MAY
In the Garden, I Can Help Care for the World Around Me, Musicians, Balance It!
Global Gull: Soil, Butterfly, Seed, Flower, Worm, Gardening
Spring learning is in full bloom for our Cardinals this May! Over the next four weeks, our Cardinals will enjoy meaningful learning experiences that encourage curiosity, confidence, and growing independence. Children will ask and answer simple questions, practice running with improved control, and take pride in their accomplishments throughout the day. With support from caring adults, they will begin counting in playful ways and engage in pretend play that builds imagination, communication, and joy in learning.
Asking and answering questions helps children make sense of the world around them and build confidence in their growing communication skills. This month our teachers will focus on modeling how to ask and answer simple questions during everyday activities, like Is That Yummy?. Games like I Spy and Match It also give children playful opportunities to practice asking questions and responding with support.
Our Cardinals are building strength and coordination as they grow and move with increasing confidence. Teachers foster this growth through activities like Can’t Catch Me! and Fast Feet. Games such as Pass It to Me and Bouncing Balls to Peers give children opportunities to chase, throw, and catch, supporting body coordination and spatial awareness. As they gain better control and run more smoothly, teachers find new ways to excite children and challenge their growing bodies!
Feeling proud of what they can do helps young children build confidence and a positive sense of self – motivating children to continue to try new things! Throughout this unit, teachers will provide opportunities for children to succeed and take pride in their accomplishments. In Musical Creations, children play music with peers, creating rhythms, beats, and dance movements that allow them to express their ideas and individuality. Activities like Garden Suncatchers invite children to choose colors and arrange materials in their own way, helping them feel confident and proud of what they create.
Activities like Counting Leaves and Count It Out support early counting skills as teachers’ model one‑to‑one correspondence through pointing, touching, and counting aloud. Counting also happens naturally throughout the day, such as when teachers count together during Cloud Breathing or notice and count pieces in a child’s Paper & Glue creation.
Pretend play helps strengthen planning, memory, and flexible thinking skills. During activities like Nature Soup and Cookie Cutter Exploration with playdough, children pretend to cook using familiar materials from their world. These playful experiences also give children opportunities to practice vocabulary and language as they explore ideas they know well.
Teachers will provide stimulating activities and share stories that connect to our enhancement theme, “In the Garden!” Familiar stories and books give children confidence, help their memories, and strengthen their connections to language and vocabulary. Much more than that, they begin to love listening to and looking at well-loved books, creating a foundation for life-long learning and reading.
In this unit in Global Gull, our Cardinals will continue learning the A.S.L. Core Words such as ‘play,’ ‘sleep,’ ‘diaper,’ and ‘all done.’ In addition, we will introduce our new monthly words: ‘soil,’ ‘butterfly,’ ‘seed,’ ‘flower,’ ‘worm,’ and ‘gardening.’ Teachers will use these signs in day-to-day interactions, conversations, songs, and storytelling with our young children to further expose them to this form of communication and raise their awareness of it.
In our Paints and Pianos program, our Cardinals will experience a range of feelings as they listen to well-known musicians: The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Ray Charles. They will move, shake shakers, and wave scarves as their bodies and brains connect during these magical musical moments. Through these artists, children will hear beautiful harmonies, fun nonsense words of Scatting, the pure emotion of the Blues, and the stories told as these songs unfold. Our Education Coordinators will provide language describing the sounds of instruments and the feelings they evoke as Cardinals become familiar with musical legends.
In Fit Buddies, our Cardinals will practice balance and hand-eye coordination while walking. Using a plastic egg and spoon, our toddlers will attempt to keep the egg on the spoon as they move. This challenge strengthens their core, arms, hands, wrists, and grip. Our Education Coordinators will provide encouragement and support while emotions of joy, laughter, and maybe a little frustration occur when the egg falls off. As we know, many children can be very persistent, and this exercise will give reason to be just that. As children become motivated and move more smoothly, teachers will set out buckets so that matching egg color to bucket color can begin. To end each class, we will practice yoga and meditation poses to help children feel connected to themselves and focus on their overall mind and body wellness!
In The Art of Living, children learn how to care for the world around them. Exploring our garden beds, clearing old vegetation, and preparing spaces for new plants helps children begin to understand the passage of time and the importance of caring for living things. By watching for items that do not belong outdoors and could affect plants or wildlife, children take early steps toward environmental stewardship. Through teacher modeling and shared experiences, children learn, “I can help care for the world around me,” building independence and pride both in the classroom and beyond.