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What a great day it was today! The sun was finally shining and everyone seemed energetic and refreshed. We had a wonderful time doing our morning routines. In fact, they went so quickly and smoothly that we had plenty of time for the block play that took up most of the rest of the morning.
We began by having the bigger children count out ten square blocks of the same size and shape, then having them assemble the blocks into a tower. Tower building with legos is the wheelhouse of the two to three-year-old age group! The kids finished quickly, and so we moved on to measuring. I gathered three items from around the room- a doll, a book, and a small figurine of a horse, and we used the square lego blocks to figure out how many legos tall the items were. The children enjoyed this activity quite a bit, so I'll be sure to repeat it again soon!
I worked with the littles on building small towers with three to five blocks. Once we were done, they enjoyed taking the towers apart and trading them. We talked a little about the different colors of the blocks, too.
After the focused, skill-building portion of the block play, I let the kids use their imaginations and their tower building grew to enormous proportions! Wow! I was especially happy to note that the two bigger children actively used teamwork to build the tower. It was just fantastic to watch them build small sections by themselves and then take turns adding them on with no guidance or interference from me.
Before we knew it, it was time to have our snack and then head outside. We had a wonderful neighborhood walk. Some of the littles had the opportunity to walk like the big kids, and it was easy to see how proud and independent they felt. The bigger kids were more than happy to provide a little helping hand to keep the littles on the sidewalk, and they were also proud of having the responsibility to be "big helpers."
All along the way, the piles of snow at the edges of driveways proved irresistible to the children, and they had tons of fun climbing up and down the piles and even making some snow angels.
It's truly a miracle that I get to watch so many children flourish and grow under my care- I remember lots of early steps, early words, and so many other milestones. As I watch them romp and play, sometimes it's hard for me to believe that these are the same children who came to me as babies!
Such active play has its price- by the time we sat down to eat lunch, everyone was yawning, and everyone snuggled right in under the covers at naptime.