Week of the Young Child: Spring Learning
Hello Everyone! Welcome to We are the Village, where we are happy to be a part of your children’s lives and promote all the wonderful milestones they accomplish daily!
What better week to start our blog, than the Week of the Young Child sponsored by NAEYC! This special week shines a spotlight on children (birth through 8) and the early childhood programs that service them!
For our first blog I just wanted to spotlight our classrooms and some activities that the children have done this spring! As we all know spring weather is unpredictable! In our classrooms, we embrace the spring weather and get outside as much as possible! When we cannot get outside, our teachers do a great job at making sure the children still get to have hands on learning activities inside the classroom! Check out some of the learning experiences that our children participated in over the last month!
Spring is a great time to talk about seasons changing, and finding different ways for the children to explore! One of our favorite activities to do with the children that you can do at home is making bird feeders! If you ever are near our center, and the children are outside, there is always at least one child that is looking for birds, listening for them, or even pretending to be one!! We love Bird watching in the spring time! For your at home activity all you need are the following items:
Empty toilet paper or paper towel roll
Peanut butter (for peanut allergies a great alternative is sunflower butter)
String
Hole punch (optional)
Bird seed
Paper plate
Spoon
Directions:
Hole punch the paper towel roll in 2 spots where you will later attach the string. If you do not have a hole punch, that is ok! You can connect the string through the inner part of the toilet paper roll.
Use a spoon to spread peanut butter on the paper towel roll
Put bird seed on the paper plate and roll the paper towel roll back and forth in the bird seed
Attach the string and hand in a tree!
Learning moments:
Having your child use the hole punch or by spreading the peanut butter, this will help them gain further control and build the fine motor muscles. Strong fine motor skills will help them with writing, self help skills (buttoning clothes/zipping jackets), and hand eye coordination. As you make the bird feeder, talk with your child about the different kinds of birds you may see eating on it! This helps build their vocabulary and widen their knowledge of the world around them!
