** I receive curriculum from Experience Early Learning (formally known as Mother Goose Time) for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. This is my 5th year using Experience Early Learning, and I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Experience Early Learning.
This week, we are exploring the beach with Experience Early Learning. We have had a lot of fun playing with sand. The lessons and activities have been quite messy, but it is worth the mess. Playing on the beach is one of our most favorite things to do. And since we are not allowed to be on the beach right now because of Covid-19, we had a lot of fun pretending to play on the beach in our very own home!
We started the week by playing a game. We spread a towel out on the floor and pretended it was a sandy beach. We took turns picking cards that had different body parts on it. We found that body part and put it in the sand (or on the towel). We reviewed the body parts we already knew, but also learned some new ones, like shin, calf, ankle, and wrists. We had fun coming up with our own body parts that were not on the cards. It was really funny to watch them pretend to put their forehead in the sand.
Experience Early Learning sent a recipe for sand playdough that was super easy to make and a lot of fun. We made sand beaches with the playdough. We also made sand playdough food. My kids hid real seashells in the middle of their playdough dumplings and pressed pasta shells onto the top of it. This was an awesome activity for stregthening fine motor skills. When my kids were finished, they had to find all the noodles and shells. They used their fingers to spread the dough apart and their pincher grasp to pick the shells out of the playdough.
Each month we learn a new character trait. This week, we learned about “determination” and what it means when we are determined to do something. We read a story about a bear who lost his treasure and almost gave up looking for it. He finally found it with the help of his friend Bunny, who refused to give up. We shared our own stories of a time when we were determined to do something that was difficult, but we were not going to give up.
(*Side note: Every day, I read to my girls from a chapter book. We are currently reading Matilda. I read, “She was determined to get this right.” My oldest stops me and says, “Mom! It’s the word you taught us. Determined. So, I know Matilda is going to keep trying until she gets it right.” I was a little shocked that she remembered such a big word. Especially since I had taught the word to them a few days before I read this in the book.)
One last activity we did this week was make our very own pair of sunglasses!! We were all very excited for this activity. The pretend sunglasses turned out cute! Our only problem with them was they were too big for the girl’s faces and kept falling off. But, we still had fun pretending with our new sunglasses.
We had a lot of fun pretending to explore the beach this week. We are excited to explore some more next week!
Alphabet Bears Preschool 