Restaurant Play

Michael enjoys playing restaurant with me.  He likes to take my order and fill a tray with pretend food.  He also likes to use the pretend microwave to heat up the food he gives me.

Many times he will come over to where I sit and tell me he is out of certain foods and then asks me if I would like something else.











I like that his imaginative play is expanding and he can create stories to go along with our dramatic play.


 I would like to make him a felt pizza for he likes to pile food on our trays and I think he would enjoy the process of adding pepperoni and vegetables to the pizza dough.  I wonder if pizza stores would give us a clean pizza box to put the felt pieces into...that might be a nice field trip to take Michael to see how a real pizza is made.  Marcos might do that, I'll have to call.

Puzzle time

Michael loves to do his puzzles.  Lately we have been working on geography puzzles of the United States and also of the whole North America.

His reading is so good that he is even learning some of the names of states and countries that he puts together.









Here he is busy putting together the North American continent. 

I try to connect the flat puzzles to the actual globe where each place is located so he understands how the world fits together.  He is interested in learning about different places and we are working on our continent boxes to fill them with items that represent and/or are actually from each continent. 

 As we live in Vermont, such a small place, I want him to discover how much there is beyond our borders.

Learning about water

 Water, Water Everywhere!



Today we read about water and the forms it takes in liquid, steam, and solid ice.  Michael reminded me that we had held ice cubes in our hands and it dripped and was cold.  We looked at all the ways we use water and where it comes from.  We talked about how lucky we are to live near a great lake filled with fresh water to use.  Lake Champlain is also where Champ lives, and Michael loves Champ.  Champ is the mascot of the baseball team  the Lake Monsters here in Burlington.

 Here is the other book that we read that talked about the forms of water and also about temperature.  Michael said when he is sick we sometimes take his temperature or he can roll his sleeves up when he is too hot.  I liked his idea of how to cool his body by rolling his sleeves up when he might have a fever or be too hot.

 

 



Michael was curious and asked to do some drawing.   He asked me how to spell "This is water." and proceeded to put the sentence on top of his page and then to draw blue water on the bottom.  He used a period at the end of his sentence though it is hard to see.

I think today I am most struck by his willingness to listen to me read from a book that is not  in story form.  He really enjoyed the photographs in the books of actual objects and people.  I am trying to teach him to be a careful observer so he can really notice and take in all the world has to offer.

Felt Solar System

Felt Solar System


 Michael and I got out the felt solar system the other day and lined up the planets with their labels.  Michael likes to hold one of the planets or the sun while we talk or read  books about each one.  It is not to scale but it gives him an idea of what they look like and has the names sewn on labels to match to each planet. 

 

 For example, Venus is very hot so we chose white as the hottest color while Mercury is very rocky so we chose a dark gray to reveal this.  I added green continents and blue for the oceans on Earth.

 Jupiter is lots of gases and the colors almost seem to swirl about so we chose red and yellow while we made a yellow ring around Saturn for recognition.  Uranus we chose a cool gray and Neptune has shades of blue in it.

Michael likes to dress up in his space suit and pretend to fly to planets or the moon.  I will post later about the moon felt mat I made for him to explore.  I like his curiosity in learning about new things.  There is so much to explore and to be shown it is exciting to watch him take it all in.

Green Mountain Coffee Field Trip

Green Mountain Coffee visitor center is located in an old train station in Waterbury, Vt.  We took Michael so he could see the old station and learn a little about
Dad's favorite drink.

Michael skipped up to the station and liked to look way down the tracks to see if a train would come rolling by.

Michael liked trying on the pack that farmers carry filled with coffee berries that they will take the beans out of to make coffee.

We looked at the globe and put our fingers on all the places that coffee plants grow.

New Tray Work On Our Shelves

These are buttons that Michael likes to spray and then scrub them until they are clean.  They are old buttons that he can spray to his heart's content.  The sprayer takes two hands for him to spray so it is good practice to build strength in his fingers for later writing activities.

This is a scale we found when we thrifted the other day.  Michael likes to place the numbers to make it balance.  Later when he learns addition he will be able to add smaller numbers on one side to equal a larger number so that it balances.

This is a sorting activity of felt spring stickers that I found at the dollar store.  Michael likes to sort them and then make pictures with them.  It is a good activity for noticing differences in objects that are similar. 

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd

 This is the completion of the first year of the Atrium that I helped start at our church.  We had an overwhelming response and had to break the class into two groups that alternated every other week.   

The children really responded to their faith in wondrous ways. The children learned to make silence so to listen to their environment and the beginning of a prayer life. 

At this prayer table we met and prayed and grew in our faith.

Michael was drawn to the Altar Corner to prepare the altar as Father would in church.  He kept his hands on his lap and spent time in quietness looking at the lit candles.  I wonder where his thoughts and prayers took him.

The children all learned how to snuff a candle with the "snuffer".  We lit a candle for Jesus' light as we met and prayed together and read from the Bible.  This was a favorite for most of the children, Michael really enjoyed it too.

As I think back over the year and reflect on the progression our Atrium has taken I am most struck by the complete faith and earnest prayers the children shared through out the year.  In a beautiful room we gathered to proclaim Jesus, the Good Shepherd who takes care of his sheep.