Harvest Feast Week!

Harvest Feast Week was comprised of two very special days; soup making day and harvest feast day!  The children were very proud of the vegetables they contributed and were fascinated by the soup making process.   As the photos illustrate they were captivated as they watched Ann add the broth, and remained so as we took our soup pot down to the kitchen and placed it on the stove to cook!  Today was a very "high energy" day!  The children were so very excited to have their family members at school to share in the Harvest Feast!  They prepared a terrific meal, gave a wonderful performance, and had a great time sharing their toys and activities with parents, grandparents and special friends back in the classroom!  Many thanks to all of you who assisted with each step of our preparations, and for sharing in our special day!  Your assistance helped to empower the children to host this very special event for their loved ones!  

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play.

Let's take a closer look at our Harvest Feast!

The Harvest Feast is the culminating event of our entire Fall focus!  Back in early Fall, the children looked out our classroom windows, and as they did so, I said, "The leaves are still green, but when all the leaves on all the trees have turned colors and fallen to the ground, Fall will be over and Winter will be here!"  Imagine my delight and the children's amazement when the ground was indeed covered with snow on the day of our Harvest Feast!

Our "Gifts from Earth" unit began with our Indian Ladder and Ioka Valley Farm field trips, when the children personally picked apples and pumpkins!  We have reinforced this theme again and again over the past six weeks as we collected leaves, and examined chestnuts, acorns, gourds and squash.  We talked about the importance of caring for the Earth that gives us so many gifts, and talked too about earth's long ago caregivers, the Native Americans.  We talked about how the Native Americans shared their gifts with the Pilgrims, and in turn we shared our gifts of food with people who do not have enough food.  This past week we used earthly gifts of pumpkin, chocolate chips, and vegetables to prepare a simple meal to share with our loved ones!

Experiential learning not only educates children it empowers them!  Throughout the past six weeks we have strove to have the children "experience" Fall and its gifts.  We have weaved threads between gifts, caring and sharing!  All of these threads came together today in a tapestry called "Harvest Feast"!  It was a joy and a privilege to share our "tapestry" with you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gifts From the Earth Week II !

Gifts from the Earth Week II was filled with a flurry of activity! We delivered Harvest Feast Invitations to many of our Parker Friends!  (I hope you found yours in your child's cubby)  We brought our Food Drive Donations to the Eighth Grade Students, who will combine it with the school wide collection for the Regional Food Bank!  In correlation with our imminent "soup making," the children engaged in a variety of fine motor activities depicting vegetables.  We also concluded our study of Native Americans this week.  We made popcorn for snack, and in lieu of our traditional story time, we gathered around a pretend camp fire each day to "hear" stories and sing songs to the rhythm of our handmade shakers.  In addition, we practiced each day for our Harvest Feast/Grand-friends Performance!  Most importantly, Ann assisted the children in baking nine loaves of Pumpkin Bread for our Harvest Feast!  Don't forget to send in a Vegetable for our "soup pot" on Monday!  The children are very excited to host you for lunch on Tuesday!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

This week I would like to guide you through a closer look at "cooking"!

Cooking is always a favorite activity among the children. This may be true because cooking is familiar; it serves as a bridge between home and school as many of the children frequently cook with their parents.  Perhaps it is because they get to eat the yummy things they cook.  Or maybe it is because there is something magical about cooking!  It looks one way at the beginning, then you mix all this stuff together and it turns into something different and delicious at the end!  In reality, cooking is a wonderful vehicle for teaching Science, Math and Language Arts skills to young children!  These activities call for identifying, sorting, ordering, measuring, counting, timing and observing, while at the same time providing exercise of small motor skills. 

Legend has it that Native Americans invented popcorn!  So we made popcorn this week as one of the final activities of our Social Studies based study of Native Americans.  As the subsequent photos illustrate, making popcorn was incredibly fun and exciting!  Additionally, making popcorn was the basis of a very interesting Science lesson!  As we began, each child examined their popcorn seed. We talked briefly about the way it looked and felt.  We pointed out that it used to be part of the cob it grew on, similar to the Indian Corn we have had in our classroom for the last month.  We talked about how the seed would become popcorn as we learned the safety rules for using a popcorn popper!  The conversation went something like this:

Teacher:  "When I plug in this popper it is going to get very hot, so we must stand back with just our hands on the table.  What do you think will happen when we put the popcorn seed into the popper?"

Children:  "It will get hot!"

Teacher:  "Yes it will get very hot, and as it gets hot it will get bigger and bigger!  Finally it will get so big that it will ............."

Children:  "POP!"

Teacher:  "That is exactly right!"  When things get hot they expand, that means they get bigger, and when our popcorn seeds get as big as they can get they will pop open, and that's when they become popcorn!  So let's watch for the seeds to pop and the smoke to come out of the holes on top of the popper, we call that steam, and it is very very hot.  You can also use your nose to smell, and your ears to hear the corn popping, and when it is all finished we will have a taste!

The children's faces tell it all; "This Science lesson is fun, interesting, exciting and delicious!" Baking pumpkin bread incorporated Science, Math and Language Arts!  The children were very excited to bake Pumpkin Bread with Ann this week.  Ann reviewed the printed recipe with the children, and began each part of the process by naming the ingredients, thus exercising and extending their emergent reading and vocabulary skills.   Additionally, she had them count each of the cups and teaspoons as they went into the bowl.  This cooking activity also appealed to multiple senses, as the children smelled the cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and tasted the chocolate chips before adding them to the bowl.  Cracking the eggs, (and we used a whole dozen) took great focus and the children gave it their undivided attention.  The photos clearly illustrate that the children were totally engrossed in each step of making the pumpkin bread!  Look closely and you will notice that all of the children are paying close attention to the task at hand regardless of whether they or their friend are performing it.

The interest and excitement was palpable when our bread emerged from the oven.  When we returned to the classroom we engaged in a final "pumpkin bread" conversation.  It went something like this:  

Teacher:  "Did our Pumpkin Bread look the same when it came out of the oven as it did when it went into the oven?"

Children:  "No."  

Teacher:  "How was it different?"

Children:  "It was wet when it went in, and it was hard when it came out?"

Teacher:  "So it was sort of liquid when it went into the oven, and it was solid when it came out of the oven?"  

Children:  "Yes and it smells really good!"

Have a fun and restful weekend!

We hope to see you at the Harvest Feast!