We have been doing our Daily Specials for a couple months now and the preschoolers continue to enjoy them all. Today I let the birthday boy decide which kind of day we should have. He chose messy hand day with clay. Some of the other kids suggested play dough instead and so I offered to take out both. The divide between the two tables was too extreme not to document, but both were full of social interaction and imaginative conversations. Both groups stayed engaged at their tables for about 45 minutes.
At the play dough table the children were involved in a chain of play scenarios. At first they used heart cookie cutters of multiple sizes to create their families. Slowly they starting creating families out of other things (balls and snakes). Lots of dialogue and squishing, molding and rolling.
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| Words were exchanged. |
At the other table, we found the clay had dried out a bit. I gave the interested kids the bowl full of clay and added water. I told them they would have to get it wet to soften it up.
They started out with exploration of the slippery clay.
Then it turned into a full body experience. At which point I had to take a deep breath and focus on all the things they were learning, especially the friendship that seems to be forming. The dialogue was so creative and rich that it was fairly easy to take a step back and not think about the clean up process.
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| Leaving a slippery trail. Slippery trail. Leaving a slippery trail. |
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| Adding more water. |
To read more about some other Daily Specials:
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