Hammer Time!

        The other day, the children helped Mr. Castell set up a play experience.  We found some small buckets, little water toys, and water with food coloring, ( blue and red were the chosen colours ).  Together they mixed the water up in the buckets, added the toys into the water, and then threw both buckets into the freezer to freeze overnight. A few children have done this activity before, but the ones that hadn't were very curious as to what was going to happen next. Early the next morning, many of the children came in excited asking, "when's it hammer time!?" Only to be asked to show more patience and to wait for all of our friends to arrive so no one misses out.  Once we had all the children gathered it was time to start the play experience.

         After setting up around the table, the children were grouped into pairs of 2 and each given a hammer to use, along with a pair of safety goggles to save eyes from flying ice.  Using our fine motor skills we used the hammers to break the ice, and eventually were able to rescue all the frozen animals trapped within the ice.  This activity helped the kids learn patience by taking turns and also helped their hand-eye coordination, along with helping to build large muscles by using the hammer properly. In the end the children had a blast and most said they'd like to do it again.