Last week, we talked about our community and the people who work around us, as well as the jobs they do. We've built a mini-community in our classroom, using each center as a different location. We have a doctor's office, construction area, restaurant, school, police department and even an outdoor cafe!
The doctor's office was set up in our science center, so the doctors could do research in between seeing patients.
One of small group activities was to talk about some of the things you might find in a doctor's kit and glue them onto our "doctor's bag". We used band aids, craft stick (tongue depressor), q-tip, gauze and a cotton ball.
Our little indoor restaurant was hopping with lunch orders.
It's such a small community that the firefighters and policemen have second jobs working the register at the local cafe!
Our block center was a construction zone. Buildings were going up left and right, so I guess the economy is good in our community!
Our "Roads and Bridges" department was located in our sensory table. The children enjoyed bulldozing new roads and making hills!
To get a little fine motor practice, we used grocery store sale circulars and a few magazines to cut our pictures of food. We glued these on construction paper to make "menus" for our restaurant and outdoor cafe.
Deborah Stewart, over at Teach Preschool, posted about an outdoor cafe she created at her new school. I was so taken by the idea and was writing my lesson plans for our "Community" week, so I just added that in. We do a lot of changing to various areas of our learning environment, but I hadn't really extended dramatic play outside. I thought this might give us the perfect chance to do it! The kids have loved it. I think we'll keep our "Sidewalk Cafe" theme box by the door for a while, then we'll switch it out. Thanks, Deborah, for the inspiration, the kids are loving this!
One day, we drew flowers on the sidewalk with chalk all around the cafe. It's made a nice little garden to dine by!
My favorite meal served at the Sidewalk Cafe: SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS! I thought it was pretty ingenious of the kids to use the sweet gum balls as meatballs, but many of the younger kids call them "meatballs" when they find them on the playground, so it's probably not a stretch of the imagination to them!
Bon Appitite!
I love, love, love this post!! You are so brilliant! :) I've got to remember this.
ReplyDeleteI love reading about what's been going on in class. Thank you for taking the extra time to do this blog! Logan told me a few days ago that "Mrs. Ayn is a good teacher". He said it with so much feeling. It was so precious. Thank you for being such a great teacher. We are very lucky to have you teach our kids. You make learning fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for keep us posted here. When I ask my little one what she did during the day I don't get quite as much detail :-)
ReplyDelete@Ms. Jessi~ you ALWAYS have brilliant ideas! I'm thankful for all you share and inspire me to implement!
ReplyDelete@Kimberly and @Andria~ I'm glad you are getting a glimpse of some of what we do in a day. I know because parents don't see "worksheets" or classwork (we file that, you'll see it eventually) coming home, they often don't realize how much we do actually do in a day! We are a very busy group! :)
I love it Ayn, the sunshine does help I suppose! Thanks so much for linking up this week :)
ReplyDeleteSuper cute! Love the outdoor cafe idea.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for linking up to the outdoor play party this week. Please spread the word about the party as well so your readers know where to find you and so that they can get lots more great outdoor play ideas!