These bags are hiding small sea and sand creatures, what can we find? We had to use our hands to push around all the sand and the water to find our seashells, our starfish, and our sand dollars! It was great fun when we were able to discover what each of our bags contained. It helped when we used the light table to light up each bag and see what was inside. The light helped make our creatures be a little more visible. It also created awesome and interesting shadows for us to explore.   We took turns sharing and "trading" with one another so we all got turns. As we were exploring, lots of words like "WOW" and "Squishy" and "trade" kept coming up. We did a great job sharing and DISCOVERING what was in our bags!

​According to  Colorado Early Learning And Development Guidelines, we were illustrating:

• ​Fine Motor: Hold small objects in one hand and sometimes use both hands together to manipulate objects.
  
• Perceptual Development : The developing ability to become aware of the social and physical environment through the senses. 
  
• Interaction with Peers : The developing ability to respond to and engage with other children. 
• Impulse Control : The developing capacity to wait for needs to be met, to inhibit potentially hurtful behavior, and to act according to social expectations, including safety rules.
  
  

Shells, Rocks, Scoops, lets' build a castle! This day was filled with such a great and messy time. We got to use our senses and explore sand. We were talking about the beach and what you may find at the beach and started to get to work to build a sand castle! We used tools such as scoops, cups, spoons, popsicle sticks, and most importantly our hands. We were busy and couldn't wait to see our final project that we used such great teamwork to build. The sand was soft and easy to scoop but it had a tendency to stick together which made us ask "Why?" It was a question that made us wonder- "Is it wet?", "Is it sticky?", "Is it from the ocean?" We discussed all these possibilities while keeping our hands pre-occupied!

According to  Colorado Early Learning And Development Guidelines, we were illustrating:

• ​Fine Motor: Hold small objects in one hand and sometimes use both hands together to manipulate objects.
• Perceptual Development : The developing ability to become aware of the social and physical environment through the senses.
  
• Attention Maintenance : The developing ability to attend to people and things while interacting with others and exploring the environment and play materials. 
  
• Impulse Control : The developing capacity to wait for needs to be met, to inhibit potentially hurtful behavior, and to act according to social expectations, including safety rules. 
  
  
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Today was a day of exploration as we swam through a Kelp Forest and made our very own Kelp Trees. We talked about how here in Clark, we have forests made of various types of trees and how the Ocean has it's very own style of vegetation and "trees". We were fascinated when we used our i-pad to explore photographs of divers in these tall and dark kelp forests. We also discussed how Kelp is a type of Sea Weed.  We talked about how it might feel in our hands and discussed it's colors and shapes. We then looked at one more example of this "slimy" and "wet" sea weed in our Ocean book with drawings and illustrations. It didn't look as dark in these pictures which we seemed to like more. After deep study of these plants, we got the opportunity to draw our own kelp forests. After they were all drawn, we turned them into trees and hung them about the classroom to give the feeling of swimming through a kelp forest.


According to  Colorado Early Learning And Development Guidelines, we were illustrating:

• ​Fine Motor: Hold small objects in one hand and sometimes use both hands together to manipulate objects.
• Perceptual Development: Use the information received from the senses to change the way they interact with the environment.
• ​Recognition of Ability: Experiment with different ways of making things happen.

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