APAS End of the Year Newsletter
It’s been such a joy to see your kids grow, have fun and play this year! We have so enjoyed our first year of Adventure Play After School and we hope you’ll plan on joining us next year! We understand that as parents it can be hard to get it all done. You want them to do sports, dance, music, academics—the list is endless. It can be easy to forget that planning for meaningful, child- directed play opportunities is just as important.
Click <<HERE>> (LINK TO APAS YEAR 2 INVITATIONAL BLOG) for more information about what APAS year 2 will hold, and the many options for signing up- from drop- in, to daily!
Here are some interesting play themes we’ve seen linger for days/weeks recently:
We’ve seen so much interest in “teeter- tottering.” It’s been amazing to watch kids explore the physics at play and what will happen when the fulcrum is moved and changed or the weight is balanced vs. imbalanced. This is an interest that has spanned all our age ranges and many materials have been used- logs and beams, the old water table, a slide on top of a log, and even pallets teetering on top of other pallets!
We’ve seen so many obstacle courses recently. It’s been interesting to see some kids who typically move from project to project become so engaged in a continuing project day after day and week after week. We’re seeing lots of testing and building of gross motor skills as well as social collaboration skills while the course is built and re-built according to who is playing and what their abilities are. We see the obstacle course on our new additions of spools and pallets but also with other unique materials. They’ve used logs, benches, chairs, tires with red tiles on top that act as “trampolines” and more.
Of course, we’ve seen forts, dens and homes! This act of building a personal space was a childhood favorite of ours so it’s so wonderful to see kids able to engage in this same type of play many years later! These creations look different daily but I think each child has likely been involved in one fort or another! Forts below tables, forts inside boxes, kitten fort, warship fort, nature fort, pop-up tent fort, pirate ship fort, time machine fort, tree fort, chair fort. It’s never ending fun with forts!
It has been fabulous. Join us next year for another adventure!
Photos! We plan to take a group photo of all the kids who have participated in APAS this year! We’re excited to share those pictures with the kids before the end of the year.
Feast! The kids have so enjoyed our cooking projects- and the times we have benefited from other classrooms cooking projects! So we’re going to have a special treat for them on Thursday, May 25 to celebrate together!
Face painting! We’re ready to finish our year with fun with paints! We wanted to give the kids the materials to paint their faces/hands since that’s always where they want to put it :) If you’re opposed to it, please let us know!
