When you give a child a cleaning responsibility, this helps your child learn to develop small motor skills, be independent, cooperate with others, accept responsibility, and experience a sense of pride.  At the end of each week, soap and sponges are put out during back yard time for children to help wash the paint easel.  There is never a shortage of volunteers to help.

With a flannel board, children can do more than just read a favorite story.  They can follow right along by sticking the characters in sequential order.  This is a hands-on activity that helps develop pre-reading skills and comprehension.  Here 2 children work together.  One reads and turns the pages.  While the other child places the characters in correct order.

Aunty Amy worked on Good Friday to change our Dramatic Play Area into an ‘Ulu Airport.  Thank you Aunty Amy.  Of course, that center was a very popular choice today.  We heard a lot of interesting conversations in there such as:  “Buckle up your seatbelts,”  “We’re going to fly all over the world,”  “Put the suitcases in the back,” “Here’s your ticket,” and “If we crash, we’re going to get eaten by the sharks.”

Today was our Easter Egg Hunt.  Mahalo to the families who donated plastic eggs filled with special surprises.  Happy Easter!  Celebrate the resurrection of our Lord!

Play is the primary medium through which children come to make sense of their experiences and construct their concepts about the world.  We provide opportunities to talk and represent their ideas in a variety of ways.  Kala stacked blocks and then demonstrated confidence as a communicator as he shared an elaborate story.  He said, “This is a challenge wall.  Somebody jumps off to catch fish.  All the vampires are going to jump off.  When it falls it’s going to crash.  The crash is going to be so loud…………..”  His story continued for a few more minutes.   It was truly entertaining.

We had free instrument play today.  Free instrument play allows children to freely explore musical instruments and to experiment with beat and rhythm.  We put on an upbeat song with a 3/4 or 4/4 time for the children to play along with.  We sit in a circle and put many different instruments in the middle. Free instrument play also allows children to take turns and wait for an instrument if someone else has what they want to play with.

Today was our field trip to the Hawaii Nature Center.  One of the unique things that we saw was bees buzzing around a hole on a tall tree trunk.  Miss Connie told to the children that it contained a bee hive.  She also taught the children a bee dance.  It involved shaking our behind (as seen here in the photo).  She explained that bees communicate by wiggling their bottoms.  Movement is just one meaningful way to teach young children interesting facts.

There was something big going on in the Messy Materials area today.  Kala, Ka’eo, Bishop, and Zaedan were building a large campfire.  They spent a good twenty minutes working together to continuously add kindling to the make pretend fire.  The pile doubled in size from what you see here in the picture.  Kala said, “We’re cooking corn and eggs and popcorn.”  Zaedan said, “We’re camping.”

Thank you for working with your child to complete a map of their community.  We will have them displayed around the room this week. Today, we shared them, first in large group.  Then, they shared in pairs.  As we walked around the room, listening to them share, it was evident that they were proud of their finished product.  We heard many descriptive words and children pointing out landmarks that are meaning to them.  Awesome Job! 

Dramatic Play is not only reserved for indoor center time.  The outdoor area, allows children to use large pieces of fabric and stuffed animals on wider open spaces that can’t be found in an enclosed classroom.  Destiny and Tiani created a scenario of being on the beach.  They worked together to spread out the large blue material.  The baskets contained their picnic lunch.