On our playground, Waipao, we have 2 balancing beams.  One is short and one is long.  The balance beam is an important activity for building gross motor skills. Walking on the balance beam uses both sides of the brain. This strengthens the connections in the areas of the brain later used in learning to read.  In addition, it’s a piece of outdoor equipment that promotes social development and creative play.

Today, we played our drums with drumsticks. The drums were all colorful and well decorated.  Thank you families for helping your child with this drum activity at home.  We had a drum parade around our classroom.  It was fun but very loud.  We discovered that the bottom of the drum has a louder sound than the top of the drum.  We will continue to use our drums to play Christmas songs and to march to marching music. 

Happy December.  We welcomed December with drum beats.  The children were proud to share and play their November drum making PACT activity for their classmates.  Everyone did an awesome job.  We will keep the drums in school until the last school day in December.  We will be using them to play different holiday songs.