Building Our Own Bodies

We have been hard at work learning about our bodies. It has been fun to watch the children pick up on the different organs and what they do. I'm hoping to combine all of this knowledge into a group project in which the children create a body out of recycled materials. We did some brainstorming today to come up with what the body should have and how to make each organ/body part. Here's our list:

I sent home a note with the afternoon class (I'll send one with the morning class tomorrow. I forgot to write it up during the morning class. Oops!) asking families to send in any materials they might find useful. I can't wait to see what the children bring to add to our body. Thank you ahead of time for all of your donations. I'm hoping to start our construction tomorrow.

The kiddos' favorite way to explore the body is in our clinic in the dramatic play center. They have been exploring many different social roles in this center including doctor, nurse, parent, patient, and receptionist. The babies have come in handy these last couple of days, and the children have been acting as parents to sick children. It cracks me up how caring they can be as they act as parents, and how mean (giving multiple shots and performing surgeries) they can be as they act as doctors. I even had one child who "took out the heart and the bones" today.

(sometimes I join in too)

The children have been absolutely in love with the parachute these last couple of weeks. I've been introducing new games throughout our gross motor time, and the kiddos have been having a blast. Their favorite activity of all is called Air Conditioner. Two children go under the parachute, lay down, and close their eyes. The rest of the kids move the parachute up and down to fan the children off. This is the activity we do to cool down at the end of our gross motor time, and the kiddos have started asking to do it whenever they feel hot.

The zoo building is still happening in full force. Each zoo is different than the day before, and I love to watch the creativity and imagination happening throughout that process. The afternoon class especially has been dedicated to this process. They even have their favorite animals, which they have named, and they work very hard to make the houses for those animals better than ever. Here's an example from today:

I'm really excited to start building our bodies! It should be a great chance for the children to show what they know!