Blog: Middlers

Happy Friday! We made it through another week! Next week it will be June. This blog will continue until Lakewood reopens. We hope you will continue to join us.

Sensory/Cooking Invitation: Make a smoothie today!
Have your child add their favorite fruits and/or veggies into the blender along with whatever juice, milk, or yogurt you like to use and ice. Have your child press the buttons to turn the blender on/off.

Possible dialogue:
“How many fruits/veggies are we adding?”
“What color do you think the smoothie will be after it’s blended?”
“Does the blender make a loud or soft noise?”
“What color is the smoothie now that it’s finished?”

Intent: This sensory activity allows for middlers to explore all of their senses. They will touch all of the ingredients, observe how the fruit changes in the blender, hear the loud noise of the blender, and smell/taste it when it is done!

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Rainy Day Scavenger Hunt!

• Find a puddle (stomp in the puddle if you can!!)
• Name something you hear
• Find an umbrella
• Find rain boots
• Name something grey you see
• How many rain drops can you count on the window?
• Find a worm
• Find some mud
• Name something you see in the sky

 

Intent: We want to encourage the middlers to get outside and use all of their big body muscles to enhance gross motor development. Even on a rainy day we can make new discoveries and move our bodies.

Art/Science Invitation:  Grow a Rainbow

You will need a paper towel, washable markers, and two small glasses with water in them. Fold over your piece of paper towel (so you have two pieces on top of each other). Draw rectangles of the rainbow colors on each end of the paper towel. Make sure your colors are fully filled in and dark so the colors will travel up the paper towel when placed in water. Place two cups filled with enough water so only the bottom of each side of the paper towel are touching the water. Place your colored paper towel into the cups, with one end in each cup (do not place the ends too deep, or the colors will dissolve instead of moving up the paper towel). Now you can watch the colors slowly make their way up the paper towel!

Use this link for a video with visual description of this activity: https://www.thebestideasforkids.com/grow-a-rainbow-experiment/?jwsource=cl

 

Variation: Have your child color however they want on the ends to see the colors move!

Intent: This activity allows for a different way to explore art and creative expression. This simple science experiment is a great example of chromatography. Ask your child what they think will happen before you fully finish the experiment! See if their hypothesis is correct!/sci

Good morning! It looks like stormy weather will be with us for a couple of days. We hope you are safe and dry. Here are a few invitations from middler teachers Caitlyn and Sarah.

Sensory Invitation: Regrowing Vegetables From Scraps

(This activity will start with a set-up, but can be enjoyed while observing the growth of the vegetables over the next week or so)

Celery: Cut off the base of the celery and leave it in a bowl with a little bit of warm water. Keep the bowl in direct sunlight. In about a week the celery should start to grow leaves. You can then transplant the celery in soil and continue to watch it grow!

Avocado: Remove and clean the pit. Locate the top (the side that comes to a point) and bottom of the pit. Pierce toothpicks (three normally does the trick) around the sides of the pit. Place the seed half-submerged in a glass of water. Wait for your seed to sprout!

Here is a link to a video of 14 vegetables and herbs you can regrow.

Intent: This sensory activity allows for middlers to observe how repurposed food scraps can grow something interesting.

Fine Motor Invitation: Toilet paper people

Gather you extra toilet paper tubes (or paper towel tubes and cut them in half). Decorate them. You can make them look like people or just color on them. For some extra fine motor practice give your people hair by snipping the top of the tube in little sections.

Intent: This activity incorporates fine motor development by focusing on the process of using hand and finger muscles to hold, color, and cut the paper towel tubes.

Art Invitation: Flower stamping.
Gather flowers from your yard. If your yard does not have a lot of flowers at the moment, you can use a variety of leaves. Dip the flowers in any color paint and stamp them on paper.

Intent: This activity allows for a different way to explore art and creative expression. This activity also includes fine motor development by using the hand muscles to pick flowers and stamp.

Good morning! It looks like the rain may be back today. Here are several invitations we hope will engage middlers today.

Art Invitation: Markers and Colored Paper

You can offer this invitation by setting out some colored paper and a container of markers, or you can arrange the paper in a rainbow. What might your child notice about the color of the marker they are using as they make marks on different colors of paper? What hypotheses are they forming about color?

We offer this invitation as a way to explore color and mark making along with creative expression.

Fine Motor Invitation: Clothes pins, cooling rack, fabric shapes

This invitation is an opportunity to build small motor skills, work pincer grip muscles and investigate how clothespins work. Set up a cooling rack or similar and set out small fabric shapes and clothespins. What will your child do with these materials?

Large Motor Invitation: Bean Bag obstacle course

You can use a beanbag or small stuffed animal (like a Beanie Baby) for this invitation. Ask your child to balance the bean bag on their head and walk from one point to another. Once they succeed, make the distance longer or more challenging by adding zig-zags or turns. Maybe they would like to set up a bean bag balance obstacle course for you as well.

This invitation encourages balance, sensorimotor development and persistence. 

Good morning! We hope you had fun over the long weekend. It looks like today will be warm and partly sunny. Sarah and Caitlyn have several invitations for middlers today.

Sensory/Design Invitation: Make your own light table

You will need:
A clear storage box
White tissue paper or wax paper
Clear tape
String lights

Line the inside of the lid of the storage box with the tissue or wax paper and tape it in place. Spread the string lights around the inside of the box. Close the box (the cord will stick out, but the box should close. It’s okay if it doesn’t.) Using transparent materials (magnatiles, transparent gems, etc) have your child create on the “light table”

Intent: This sensory activity allows for practice with sorting and designing. It allows for exploration of light and shadow, color, and transparency.

Fine Motor Invitation: Sticker letters.
Write your child’s name in big letters on a piece of paper. Have them put stickers over top of their name.

Added variation: write out numbers or other letters that they are familiar with for them to put stickers on as well.

Intent: This activity incorporates fine motor development by focusing on the process of peeling the stickers and sticking them on the paper which encourages your child to practice the pincer grip. This activity also promotes letter and number recognition for a cognitive aspect.

Art Invitation: Watercolor painting on paper towels.
Paint with watercolors on a paper towel. Watch all of the colors mix together to make a beautiful creation! Your child can use cake watercolors or liquid watercolors for this invitation.

Intent: This activity allows for a different way to explore art and creative expression. This activity also includes fine motor development by using the hand muscles to paint.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Outdoor Gross Motor Scavenger Hunt

Can you find something…
To climb?
To jump over?
To walk across/balance on?
To play catch with?
To crawl under?
To use as a drum?
That is heavy? Light?
That is smooth? Rough?

Intent: We want to encourage the middlers to use all of their big body and fine motor muscles to enhance gross motor development.