Every year at TLC we have a day called 'Snowed In' where each classroom picks a very fun and messy activity to do with their classes. This year there was a paint explosion.. literally. Each room decided to do some form of paint, including the babies who used taste safe paint made out of yogurt and food coloring. The kids had a blast, this was truly an immersive art experience! 

When the weather is cold and snowy outside, why not try to pretend like you're at the beach. The teachers put together three sensory bags, an "ocean" bag, a "sand" bag, and a "seashell" bag. They also used a flashlight under the ocean bag to make it look like the sunshine! There were even some sea creatures in the mix, a fish and a turtle.

While reading one of thier underwater books in class, a child found this activity for Oreo octopuses. The kids had so much fun putting these together and then eating them!

The toddler room has been focusing on their cognitive development skills. In this activity they practiced matching colors by finding loose parts in the room and matching their color to the corresponding bag. There were bags for green, pink, blue, red, yellow, and orange. The younger toddlers practiced saying the colors of each loose part, this was such a fun and easy way to work on recognizing colors.

Yesterday we had our annual sledding with Mr. Pfeister day, thankfully this year we had a lot of snow this week, just in time! The kids had a blast being pulled around in the sleds, building snowmen, painting the snow with water colors, and having snow ball fights!

In preschool this week, the kids came up with the idea to make candy snowmen. They asked their teachers to get candy, marshmallows, and pretzels to build them. Using the frosting as "glue," they stacked their marshmallows, added faces and poked their pretzel arms in. What a wonderful way to build a snowman when mother nature hasn't given us any real snow! 

Picking up a tiny cheerio, lining the hole up with the pipe cleaner and then sliding it on. These are all things that help develop a childs fine motor skills. This was an easy to put together and fun way to get the kids to practice theirs!

Usually this time of year all of the kids in the center are getting to do snow activities. However, since the weather has been on the warmer side, they have really been exploring water. What kid doesn't love water? It is an extremely beneficial learning tool, and with this activity they got to fill different cup and tubes. Watching the water run through them and out back into the bin and maybe some onto the floor.. 

The other day, our preschool class had a candy cane tasting! With an array of flavors ranging from original peppermint to warheads.. hence some of the more interesting facial expressions. The children got to try each flavor and then put their name under which one they liked the most. First place went to the Spree candy canes, second place was Sweet Tarts and third was actually Warheads. What a surprise that Warheads won over original peppermint. This was such a fun activity for the children to not only use their senses to explore different flavors but also to practice their handwriting and share their opinions with each other. Activities like this always spark a lot of discussion in the classroom and helps the teachers understand what kind of things the children are interested in and how their minds process what they are learning about.

Last week, the infants enjoyed exploring some winter themed sensory activities. There was white fluff and pinecones to represent pinecones in the "snow," a scented salt shaker with warm and cozy smells of the season and a jingle bell sensory bottle! When practicing sitting up or working on tummy time, it is so important to give infants something to work on or look at, in order to keep them engaged.