Blue Puppies Meet Brown Bear

Oct 11, 2015

Being a student in the Blue Puppies classroom is an opportunity for children to meet all kinds of literary characters and nourish interests in design and building ("budding engineers). Lynne Mitchell and JoEllen Bingham are the teachers in the Blue Puppies classroom this fall. They have introduced our little friends to the literary characters "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Rainbow Fish," and so much more. Here are some examples of what they have been doing:

• Exercising and strengthening their fine motor skills to achieve good pencil grip and scissor cutting techniques

• Experiencing our Handwriting Without Tears program for the first time

• Working together with friends to build some awesome structures

• Learning their ABCs through puzzle work

• Using play dough in a variety of ways

• Working on Literacy with Word World animal magnets

• Sorting, counting, painting, learning shapes, and graphing their favorite colors.

Enjoy these pictures from the Blue Puppies classroom and take special note of our budding engineers. When a group of children gather to work on building a structure with blocks, it is not just "child's play!" They are learning how to:

- Create vision

- Make a plan

- Recalculate mistakes

- Compromise with their teammates

- Develop negotiating skills

- Meet a deadline

- Move forward, if mistakes are made

- Work as a team along with alternating leadership roles