Ahoy! The Ocean!

At Thursday's circle time we gave each child two puzzle pieces, but didn't show them what the completed puzzle would look like.  It was wonderful to see how the children worked together as a team,  and also how excited they became as the pieces were connected and they could tell this would be a scene of many things found in the ocean.   As we put together each section we asked what the children knew about that particular ocean animal or what they might want to learn.



The children were eager to get started creating the ocean background for their mural.  They used balloons to swirl and mix the colors as well as make  textured prints.  This required good fine motor control to firmly hold onto the balloon.  As the children reached across the large paper they  had to cross the midline of their  body, esssential for writing letters like T and X.  
    The  children saw pictures of beautifully colored and textured coral from Australia and then learned that coral, much like a person, has a skeleton which gives it shape.   Sophia , Charlie and Laura painted a plastic screen and then they pressed it on their oceans to create their coral. We'll be hanging these ocean murals  on the board outside our room.  Watch for new ocean creatures to appear!