Love-Light

It's a word that we use to describe the love that comes from inside and shines through our eyes when we give our love to others. This month, our theme is light, which is a theme I love working with!  We started out brainstorming where we see light.  Most of the obvious places came to mind:

One of our kids mentioned the light in your eyes.  This was amazing to me.  She is a very bright little preschooler, who can speak 2 (maybe 3?) languages.  She learns music quickly and accurately, and seems to have a knack for several levels of communication.  Considering this, it makes sense that she would notice something like light in the eyes.

So. . . we went there, and talked about what it means when someone says, "light in your eyes." We named it love-light.  The best I could do is tell this engaged group of preschoolers that they all have love inside their little bodies, and when they let that love come out, that is their love-light.  We can see the love inside someone else's body when it shines in their eyes.  Our theme song is "This Little Light of Mine."  We hold our fingers up as a pretend candle.  When I ask them, "Is that a real candle you're holding?" or "Are we really singing about a candle?" They say, "Nooooooo," like the question is the silliest they've ever heard.  Then we talk about how "let your light shine" means letting your love-light shine by loving other people or things.  We will talk about this repeatedly throughout the month, because repetition plants seeds at this age, and our job is planters.

This first week of the month, we have focused on the light around us, too.

Sun coming through windows, made into "stained glass"
Flashlight tag
Drawing and measuring our shadows
Building a house with blocks, and trying to keep all the light inside
"Candle" lit lunch
Mystery lights that come on and off when you talk to them, or blow them, or smile at them
Sun and moon stories and songs
Finding out what happens when we add white paint vs. black paint?
Sun bread
Light and the absence of light