Hello dear reader,
2025 started and Puffins´ agenda was full of activities. During the month of January children were busy with a new interesting theme: food. During this month, Puffins were learning about fruits and veggies in different ways. For example, there was one day they were painting printed fruits or veggies inside of a trey and with a ball in order to practice fine motor skills. Other day they painted also printed fruits and veggies but inside of a Ziploc so they could practice the sensory skills of painting through the use of plastic material. Alongside with this, Puffins became great lovely bakers by adding and mixing the ingredients for an oven pancake that they would eat later for snack. During this activity, Puffins not only had the opportunity to practice a bit their fine motor skills by using different types of tools but also to have the chance to see from a closer view the textures and shapes of ingredients such as butter, baking powder, eggs and so on. We would like to highlight here, the incredible flour situation that you could see everywhere over the table that I looked like children were celebrating Holi Party. But kitchen´s activities didn´t stop there, Puffins had another chance to learn and explore about more textures and shapes in that case about fruits. For this activity, children experienced touching and smelling the different fruits that teachers chose for them such as avocado, apple, kiwi that later they turned into a supper yummy snack. Finally, this theme was theme was completed by some games which were set up around the class and that they were able to play with every time they wanted. These games were based on a felt tree where children were able to hung apples of different colours and a wheel where Puffins were able to hang different veggies and fruits depending on their colours. The aim for these two games was based on practicing fine motor skills and the visual connection of food and its colour. Of course, our great friend the sensory box had a new costume and was set up with some food theme related such as food toys and oats.
Right after the end of January, and before starting the new theme for February, Puffins had a beautiful event with Grandparents. We normally call it Grandparents´ Coffee and for this event some grandparents and mothers came to spend some time together with their (grand)children by playing and having snack. Puffins were so happy to spend time together with family in daycare. Since emotions and feelings are important both emotionally and cognitively speaking for this age, teachers decided that emotions, feelings and friendship was a good theme to work with during the month of February. Puffins were involved through all these aspects by doing different activities such as reading books about emotions called “The Colour Monster”, “I am Angry” and so on, exploring the new set up of the sensory box which contained faces with emotions and pompons, painting two posters based on friendship one for the class and one for the playdate with our lovely friends the Penguins, playing with some customized legos which had faces drawn and an experiment with vinegar and baking soda based on the combination of a face and its specific colour. Moreover, alongside to this theme Puffins visited weekly the gym and there they practice more their gross and fine motor skills by jumping in the trampoline, going through the tunnel, standing on the bench with the help of the teachers, following the path of the sensory mat as well as practicing with balls of different sizes in order to practice grabbing and throwing with hands.
Puffins said bye-bye to the shortest month of the year, and they prepared their suitcases in order to embark themselves on a worldwide tour thanks to the international weeks. During the beginning of March, Puffins had the opportunity to learn about different countries and cities around the world. They started learning about the Canary Islands by watching a short video about food, animals and traditions there, then dancing to some folk music, colouring the flag and they ended by tasting some traditional snack called “queque” -a lemon-ish cake-. After learning about the Canary Islands, Puffins learned also about India by looking a book about the different Indian festivals, images about traditions and traditional clothes, ending with eating delicious snacks called “sweet pongal” and “bonda”. Nevertheless, these are not the only parts of the world that Puffins will learn about, in the upcoming weeks they will have the opportunity to learn and enjoy about Ireland, Albania, Catalunya, etc.
See you very soon dear reader!!!
