Magical moments with books and moving our bodies in all ways possible were the hot topics in Quartz room this week. Bekah started our week off with the book “Mix It Up” by Hurve Tuellet. “Mix It Up” is a magical book that engages the children in an interactive way so they can become part of the magic. The magic of this book is in the directions that the children follow. They are asked to take different colours and mix them together on one page and once you turn the page the children are able to see the colours mixed. As the book progresses the children are asked to mix the colours one by one, squish the book together to mix the colours, and tilt the book to see the colours run together. “Mix It Up” creates a magical experience for the children where they become the creators of the colours within the book. We continued on making magic with literature by exploring a second magic book; “Tap The Magic Tree” by Christine Matheson. This book follows the same ideas as “Mix It Up” except with a tree changing through the seasons. The children again are asked to make magic happen by tapping, swiping, shaking, and blowing on the tree. These actions take the tree through the seasons right before the children’s eyes. These types of literature are excellent examples of how you can use literature to evoke wonder and creativity in children. While reading these stories the children are excited to see what happens next, they are curious and engaged. Through simple activities like this you can see the different dispositions to learn. Seeking; the children are asking questions, they are being curious and wondering, they are solving the problems within the book. Participating; children are engaging with others, they are listening to others and sharing thoughts, they are taking turns and observing. (PPP. 2014)

Moving our bodies will always be a main interest in Quartz room. Last week we moved our bodies in ways that would require us to balance, and take risks in climbing. This week the children displayed their new found skills in climbing. Throughout our play yard time this week you could observe all the children taking their chance at climbing on the different structures. Whether that was crawling across logs, walking across logs, climbing up on a few tires, or climbing all the way to top of the tire structure and taking the final leap off into an educators arms. Persistence was everywhere to be seen in all Quartz friends.