In the past month, the children enjoyed a few days of snow exploration. The snow inspired them to use their fine and gross motor skills, as well as creativity, imagination, and social interaction; most of all, though, they had a lot of fun doing it.
One day when the snow covered the playground and the hill, the children of school-age 1 went tobogganing using the sleds and crazy carpets. Parker and Daniel were helping each other by pushing the crazy carpet down the hill. The boys worked on strengthening their big muscles by pulling and pushing the sleds, and climbing up and sliding down the hill, ultimately showing their independence. Sledding provided the children the opportunity to work on their social skills by turn-taking and exercising their patience by sharing the equipment. This was a great experience for the children because they were able to observe each other and estimate the speed of their sled rides.
We also explored the snow in other ways. Jack wanted to make a snow angel by moving his body on the fresh snow, creating the impression of an angel on the white blanket. Meanwhile, Lauren and Zoey enjoyed rolling on the snow as if they, themselves, were snowballs. Some children found holes in the snowy ground and pretended to be groundhogs, hiding inside the holes and popping out to look for shadows. Josie, however, had fun making a bridge with her body over the huge hole. Holes and boulders led to forts and it was interesting how some of the children showed their leadership skills during the snow fort building as they gathered heavy snowballs and piled them up to make a wall; Kaitlyn explained that it was going to be a new house for everybody.
Finally, when they found the gigantic snowball on the soccer field, they decided to try and move it by using effort and force. They pushed hard but the ball would not move. After some trial and error without success, they started climbing the snowball so they could sit on it and feel like they were on top of the world.
Snow provides endless opportunities for children to develop and grow their skills! We're excited to see what happens next during winter.
