Uninterrupted Play

We took some time today to pause and watch the children as they worked. We asked them the question "What surprises live in these materials?" and then let them explore the provocations and invitations that we had set out for them. It was a wonderful day of uninterrupted play!

The invitation set in this space included sticks, animals, fabric, and loose parts. The children were excited to engage in this imaginative play, most stayed at the table for quite some time.

As these friends played together they began to pretend that they had to create their homes to get the animals out of a storm:

FD: I need to hurry making this home because the storms coming and the animals need to get safe in their home.

CK: Everybody's safe! I had to cover all the bushes so the animals could be safe!

SB: The storm is almost here, run!
FD: No, stay in your house!

At another table we invited the children to explore with letters. As we have continued to work with paper we have seen the children finding letters in their work. They started out by cutting pictures and letters out in the sensory table. At the end of last week I showed this container to the children and asked them if they thought we could store our letters that we cut out in it and they excitedly said yes! They made a wrote each letter of the alphabet on a small piece of paper and today we finished putting the letters on each drawer. Then it was time to cut out letters and put them in their spot!

Friends enjoyed exploring on the light table. They love to build so we added see through colored blocks to our light exploration!

This friend took his time making this creation!

We worked on transforming paper too! We used a new origami book to try to make some new shapes. The children learned about mountain folds and valley folds! The folding that the children are doing is amazing!