Happy New Year! It was great to have the group back together after break! We started the day off by reviewing our "have-to's," and explained what the choices would be so that everyone can initiate activities more successfully. For starters,we did a sensory play bin during hangout today! We made cold snow using shaving cream and baking powder. We had placed story stones with pictures of the animals from the mitten in the snow. They all loved squishing a mixing up the snow.

When it was time to clean up we poured vinegar into our snowy mix. Before pouring it in we made guesses about what would happen. This was great inferring practice, and we had some very clever guesses! Collin said, "it'll make the snow bubbly!" Gerry said, "it'll make the snow bigger and bigger until it goes on the floor!" Arjun said, "bigger!"

After a snowy clean up, we went out into the hallway to read the Mitten. We all needed reminders to "give Becky 5," and to "save their ideas in their brains." We will practice these large group skills more next week. While we read the Mitten we used the pictures on the side of the page to make guesses/inferences about what would happen next.

When we finished the book everyone took turns modeling the Mitten matching activity we'd do with partners. We put the children into pairs and gave them each an identical mitten and identical sheet of stickers. They then had to communicate which sticker should go where, and take turns. The end result was 2 matching mittens, and a lot of listening/"giving five" practice!

We split up hangout and had a small group go into the hallway to play a fun dice game called Tenzi. This is an easier way for our children to manage their interactions with peers. The children did a great job waiting their turn and listening to their peers. At one point, Collin and Sonny forgot who's turn was next and they reasoned and problem-solved together very well! Following that, we also enjoyed coloring the Star Wars pages.

It was a busy, messy, fun return to for the Junior's group We'll see you all next week.

Becky and Meghan!