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october 25

ART

This week the children were provided with some options to embellish their Halloween spider webs. The twos  focused on handling tiny stickers and adhering them to their web. The determined effort to apply the stickers to specific locations of the work surface is great fine motor practice and an example of early design awareness. The older children were encouraged to experiment with organization and patterning while arranging stickers and paper shapes. Lastly, the fours as well as interested threes were supported in the challenging process of “weaving" or “lacing” their web with yarn, giving their web some three-dimensionality. Re-visiting and embellishing our webs reinforces the notion that art is sometimes made in a series of steps utilizing  multiple processes.

DRAMA

Last week in our drama groups, we played some windy day rhyming and chanting games, The Wind Blew High and Windy Day Walk. We also created some scenarios to "play" in the leaves through narrative pantomime. The children used a variety of laminated paper leaves to crunch as we walked through them, to collect and compare, and to jump in a pile. In addition, we observed and imitated the twirling and gliding movement of the falling leaves.

DRAMATIC PLAY / SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

This week the students have been incorporating the pumpkins and gourds into their dramatic play. Some are being used as center pieces for an elaborate dinner,  while others are being used as pretend food! We have been reminding the students to only pick up the light ones. Some of them are super heavy! In the sensory table, the students have been asking to bring the cups and plates over to the kinetic sand so that they can fill them/help bury the animals, which I thought was a great idea.

LITERACY

This week in literacy, we used alphabet peg boards and a “letter fishing” game at the discovery table to continue learning and practicing letter identification and recognition.  The listening center was open for a day, and we enjoyed listening to stories and then discussing them together in small groups. We also practiced fine motor control with thin paintbrushes and watercolors.  

MATH / COMMUNITY CENTER

This week in the math and community center we continued working on our self portraits. The kids came up with some brilliant versions of themselves and it was great to see what they chose to include in their portraits. Additionally we started our pumpkin study with the pumpkins we picked up from Mazzone Hardware last week. The students compared their sizes, estimated which pumpkin would weigh more, and sorted pumpkins by colors and sizes. 

MUSIC

In music, we continued to explore songs related to the fall season. In the last few weeks, many of the children have shared stories with us about their adventures apple picking with their family and friends. It only seemed right to bring this interest into music group! We sang "Here We Go Round The Apple Tree," and explored movements that helped us to imagine we were on a farm, picking apples. We encouraged the children to do their movements while finding the steady beat or pulse of the song. It's amazing how readily the children are able to access this skill, when hearing a familiar melody. While singing, we also reviewed our ASL signs for "apple" and "tree."  Here are the lyrics to the song:

Here We Go Round the Apple Tree
(Sung to: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)
Here we go ’round the apple tree,
The apple tree, the apple tree.
Here we go ’round the apple tree
On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we climb the ladder,
Climb the ladder, climb the ladder.
This is the way we climb the ladder,
On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we pick the apples,
Pick the apples, pick the apples.
This is the way we pick the apples
On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we eat the apples,
Eat the apples, eat the apples.
This is the way we eat the apples
On a chilly fall morning.

SCIENCE

On Friday of last week, the math and science centers collaborated by going on a trip.  The 4's went to the garden center at the hardware store to buy pumpkins, and the 3's and 4's used the pumpkins for a variety of activities in the classroom.  At the hardware store the children drew pictures of pumpkins,

played a fun game of passing pumpkins, and voted on which pumpkins to bring back to school.  Back at the science center, we did a sink or float experiment with a variety of pumpkins, gourds, and other vegetables and the children charted the results. 

TWOs

This week we continued to talk about the rules for going outside. Both groups have gone out at least once by now. We have also introduced sunflower-nut butter cracker sandwiches at snack, which have elicited lots of discussion of choice and likes and dislikes. Lastly we continue to talk about all things Halloween: what we see around the neighborhood and what we are planning on dressing up as for the big day.  Favorite books this week were My Preschool by Anne Rockwell and Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton.

october 18

ART

This week the children were provided with some options to embellish their Halloween spider webs. The twos  focused on handling tiny stickers and adhering them to their web. The determined effort to apply the stickers to specific locations of the work surface is great fine motor practice and an example of early design awareness. The older children were encouraged to experiment with organization and patterning while arranging stickers and paper shapes. Lastly, the fours as well as interested threes were supported in the challenging process of “weaving" or “lacing” their web with yarn, giving their web some three-dimensionality. Re-visiting and embellishing our webs reinforces the notion that art is sometimes made in a series of steps utilizing  multiple processes.

DRAMA

Last week in our drama groups, we played some windy day rhyming and chanting games, The Wind Blew High and Windy Day Walk. We also created some scenarios to "play" in the leaves through narrative pantomime. The children used a variety of laminated paper leaves to crunch as we walked through them, to collect and compare, and to jump in a pile. In addition, we observed and imitated the twirling and gliding movement of the falling leaves.

DRAMATIC PLAY / SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

This week the students have been incorporating the pumpkins and gourds into their dramatic play. Some are being used as center pieces for an elaborate dinner,  while others are being used as pretend food! We have been reminding the students to only pick up the light ones. Some of them are super heavy! In the sensory table, the students have been asking to bring the cups and plates over to the kinetic sand so that they can fill them/help bury the animals, which I thought was a great idea.

LITERACY

This week in literacy, we used alphabet peg boards and a “letter fishing” game at the discovery table to continue learning and practicing letter identification and recognition.  The listening center was open for a day, and we enjoyed listening to stories and then discussing them together in small groups. We also practiced fine motor control with thin paintbrushes and watercolors.  

MATH / COMMUNITY CENTER

This week in the math and community center we continued working on our self portraits. The kids came up with some brilliant versions of themselves and it was great to see what they chose to include in their portraits. Additionally we started our pumpkin study with the pumpkins we picked up from Mazzone Hardware last week. The students compared their sizes, estimated which pumpkin would weigh more, and sorted pumpkins by colors and sizes. 

MUSIC

In music, we continued to explore songs related to the fall season. In the last few weeks, many of the children have shared stories with us about their adventures apple picking with their family and friends. It only seemed right to bring this interest into music group! We sang "Here We Go Round The Apple Tree," and explored movements that helped us to imagine we were on a farm, picking apples. We encouraged the children to do their movements while finding the steady beat or pulse of the song. It's amazing how readily the children are able to access this skill, when hearing a familiar melody. While singing, we also reviewed our ASL signs for "apple" and "tree."  Here are the lyrics to the song:

Here We Go Round the Apple Tree

(Sung to: Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)

Here we go ’round the apple tree,

The apple tree, the apple tree.

Here we go ’round the apple tree

On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we climb the ladder,

Climb the ladder, climb the ladder.

This is the way we climb the ladder,

On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we pick the apples,

Pick the apples, pick the apples.

This is the way we pick the apples

On a chilly fall morning.

This is the way we eat the apples,

Eat the apples, eat the apples.

This is the way we eat the apples

On a chilly fall morning.

SCIENCE

On Friday of last week, the math and science centers collaborated by going on a trip.  The 4's went to the garden center at the hardware store to buy pumpkins, and the 3's and 4's used the pumpkins for a variety of activities in the classroom.  At the hardware store the children drew pictures of pumpkins,

played a fun game of passing pumpkins, and voted on which pumpkins to bring back to school.  Back at the science center, we did a sink or float experiment with a variety of pumpkins, gourds, and other vegetables and the children charted the results. 

TWOs

This week we continued to talk about the rules for going outside. Both groups have gone out at least once by now. We have also introduced sunflower-nut butter cracker sandwiches at snack, which have elicited lots of discussion of choice and likes and dislikes. Lastly we continue to talk about all things Halloween: what we see around the neighborhood and what we are planning on dressing up as for the big day.  Favorite books this week were My Preschool by Anne Rockwell and Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton.

october 18

ART
Weaving through the holidays, our progress has continued on the itsy bitsy spider decorations that we are crafting in the spirit of Halloween fun. This activity involves three processes and following a sequence of steps in order to assemble our own work. We are continuing to discover the possibility of using a variety of tools to move materials as we experiment with the placement and quantity of materials we use.   With the same perseverance shown by our insect hero the 2s are learning to orchestrate their hands to perform tasks such as applying glue where necessary, setting down their glue brushes to free up their hands and then moving materials onto the sticky areas. The older children are confidently making choices and practicing their growing skills. We are beginning to make “biggie wiggie” narrative connections reflected in our representations such as one four year old’s idea to depict a true fact of nature of which he was aware...the parent spider carries its babies on its back!

DRAMA
Last week in our drama groups, we read and reenacted the friendship story of Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. The children were paired off as the two besties, who have a unique "color problem" to resolve with the support of their families. We incorporated yellow and blue scarves as costumes and props and experimented with how the colors change when combined.

DRAMATIC PLAY / SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
This week I decided to keep the community workers dress up clothes out along with the doctors kits, because the children have been having so much fun with them. In the sensory bin, I put out different colored kinetic sand along with some sea animals that has prompted some great dramatic play. Many of the kids have pretended that the animals are trapped in the sand and need to be saved by some other friendly creatures. P.S. Ask your child what color the sand turned once all of the colors mixed together!

LITERACY
This week in literacy, we opened the Listening Center and listened together in small groups to “Yes We Can” and “Skippy Jon Jones.” We discussed each story together after listening. We have also been exploring all things related to fall, the change of leaves, and pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. We drew our own pumpkin scenes in our journals and explored what letters made up the word “pumpkin”. We also started talking about storytelling and sequencing and explored this with a 4-scene sequence game.

MATH / COMMUNITY CENTER
This week in the math center we continued our apple study. This included weighing, measuring, pattern-making, and counting apples. We also started a new self-portrait series as part of community work this year. The students all drew pictures of themselves using shapes and lines. We’ll be drawing one each month and at the end of the year each student will make a self portrait book with all their drawings. It will be great to see how the portraits transform as the year goes on!

MUSIC
All the music groups this week began transitioning from the familiar classics with which we start the year to some new fall- and Halloween-themed songs.  As we all settle into our space, our groups, and our communities, it’s time to start exploring music in new and different ways!

SCIENCE
This week at the science center we did several activities with the apples that we brought back from the store last week.  We read some books about apples and had an apple tasting contest. The children voted on their favorite apple and we used a T-chart to record our data.  At the conclusion of the contest, the children worked to tally up the votes and then made the big announcement that RED APPLES were the winner!

TWOs
This week in the nest we started talking about Halloween and what costumes we were going to wear for Halloween this year. The MWF crew went on their first neighborhood walk, and the children did really well holding on to the rope. We got to see ghost and creepy spiders and some pumpkins in the various yards we passed. We are excited to take the TTh crew out next week (it was just too windy this past Thursday!).  For our goodbye songs in the nest we started singing two new songs: Get Up and Dance and Down in the Jungle. Our favorite books remains Brown Bear Brown Bear and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. 

october 11

ART
In the art center, we have had a wonderful month getting reacquainted or familiarized with one another while exploring some basic art processes. Many  activities have been presented as drop-in collaborative explorations such as painting and embellishing large tree branches laid out over the large art table or painting paper feathers with watercolors and then assembling them together as a giant pair of wings. Employing a simple collage technique, green summer leaves were created to hang on our classroom tree. We recently welcomed the change in seasons by taping onto the classroom tree our fall leaves painted using droppers and autumn hued liquid watercolors. We have begun to understand the flow of our school routines and the place of art within the school day. We are learning to work with each other and alongside each other. Each new art experience is being met with lots of interest in exploring and gaining control of the medium.

TWOs ART
The twos began the school year being offered materials to freely explore on a table within the nest such as  collaging over contact paper or printing using stamps and stamp pads. Recently the twos have begun to visit the art center in small groups to explore activities offered to all. This week we began a multi-step activity to create a Halloween decoration that we will bring home. These earliest art experiences are helping us to learn about the physical world - what materials can do and our own ability to affect them.

DRAMA
In drama this past month, we have maintained an open group schedule to introduce how to use the drama center. Children have enjoyed dropping in to choose props, puppets, dress-ups, and manipulatives such as story puzzles. We are working on referring to each other by our names through various songs and games and adding other elements like creating and passing movements, sounds, and props such as balls. We have also been warming up with mindfulness breathing and stretching. The children have been reenacting familiar short stories from rhymes like  “Little (child’s name) Muffet, ”Mary Had A Little Lamb” and others. Another favorite story this month was our interactive telling of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" incorporating a reversible storybook doll of all the characters.

DRAMATIC PLAY / SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
The children have really enjoyed dressing up as community workers! They have pretended to be firefighters, doctors, nurses, veterinarians and teachers! Once I saw them start to be interested in being doctors and nurses, I introduced our doctors’ kits, which they have been using to take care of babies and each other.  Filled with stethoscopes, thermometers and other tools, the doctors’ kits help extend and deepen the children’s interactive play. In the sensory box, I have introduced floam! Floam, or modeling beads, is play foam that you can shape and mold however you like without getting sticky. The kids have made some really cool sculptures with them and have enjoyed the sensory experience without having to wash hands afterwards.

LITERACY
This week in literacy, we explored letter recognition, tracing, and letter matching. We used magnetic letters and found their corresponding match on alphabet sheets. We had fun matching uppercase and lowercase letters together on the top and bottom halves of plastic egg shells. We also used watercolors to help find “invisible” letters! We have been talking a lot about what letters make up our names and our friends names, as well as differentiating letters that look similar.  

MATH / COMMUNITY CENTER
The children are off to a great start at the math and community center! We’ve been bringing all the different blocks and manipulatives out and learning how to play with them in the classroom safely. The older kids have been a great help modeling how to play in the block center for the younger kids. This week we also used the apples we got on a trip to Key Food to practice counting and patterns. Some of the students measured how tall they were using the apples as well!

MUSIC
This week in music, we discussed our favorite things to do during the fall season. In our groups, we learned a new song about jack-o'-lanterns, called I'm A Little Jack-o'-lantern. The children loved singing the words (to the tune of I'm A Little Teapot) and adding movements. Here are the lyrics below if you'd like to sing along together at home:
I'm a little jack-o'-lantern, orange and round
You'll see me on stoops, all over town
You'll carve me a little face
You'll find seeds to eat
When you see me,
Say trick-or-treat!

SCIENCE
This week some of the children went on a trip to the grocery store to buy apples. We brought them back to school where they were used in the classroom for a variety of different activities.  We read books about apples, and we produced an interactive puppet show wherein the children acted out the book Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins.  At the science center, we drew apples. Some children chose to draw the inside and some drew the outside.  We also put the apples in water to see if they would sink or float, and we began an apple taste test. We will continue to discuss the different tastes (sweet, sour, tart), and we will vote on and then chart our favorite apples.  Next week, we will see which apple is the classroom favorite: yellow, green, or red!