We love using light projectors to entertain our children. The children find it so fascinating and it helps with their visual tracking skills. If you don't have a light projector, bubbles are another great way to practice visual tracking. | The wooden mobile you can see in the back is a tool we use to entertain the infants. The teachers are constantly changing the items hanging from the mobile to keep the children from getting bored of one item. We also utilize toys like balls and bead necklaces (requires supervision) to encourage tummy time. |
Coming up with activities to do with older infants can be so challenging. Finding an activity that is beneficial to the child's development and engages the child can be near impossible at this age. Here are some ideas our infant teachers use to continuously be encouraging the development of each child's individual goals. Below you can see our infant teacher made a sensory hula hoop. They tied patterned cloth, plastic rings, loofas, and rattles on the hoop for the children to explore. They set the child in the middle of the hoop and allowed the child to explore the hoop. This encourages their natural curiosity and confidence in experiencing new things. It also helps encourage movement like, rolling onto their side or belly, and grabbing for the sensory items.
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Ms. Jenna's toddler 2 class went on a hunt for shapes while on their walk today. Each child got to pick which shape they wanted to hunt for and carried around the cut outs, pictured below, to help them find their shape! It can be very beneficial to bring learning out side of the classroom. A new and exciting environment will increase a child's curiosity, and therefore their engagement in the lesson. The children had a blast while learning along the way!
The best way to spread holiday cheer is singing loud for all to hear! Our TLC children are having so much fun helping their teachers decorate, playing holiday dress up, singing holiday songs all day long, and of course, playing in the snow!
We love seeing how much fun our teachers have with the children everyday. All of our teachers love to play and act silly with the children. This creates a bond between the children and teachers that makes the children feel safe and have so much fun while away from their parents. Check out the video and pictures below to see how we celebrated the first Christmas snow indoors with a "snow" ball fight! The first snow of the season is always so magical to a child. Our Young Explorers got to play with snow from outside, talking about the sensory elements, finding leaves in the snow, and scooping snow into stacking cups. It is always a great idea to help your child explore the world around them. It aides in the development of expression, curiosity, and confidence when you regularly expose your child to new experiences and teach them the words to express those experiences.
TLC follows a unique curriculum that we believe is the most effective way to teach and engage children. This is called Reggio Emilia. Our teachers are always observing what peeks the children's interest and then using those observations to plan educational activities. The pictures below show the perfect example of our play-based curriculum in action. Here is what Ms. Jenna had to say about what sparked the idea and how she utilized their interest and engagement as an opportunity for learning. "While outside in the mud kitchen we noticed our toddler friends would collect logs and put them in piles to have a “fire” so we decided to bring the campfire inside! We used a big tire and the children went on a hunt around the classroom to gather blocks of any kind to use as wood. We then realized we need flames for it to be a fire! So we got out a bunch of red and orange paper to crumble up and toss in! While sitting by the fire we talked about camping and what we did with our family’s at campfires! Some friends shared that they sang songs, cuddled with mommy’s or daddy’s, and roasted marshmallows! Then we pretended to be firefighters and had to put the fire out! Friends tried to use blankets to cover the fire first, then they began getting cups from our kitchen baskets and filled them with water to pour on the fire! The next day the fun continued as they roasted "marshmallows" over the fire and then got to enjoy some real smores around the fire!" - Ms. Jenna
Yesterday the preschoolers took part in one of our nation's rights as an American, they voted! They talked about voting and what it means to vote. The children were so proud to be able to vote like their parents. They voted for things that were important to them; what kind of theme day to have next Friday. On the Ballot was, A Game Day, PJ Day or an Ice Cream Day.
Ms. Shannin's toddler 2 class had a blast shake painting with pinecones. She taped sheets of paper to the bottom of the bins, had the children pick out their paint colors, put a couple small pinecone in the bin, and showed the toddlers how to shake the bin to spread the paint around. The toddlers had so much fun discovering this new way to create art and they ended up looking so neat!
The purpose of our Young Explorers room is to help ease your child's transition from infant to toddler. During this stage they are so eager to learn and explore but are still learning to walk, talk, and socialize with peers. Our Young Explorer teachers plan their activities with this all in mind. Sensory exploration, like the spider wed sensory bin you see below, helps the children prepare for some of the messier and more advanced sensory bins the toddlers use. Simple art projects, like stamping paper, helps prepare the children for the many, many art activities the toddlers do including, painting, drawing, gluing, etc. The Young Explorer room is constantly working to prepare you child for the wonderful world of toddlerhood!
Ms. Sam's infant 1 class had a blast playing with pumpkins last week. At TLC, we are constantly observing what the children stay most engaged with so we can plan activities that promote engagement and learning. Ms. Sam noticed her children love playing in water and will stay engaged for longer when water is involved, so she created this water pumpkin sensory bin. The children played in the bubbles, cleaning the pumpkins and pouring water in and out of the pumpkins. The next activity the infant 1 class did with pumpkins was using the lids to stamp paint onto paper. This is a great way for children to discover different way to create and encourage their artistic curiosity.
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Welcome to TLC blog!Welcome to the TLC blog! Here you will discover all the different activities we do at TLC with our wonderfully curious children. Archives
July 2022
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