In the preschool room, the children were playing with their friends with car ramps. They were rolling their cars underneath, through the wooden ramp, and racing. "I'm going to go faster," Isaac said. "I'm going to go faster, too," Graeme said. "So how can we get the cars to go fast?" Mia asked the children. The children had different opinions. "You just have to roll the car this fast," one friend said, as he rolled the car fast with his hands on the ramp. We gathered our opinions and adjusted the ramp up to control the speed of the car. Meanwhile, the children and Mia set up the car ramp, and built a snow village under the ramp.
The children loved the fake snow made with baking soda. Lamp posts and small benches that are snow covered helped the children use their imagination to decorate their own winter wonderland to their heart's content. When the children bring their toy cars and use the lamps to roll the car around, the car would fall into a snow village." How does the snow feel?" Mia asked. "It's soft," Ceci and Graham replied. Children enjoyed playing with the fake snow they made with Mia.
The children's exploration of putting “snow” in their cars helps them develop self-regulation skills. Children learn their self-regulation skills by repeatedly putting snow in and out of their cars, helping them experience a calming effect which contributes to the self regulation piece. It also develops their thinking skills as they solve ways to get the car to go down quickly by adjusting the position of the car ramp. In addition, children used small props to decorate the snow village from their perspective which shows their amazing creativity.
Through this play with their friends, the children increased their concentration and social skills, and they experienced play experiences of various areas such as science and art. Children explored math and scientific concepts through toy car ramps and developed their creativity through the Snow Village that they made with educators. Children explored various areas through the mixture of sensory play (self-regulation), car ramp play (thinking ability skills), and peer play (social development). Most of all, it was very meaningful that most of the children had a good time with their friends without knowing the passage of time. Throughout their play, the children's faces continued to smile with anticipation and happiness for the upcoming Christmas. We will continue to provide meaningful sensory experiences to continue to support the children’s learning.
