We have plants!

During our farm week, we planted seeds and they are growing! The kids love to see the seeds they planted turn in to plants! It's a great teacher moment when one pot has only one growing and the other has a lot growing. It's fun to hear why they think they are different. These are also the plants that the plant helper gets to water each day!

Safari, where friendships bloom!

 Pictured are the kiddos working really hard on their friendship bracelets! They are using beads and pipe cleaners. They did a great job putting the beads on those little pipe cleaners. Their fine motor skills are phenomenal! 

Letter T is for Tree!

This week we have been learning all about letter T! Here we are doing fine motor skills with putting our tissue paper leaves on to our "trees". The kids did such a great job concentrating and working hard to create their T's! 

Down on Grandpa's Farm!

Here are a few pictures of the kiddos learning about the farm in the 2 year old classroom! They all do great with all the hands on activities that we do in our classroom!

Here we are painting "dirt" on our pigs with sponges! The kiddos did a great job listening to instructions to not smash the sponge hard on to our pigs so we didn't splatter paint!

Here we are putting cotton balls on our sheep! I had them touch and feel the cotton balls first and we talked about whether they were soft or hard. We then had a conversation about how sheep wool is soft too! Love those teachable moments that we don't necessarily plan on doing!

The Planting of Flowers - New Classroom Job!

In the 2 Year Old classroom we have started a few new jobs! In the afternoon we now do the weather known as the "weather helper" and sing our weather song! Another job we do is the "plant helper" each day I have a child help me water our flowers that we have planted this week for our farm unit! We have two containers with two different kinds of flowers that we planted as a class! I am giving the kids the responsibility of watering the plants every day! I can't wait to have them see the plants start growing! They each helped plant the seeds and water them for the first time!

Just Painting with Hay!

During our farm unit this week, Miss Amanda brought in some hay from her grandpa's farm and we were able to use it to paint our barns! The kiddos did such an awesome job painting their barns with being really engaged too! Enjoy the pictures of your child painting their barns because they were so excited to try something new instead of painting with a paintbrush as they are use to using. Their barns are posted in our classroom for everyone to see how great they turned out!

  

We've Made Another Class Book!

As we read the story, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?" we thought about different things that we could see. This idea turned in to a class book! The first class book of our get to know you sheets was a hit and the kids LOVE looking at it every day and pointing out their friends and their families! 

Our newest book is called, "2 Year Olds, 2 Year Olds What do you see?" and I had asked each child what they saw and everyone gave me an answer and I turned it in to our class book for the kids to look at! I can't wait for them to see it tomorrow! Feel free to ask them to show it to you! I know they would be excited to have you see it!

"Old McDonald Had A Farm"

This week we are learning all about the farm! I had my grandpa bring up some hay from his farm to share it with my kiddos! We were able to bring it outside this afternoon to explore with it! The kids loved it and played with it almost the whole time we were outside! They kept saying they were going to feed the cows and horses on their farm!  

Routine, Routine, Routine!

I hope everyone is enjoying the Rockin' Two's blog! :) The title of this post "Routine, Routine, Routine!" could not be more true in an early childhood classroom! Over the last month of being at Safari I have been implementing a schedule and routine for the kids. The kiddos are rocking it and I couldn't be more proud!

Here we are lining up on our lines to head outside! I didn't even have to prompt them to line up! Once they had their shoes on they went straight to a line! Such a proud teacher!

This week I have started something new for circle time! I have put on the floor a specific spot for each friend to sit. It was a HUGE hit and a success! Circle time this morning was smooth sailing! Each friend was so excited to have their own place to sit at circle time and they were so excited that it was theirs and only theirs! It has helped with the structure at circle time. The kids now stay on their spot during our story and music time! Feel free to ask your child to show you their frog! I know they were excited to find them!

Just Working on our Fine Motor Skills!

During their young age it is VERY important to work on those fine motor skills that are crucial throughout their development. Each week we work on many fine motor skills whether it's tearing tissue paper, using eye droppers, using paint brushes, markers and crayons, or plastic eggs. The kids are doing great with their fine motor skills as we practice them all week! We are currently seeing how many stickers we can get in our classroom for staying on the rug and doing music, being good listeners, and etc. I am using small stickers to help the hand/eye coordination as well as fine motor skills to put them on our paper. For some it started off to be tricky, but it has improved a lot since we started!

Below are pictures of us working on using eye droppers to create our eye dropper art! We used food coloring mixed with water and coffee filters to work on our squeezing of the eye droppers and then squeezing the food coloring water on to the coffee filters. The kids did great with this task and created awesome art projects too! It took a little while for the kiddos to work the eye droppers, but once they got it they were doing great!

During our Zoo Animals unit we learned about polar bears! We even watched live animal cams at the zoo in San Diego. The kids LOVED seeing the animals move and eat too! We were able to watch the polar bears, apes, koala bears, elephants, panda bears, and the giraffes at the zoo in Colorado Springs! Below is our polar bear art project we did using shaving cream and white school glue mixed together. This created a puffy paint texture to our polar bears once they dried!

It's Discovery Time!

During our busy scheduled day, the kiddos get time to have discovery time in the morning and afternoon. Most people would refer to this type of discovery time as "play". I refer to it as discovery time because the kids are not just "playing" they are discovering new things! I have provided a link for parents to read entitled "10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play" (http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/child-development/10-things-every-parent-should-know-about-play) I would much rather have them use the word discovery time rather than play, but it still shows parents how important it is in their child's life! Enjoy the pictures of your kiddos during our discovery time in our classroom!