February 7, 2020

Cooking with Diane

Socialization/Fine Motor Skills/Taking Turns/Color Recognition

The children helped Diane press the lemon on a Lemon Juicer, and she scaffolds them as they pushed down to release the lemon juice. Then the lemon juice was poured into a bowl of strawberries and blueberries. Each child participated in mixing the fruit.

The Benefits of Cooking With Children

• Build Self-Confidence.

• Use of Imagination. Encourage children to use their imagination to express themselves as they participate in cooking

• Sensory Experiences

• Improve Math and Science Skills (how many strawberries or blueberries on their plate and mixing all the ingredients)

Sensory/Fine Motor Skills/Creativity/Exploration

This hands-on activity provides visual experiences as they engage.  Each child has a different way to explore with clay.  They manipulate the clay in a way that distinguishes them from one another. Some touched and examined it with their hands or used tools. A child’s brain is taking shape along with the clay.  

Alexandra took a small quantity of clay and moved her hands back and forth. As she maintained the movements, Alexandra gradually formed a round shape.

Ophelia takes small pieces of clay from a lump of clay. She observed and investigated each piece and carefully rolls the pieces in a back and forth motion creating, coils.

Ophelia: “Sandra, look, a snake!”

As Emily touched and observed two round shape pieces of clay, she immediately said, “Rocks!” I wonder if Emily associated them as rocks because of the color, shape, or texture. As children learn from different environments, they formulate an understanding of the objects they see and associates them with similar images.

Let us welcome Dalia, our new classmate! She explored her sense of touch and used a popsicle stick to create different impressions on the clay.

Sensory/Creativity/Color

Creating visual art with shaving cream and tempera paint allows children to mix, and explore its smooth texture using paintbrushes, their hands, and fingers.  The tactile surface provides endless opportunities for children to play and discover.  Sensory play is unstructured, open-ended, and not product-oriented; it is the purest sense of exploratory learning.   As they delve into the paint and shaving cream mix, the children feel safe to change or experiment with what they are doing.  It encourages children to maneuver their hands, fingers, paintbrushes, and build their fine motor skills and coordination.  

Annabelle: "Look, Annabelle, in the mirror!"

Ericksen: "Look, Sandra, it's me!"

Blocks

Fine Motor/Imagination/Creativity/Language/Geometric shapes

These sticky blocks are innovative as children maneuver them to create a structure. Each block is an idea the helps them to continue building until their arrangement is complete.

Annabelle: “I building a house for mommy and daddy!”

Teagan builds two houses. She pointed out that the green triangle house is hers, and the red triangle house is mommy's and daddy's house.

Ophelia: “Happy birthday cake!” She sang the birthday song and blew the candles.

Creativity/Imagination/Language/Fine and Gross Motor Skills

Teagan: "I am making a bed. This is the blanket (the two squares), and that's the pillow, Sandra (the rectangle shape)."

Annabelle: “I’m building my house! I’m going to clean my house now!”

Annabelle explored the unit blocks as she constructed her structure.  As she grips each block, she decides how and where to place them.   She does not verbally describe her structure, but as she plays, it tells the teacher something about her developmental growth cognitively.   

Children need plenty of space and time to build and rebuild invented and familiar structures. As Annabelle engages in block play, she discovers that she has ideas and that she can bring her ideas to life by creating, transforming, demolishing, and recreating something unique.

Socialization/Cognitive/Language

During circle time, we perform many different Learning activities. I created these circles out of construction paper and laminated them. We use them to identify colors and its shape (circle or round). The children enjoy singing and listening to music, and adding props and movement makes learning fun and interactive.

All the children participated in a guessing game, Name that song!  As the teacher demonstrated different movements of a particular song without using words, the children were focused on her hand and body movements.