Yellow Circle Group
We had a great time with colors

We saw how two water-base primary colors combine, how oil-base colors and water-base colors won’t combine, and finally we made Rainbow Stew and kneaded the primaries into secondary colors.

While these color mixing activities are so enlightening about colors, they are also excellent activities for fine muscle development and dexterity. The use of the pipettes for water color combinations and the kneading process for Rainbow Stew develop all of the muscles in the hands and are good exercises to develop dexterity. Once these muscles are strengthened, writing skills can emerge.

Our yellow circle groups have been busy learning each other’s names and becoming familiar with school. We’ve learned some name songs like the “Oops” song, fun songs like the turtle song “Tiny Tim”, finger plays like “Finger Family Circus”, and action songs like “Slippery Fish” and “Icky Sticky Bubble Gum.” School and circle times are coming along well and your children are becoming accustomed to their school.

Green Circle Group

September has flown by and was filled with lots and lots of happy faces playing outside. The children have “found” the bottom of the sand box; built rivers and roads and even constructed a lake. They have played with flour (made muffins, cakes and mess) and with flowers (planting, arranging and picking) and gotten to know several new friends. The water has been spilled, funneled, pumped, colored into potions and stepped (or stomped) in more times than we can count. They have branched out from plastic cars to bikes and scooters and are learning the rules of the TOPS road! And that’s just during the first month of school! We are looking forward to October and harvest related activities – maybe even some hay filled wagon rides around the TOPS road way!

Our Green Circle group has been busy getting to know each other - singing name songs like “Who came to School Today?” and reading books that help us ease separation, such as Piglet and Mama, by Margaret Wild.

Blue Circle Group

The Blocks area has been a hub of activity during the first month of school. The children have constructed fire trucks and trains out of the large hollow blocks which help to develop their large motor skills, spatial awareness and creativity.  They use their imaginations and learn to negotiate and work with their peers as they build and play.

We’ve enjoyed the book Freight Train by Donald Crews and learned a fun train chant with hand motions:

Here is the train, here is the track

Choo choo forward, Choo choo back

Listen to the wheels going clickey clack

Poof! Goes the smoke from the big smoke

stack!

The playdough table has been busy as well, with the children rolling, kneading and cutting the colorful dough. We had construction dough by adding trucks, signs, workmen, etc.; firefighter dough with fire trucks and firefighters; Old MacDonald dough with a barn and assorted animals and colorful kitty cat dough with mini baskets just to name of few of our playdough themes. Working with playdough helps children develop dexterity and strength in their fingers for future drawing and handwriting.

Children practice pre-math skills such as categorizing, counting and sorting as they work with the manipulatives in the playdough. 

Counting color cats, sorting them by color and size, and understanding which baskets hold more or less, are all early math activities appropriate for young children. We use our imaginations at the playdough table creating stories and conversations as we work. We learn to share, take turns, interact with each other, and best of all playdough feels good and is FUN!

Red Circle Group

Hello and Happy Fall to you all! Your adorable children have been busy bees!

At our round table each child is discovering a variety of materials such as fun seasonal stickers, stamp pads, scissors and envelopes. Our process art has included: gadget mural prints, giant coffee filter watercolors, apple prints and texture colleges made with fun colorful plastic jewels and glue mixed with watercolor for a shiny effect. We got really messy and silly with our colored foam and finger painting. We mixed our primary colors and discovered… secondary colors!

Your children are so cute and are not shy about singing in the Red Circle group. We shake bells and sing “Old MacDonald had a Farm,” “Open Shut Them,” “Where is Thumbkin?,” “Little Baby Waaa Song,” “Way Up High in the Apple Tree,” “Simon Says,” “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” to name a few.

We use felt boards and puppets with some of our stories and games. We’ve read My Five Senses, My Crayon Talks, Okay to be Me, The Kissing Hand and Apples and How they Grow and Caps for Sale.

This month we will be reading some fun spider stories as well as many other books (humorous ones included!) In art we will be doing leaf prints (with real leaves) and working with black and orange paint for marble painting and/or golf ball art.

We will try to do nature collages made from found objects, and colored sand also.

It is a pleasure to work with your children! Many thanks to all the parents who have helped out in the Art area.

Playgroup

The children really seem to be settling into their extended day here at TOPS. There’s lots of conversation going on at lunch bunch and a variety of activities to choose from. It is always wonderful to see a group of mixed-age children interact with each other.

Construction trucks, digging, filling with water and closing off the area with orange cones has been an exciting adventure to watch. They’ve created a high mound with a moat around, an island, and a lake.  Lots of dialog, working together, and gross motor activity was going on.

The children are getting used to the routine of having lunch at school and enjoying the time after lunch with their friends. Thank you for sending healthy foods. If the children are unable to eat all their lunches, we wrap up the leftovers that will not spill and send them home so you know what was eaten.

Please remember to cut grapes in half to avoid choking. Thank you for being prompt in picking up the children.  Playgroup is off to a good start!