Lakewood Avenue Children's School

Preschool Ages 1-5

Lakewood at Home

Lakewood for Middlers: June 10

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Good morning! It’s the middle of the week already. Here are three invitations from Caitlyn and Sarah for today.

Art Invitation: Read the book Press Here and do a stamping activity with paint. 

Stamping activity:

Dip old wine corks or any cylindrical object that you have in red, blue, or yellow paint and stamp it onto a piece of paper. The circles will resemble the “buttons” from the book. 

Press Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg0oV-dyhG4

Intent: This activity allows for a different way to explore art and creative expression by using unconventional art materials. It also ties in a cognitive component by adding a book to read first!

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Nature Collection Bottle
Go on a nature walk today! This can be in your neighborhood, or even just exploring nature in your backyard. While you’re on your nature walk, find and collect items that you see. These can be rocks, flowers, grass, or anything that your child deems a treasure! Once you’re done and have a nice collection of nature materials you can begin your nature collection bottle. You will need an empty, clear plastic bottle. Have your child fill the bottle up with the items they found! Some items may fit, and others may not. Your child will have to use their problem solving skills to try to make some of the items fit, or deem them too big to fit! When you’re done you will have a filled bottle of natural materials that you can admire and keep!

Intent: We want to encourage the middlers to get outside and use all of their big body muscles to enhance gross motor development. This activity promotes fine motor skills practice by fitting in the nature materials into the bottle and problem solving skills to get items in that may not initially fit.

Fine Motor Invitation: Drawing with cars

Help your child pick a few of their favorite toy cars. Pick out enough colored markers, crayons, or colored pencils and tape them to the back or front of the car. Let your child color by moving the cars around the paper and making tracks as their car drives!

Intent: This activity uses both fine motor and gross motor skills. For extra fine motor practice, have your child help taping the drawing utensil on the car. This activity requires focus and hand and arm muscles to push the cars around with the markers attached.

Lakewood for Toddlers: June 10

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Good morning! It’s the middle of the week again. Here are three invitations for toddlers today.

Art/Fine Motor Invitation: Mark-making with markers

For an interesting change, you might consider using very large paper, or very small paper, or a large piece of cardboard. Markers’s bright colors and ease of use make them a very satisfying material for making marks. This is a time for creative expression and developing fine motor skills.

Fine Motor Invitation: Cups and leaves

This morning, you and your child can gather some edible or non-toxic leaves from your yard (or windowsill garden or refrigerator). Set them on a tray with some empty cups. What will your toddler do with these simple materials? Will they cook? Make drinks? Sort the leaves? Use their fingers to rip the leaves? If you use herbs this is an opportunity to explore smell as well as touch.

Optional extension – cutting the leaves with scissors

Sensory/Outdoor Invitation: Water play with ice

Find a shady place outside for this invitation. You can use a large block of ice or a couple of cups of ice cubes. Put them on a tray with a bowl of water. You could also include some polar bear or penguin figures for a dramatic play extension, or tongs and spoons for moving the ice. Some dump trucks could also provide an interesting transporting option. 

This is an opportunity for children to explore the changing physical properties of ice and water, to use small motor skills, and keep cool.

Lakewood for PreK: June 10

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Good morning! It’s going to be another warm day today. Here are three invitations for engaging preschoolers today.

Fine Motor Invitation: Making roads with tape or sidewalk chalk 

You can set up this invitation inside with painter’s tape, or outside with sidewalk chalk. In either case you will also need some small cars, people or animals to travel the roads your child creates. They might also want to make some stop signs or other accessories for their trail/road/path system.

This invitation incorporates planning, motor skills, and dramatic play.

Art Invitation: Collage

This invitation requires small pieces of paper, ribbon, etc., some form of glue, and a piece of thick paper or cardboard. Invite your child to see what they can create from the small pieces. While Eric Carle is probably the best-known collage artist in children’s experience, you could also share some of the work of these artists. The Seattle Public Library also has a list of 27 children’s books illustrated with collage.

Collage is an interesting medium for creative expression that also builds small motor skills and sensory schema.

Sensory/Outdoor Invitation: Exploring ice forms

During a warm part of the day, take the ice form your started yesterday out of the freezer. How does it look? You can invite your child to help unwrap it, or do it yourself. Remove the tape from the top and the rocks from the center. If the container in the middle does not come out easily, you can put a little warm water in it. Do the same on the outside until the ice form is free. Put it on a tray or an outdoor table. You can fill it with water, ice cubes, or something else like a shaker of salt. Invite your child to explore the form. What will happen to it outside on such a warm day? What will happen if they fill it with water? What if they fill it with ice? What happens if they sprinkle it with a little salt?

 

Lakewood for Middlers: June 9

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Good morning. It looks like the warm weather will continue, it feels like summer in Durham these days for sure. Here are three invitations from teachers Sarah and Caitlyn, including a delicious-sounding recipe.

Sensory Invitation: Read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCDPkGjMBro

Then make some chocolate chip cookies to enjoy with a glass of milk! 🙂

Easy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup butter
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ cup brown sugar (packed)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute gluten free flour)
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon table salt)
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

 

Instructions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350 F
  • Microwave butter for about 40 seconds. Butter should be completely melted but shouldn’t be hot.
  • In a large bowl, mix butter with sugars until well-combined
  • Stir in vanilla and egg until incorporated
  • Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. 
  • Mix dough until just combined. Dough should be soft and a little sticky but not overly sticky.
  • Stir in chocolate chips.
  • Scoop about 1.5 tablespoons of dough and place 2 inches apart on baking sheet.
  • Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until cookies are set. They will be puffy and still look a little underbaked in the middle.

Recipe from: https://www.ihearteating.com/easiest-chocolate-chip-cookie-recipe/

Intent: This sensory activity allows for middlers to incorporate reading and inspiration from a book. Your child will use fine motor skills while making the cookies by practicing pouring, dumping, stirring, etc.

Music and Movement Invitation: Play Simon Says (or have your child use their name instead of Simon for a more fun and personalized game)

Simon Says…
Jump as high as you can
Twirl
Pretend to play guitar
Swim like a fish
Sing with a silly voice
Stand on one foot
March like an ant
Give someone a hug
Howl like a wolf/bark like a dog/roar like a lion
Shake your whole body

Intent: This activity encourages big body movements and incorporates songs used in the middler classroom while at school.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Painting with feet.
Put down a big piece of cardboard outside and provide a few different colors of paint. Have your child paint with their feet! We highly recommend using washable paint for this invitation. Washable finger paint is excellent, but other types of washable paint will work as well. Be prepared for some water play or a bath when they are done with their art exploration.

Intent: We want to encourage the middlers to get outside and use all of their big body muscles to enhance gross motor development. This activity also encourages art exploration in a different way than usual.