Lakewood Avenue Children's School

Preschool Ages 1-5

Lakewood at Home

Lakewood for Toddlers: May 28

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Good morning! It looks like we may have a couple of stormy days. Here are some invitations for toddlers on a stormy Thursday.

Art/Connection Invitation: Making a care surprise

While social distancing restrictions are beginning to ease, many of us are still separated from friends and loved ones. This morning, invite your toddler to make a care surprise for someone. Offer a variety of art supplies and paper. You can send the care surprise through the mail, or take a photo and send it digitally.

This invitation is a way to continue to connect with loved ones, continue to feel like a contributing member of the community and explore art materials and creative expression.

Sensory Invitation: Pompoms, tubes and scoops

This invitation can be done in a large box or empty storage bin, or you can tape the tubes to a wall or door using painter’s tape and put something underneath to catch the pompoms as they fall. Invite your child to explore how the pompoms go through the tubes. If you do not have pompoms you can use cotton balls or something else appropriate for your child. 

This invitation is a different exploration of slope and gravity as well as an opportunity to explore scooping and dumping.

Building Invitation: Blocks and fabric

Today we are curious about what might change in your child’s block building if you add some fabric. You can add scarves, or small pieces. Fabric adds a new layer of softness to block building and opens new possibilities for structures.

Lakewood for Middlers: May 28

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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.

Lakewood for Middlers: May 27

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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. 

Lakewood for Toddlers: May 27

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It’s already Wednesday! Here are three offerings for toddlers today.

Science/Fine Motor Invitation: Returning to ramps

This morning we are wondering what might happen if you offer ramps to your toddler again. What might they roll down the ramps today? Balls? Cars or trucks? If you offer it outside, might they explore rocks or try pinecones again? 

We are also wondering how toddlers’ understanding of ramps may have changed since they first explored them. What do they do differently with the ramp materials now? 

Art Invitation: Molding with play dough

Last week we invited your toddler to safely explore cutting with play dough. Today we are curious about what toddlers will do with a variety of molds and play dough or clay. These molds can be as simple as large shells, measuring cups, or large clean lids.

This invitation is an opportunity for your toddler to build motor skills, explore encompassing schema, and be creative with play dough.

Large Motor Invitation: Dance Party

With the exceedingly variable weather this spring, we wanted to offer a large motor invitation that can be used inside or outside. Spotify has several free playlists put together for toddler dance parties, or you can put together your own. 

Dance is a form of creative expression that builds motor skills such as balance, agility and coordination.

Dance Party Extension: Make ribbon sticks to dance with. Tie a length of ribbon to the end of a stick (a short length of dowel works well if you have some), and invite your child to see how it moves as they dance.