Teacher Netta's Notes - Winter

Here we are, back from our long holiday break! The students at HCMA started this week very strong, working each day for a long period of time and staying focused the whole time. I am very proud of their productivity especially right after having such a long break from school!

I introduced a few new works already, one being a snowman winter work. As can be seen in the photos, the child rolls a dice, finds the picture next to the number they rolled, and places the part of the snowman on the table that corresponds to the picture which will eventually build a full snowman. I also added a picture of the whole snowman fully created that they can reference within the work. This has proved to be a helpful tool and I have encouraged the students to study the picture and figure out where their pieces should be, which pieces should be touching, which pieces should be on the bottom or top, etc. 

 

This activity is also continuing to practice one-to-one correspondence and counting skills.  

Another aspect of this work is the challenge of following directions. It is easy to simply take the pieces of the snowman and build it, but it is more difficult to use the numbers to find which pieces they need. I also enjoyed watching the kids and their thinking process when they had to leave room for certain parts of the snowman they had not attained yet.  

I also noticed as the children were doing this work that in the beginning, some children had to count the dots on the dice to figure out what number the face of the dice showed. By the end however, many of them could tell me what number they landed on without counting. 

I will introduce more winter activities this week and I know Teacher Jen has also introduced some winter works to the kids of HCMA. It is definitely winter now, especially with the cold temperatures we are having this week! Stay warm everyone!