Music Class Yeasterday, & No CoOp today...

I woke up this morning to a big surprise...Jeff told me to check outside...and it was snowing, & then he told me all schools had been closed for the day. Wow! We were supposed to host CoOp here today, and I had all sorts of fun literary extension activities based on the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I'll just have to save them until our next time hosting CoOp.

For what it's worth, our technical name for our group is PATs (Parents As Teachers), which one of our Moms came up with. I still call it CoOp out of habit, but PATs is such a more appropriate name!

So...no pictures from PATs today. I did get some fun pictures yesterday thought at our Dough-Re-Mi class. Reese really likes the class, & there are all sorts of multi-sensory activities.


Today's theme was "Snow." In this activity, the balls were snowballs & the colored dots on the floor were the targets. The boys were supposed to bounce their "snowball" on a target & then catch it as it bounced up. Reese LOVED this activity!
Looking at music notes & trying to find different shapes. The teacher was aiming for words like "circle" and "oval" but the boys kept saying football, basketball, baseball...it was so funny.
Using a felt board & circle felt shapes to make pictures. The boys all wanted to create their own pictures, and came up with some cute, creative ideas. Reese was using the yellow circle to make the moon, & he liked using the largest white circles to hide the other circle shapes.
Our dough activity for today was making a snow man. The dough was a salt dough, & was really sticky, which Reese wanted no part of. The teacher brought out some flour for their fingers, & Reese was mildly OK with the dough then. Above is his finished snowman, Reese-style. Once we rolled the balls of dough & stacked them in the bowl, Reese was more interested in mashing the pieces (eyes, nose, etc) into the dough instead of trying to make a "snowman." The teacher part of me wanted to correct him, & help him make a proper snowman, but this was how he wanted his snowman to look. The tactile pleasure it brought him to just mash & squish & push the materials into the dough was much more important than a finished product that was "right."
Playing a game similar to Hot Potato, but it was Melting Snowball. These snowballs were big foam craft balls, & the boys just wanted to rub them & make it "snow" onto their pants as the balls crumbled. I just sat back & laughed :)
Great coordination game! They had to balance their "snowballs" on a spoon and walk the perimiter of the room. I played this game as a kid with oranges & a spoon, and I loved the variation. Reese LOVED this game...he loves anything with a competitive edge.



Pretending to be melting snowmen while the teacher sings a song. So cute...