic play area, joined with E and both of them pushed the wooden boat for sailing. Z decided to add some animals in his creation. Mashallah! I was surprised and amazed to see their unique style of playing with the blocks and it was such nice team work like adults.They were communicating,sharing, and waiting to take turns .

Exploring Lines

H was carefully drawing lines. 

She made little curve with her felt.

                                               They are going to the water Park.

                                        Mama Mermaid, Dada Mermaid and baby Mermaid.

                                         There is a monster.

•My Reflection :

This is a completely new concept for me to encourage children with drawing lines. I was wondering how I can introduce this activity to my preschoolers. What will they do –will they stick to just drawing lines?  Will they scribble or draw something else? It filled all of  my thoughts this wonder and I was curious to observe them. Morning Class –when all of the children came -I sat down with them and on a large paper drew a line with a felt and told them ,”This is a line.” I Also  encouraged them to find some lines from around our class room. They all were excited to find lines –they pointed table edge, poster  , ceiling, door - everywhere they found lines. Once we finished our line hunting adventure, I set the art table with felts and large white paper for each child.

•I was observing all of them and they all were drawing lines carefully .Some of them were interested to change the felt color as well. “H” was using brown felt for her lines-she drew a few lines and told me –Teacher, look, water –I was wondering what she was trying to draw. I said, I can see you drew some lines –I can see that its look like water. She made a little curve with the felt which gave the water little wave .She was changing her felt color, sometimes she picked green and sometimes yellow. She was enthusiastically drawing and took a long time to finish her art. Once she was done, she said—inside the water there are Mama Mermaid, dada mermaid and baby Mermaid. They are  going to the water park .I noticed that all of them were holding hands-she said ,they are holding hands or they will be lost. Finally she drew another figure and said –look this is sea monster-all mermaid need to hide now.

DADDY FOUND A TREASURE

I am making a boat.

                                          A said, "My water is green." M said, "My one is blue."

                                               I am making big red boats-too many waves.

                                           H said, "red ship will save your boat!"

                                             My dad found treasure.

MY REFLECTION:

•Children were excited to share what they were doing with the felt pens and drawing lines.When I showed the photos of their activities they really enjoyed looking at them.  It was amazing to observe their conversation and sharing with each other. They were reminding their peers and recalling information about the activity.

•I set up the activity on a large paper for a small group of children. I had a great time observing the way they were interacting with each other.

•M was drawing a boat and other girls drew boats as well using different colours. They were talking and helping  each other .M said her dad pressed the green button and he found lots of treasure from the sea. He found it a long time ago .H joined with us while we were sharing the photos-she said a Red ship helped your boat-because sea monster will come soon.

•I think this group activity was helping the children communicate and share the experience with each other. They were respectful ,cooperative and enthusiastic while doing this activity I was glad to observe how drawing lines  took the children to a detailed imaginary world!

Seeds Grow

We have been  learning about plants for the past two weeks. It was a huge and interesting  topics to covered with the preschoolers.  I encouraged the children to collect seeds and branches from home and outside while we were walking. We were sharing our thoughts and ideas about seeds and fruit when we were having our morning and afternoon snacks. Planting is a very interesting activity for most of the children.They feel valued and respectful when they have the opportunity to engage with this practical activity. I grabbed some Mung bean from my home and saved some avocado seeds for our science experiments in the classroom. Once I placed them with the magnifying glasses,Alhamdulillah, it was amazing to observe  how excited and curious the children were.They were putting the seeds in the cup with soaked cotton balls, they also buried the seeds inside the pot with soil.  All of them were so excited to pour water into the pot. They were sharing their ideas about what they have in their back yards, what they have seen in the garden, what kind of fruit they love to eat, etc. I asked who created all the plants for us, and they said Allah!

Money and Math

 1:Children were learning about Canadian Currency .

 2:They were counting how much they had and sharing their thoughts to with each other.

 3:I added paper money with the coins.

 4:They were planning what they would buy with their money.

 5:Some of them were already familiar with the terms - Dime-Tooney-Looney.

6:One child said he wants to be a Banker.

I wanted to provide something interesting for the children's math activity.We had been focusing on using shapes puzzles, colour sorting , and shapes with various objects from September until now. When I set up my little classroom corner with Canadian currency, I was joy-filled to observed the children enthusiastically interacting with each other and with the money.They decided to move the money to the dramatic play area where we had a grocery store and cash box.They were selling the veggie and coffee -and taking turns to use the cash box.

Snow Fall

ASSALAMUALAIKUM DEAR PARENTS,
Sprouts of Iman preschool will remain closed today, due to heavy snow fall.Inshaallah we will be open January 6th, 2014.May Allah keep your family safe. Have a nice and enjoyable winter holiday.
Thank you
Fatima
Manager/Teacher
Sprouts of Iman Preschool.

Color Mixing Experiment

After pressing on the bag, M wondered how blue and yellow mixed together turned green.

 Children were gently scooping the colours inside their zip lock bags and pressing the bag. They wondered what would happen after mixing the colours.

 M was pressing his finger on the bag and was watching how the colour changes.

M decided to roll the zip lock bag to observe what happened.

 H was also curious to observe what happened  after squeezing the bag.

This was our little science experiment with the temperas paint and zip lock bags.  Different children had their unique perspective while they were interacting with this activity. Some of them decided to press the bag and wanted to observe what happened after pressing on the bag.  Some of them were drawing with their fingers on the bag and excited to see their creativity. Younger children were more active with their squeezing and rolling activity. It was exciting and fun for them and at the end, all of them learned that blue and yellow together make the colour green.