Well I have started the reworking of my classroom for the new school year.  I posted earlier that I had received a new loft in my classroom, it is up and ready for some fun hands on learning.

After lots of conversations and long searches on pinterest we all decided that a light table would fit our needs and the children's needs the best.  Now the challenge was finding a light table since we did not have one.   

Sunflowers are growing like wild!  Since our children have such a fascination about them, we thought we would bring a batch in and have them paint them.

Play dough is one of those must haves in every early childhood classroom.  It is highly attractive to young children which leads to many  hours of creative play.

But play dough is so much more than just that, children learn as they manipulate the play dough.  Play dough enhances...

Social Skills:  such as sharing, taking turns, conflict negotiation and per interactions.

Language Development:  as children work together they listen, speak and understand the communication of others.

Building Fine Motor:  prepares children for writing and cutting.  Play dough builds their hand muscles as they squeeze, pinch, roll, pock and mold the dough.  

Math Concepts:  As children are molding play dough they are discussing and observing things like (bigger, smaller, longer, shorter, heavy, light).  If you add items to the play they are counting and identifying numbers.

Literacy Learning:  Children can roll and learn letter formation.  You can add paper and writing utensils so children can make signs for their play dough food.

The benefits of play dough are endless.