This past week we learned how to do a few tricky things with our hands. We have a little fingerplay for spring which the children LOVE to do together, and it seems so simple but for little hands, it contains many new skills. It goes:
Here is a bunny (hold up a hand with two fingers up)
With ears so funny (wiggle your fingers)
And here is his hole in the ground (make an "o" with the other hand)
When a noise he hears, he pricks up his ears (straighten fingers)
And jumps in his hole in the ground (jump fingers down into the "hole")
It is sweet to see the children try to hold up two fingers, and one realizes that it is a fairly tricky task to hold up two fingers and pin the other two down with the thumb. Even the "hole" is difficult for them because it's not really a fist, but requires all the fingers to be bent and touching one another. Simple fingerplays like this engage both the hand and the mind, and require memory, as they say the poem each day, and careful thought for the positioning of the fingers. These little poems help children to prepare for writing later on down the road, but are fun enough that they request to do them again and again!
I also introduced some screws in a slab of wood. It offers a good movement of turning the wrist while gripping with the fingers. It's also just plain satisfying.
Here is a bunny (hold up a hand with two fingers up)
With ears so funny (wiggle your fingers)
And here is his hole in the ground (make an "o" with the other hand)
When a noise he hears, he pricks up his ears (straighten fingers)
And jumps in his hole in the ground (jump fingers down into the "hole")
It is sweet to see the children try to hold up two fingers, and one realizes that it is a fairly tricky task to hold up two fingers and pin the other two down with the thumb. Even the "hole" is difficult for them because it's not really a fist, but requires all the fingers to be bent and touching one another. Simple fingerplays like this engage both the hand and the mind, and require memory, as they say the poem each day, and careful thought for the positioning of the fingers. These little poems help children to prepare for writing later on down the road, but are fun enough that they request to do them again and again!
I also introduced some screws in a slab of wood. It offers a good movement of turning the wrist while gripping with the fingers. It's also just plain satisfying.
Outside, the children helped me to replant a fig tree, here's hoping it'll be happy. It was a nice chance to wield their heavy shovels. Also, with such nice weather, our car wash station was fired up once again. Our tow truck business (basically a jump rope used for pulling cars), underwent a little renovation and now consists of a hula hoop looped around the entire car. This seems to be the preferred method of towing for the children now.
I added a large sheepskin rug to our nursery this week, which I placed beneath our little canopied "house" where all the dolls are. It was interesting that although the dolls have not received much attention, once I put the sheepskin in the house, all of a sudden the dolls came into play! Birds began to nest, children lay down and nurtured their babies, and overall the children took on more nurturing play.
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