Orange Week!

Orange Week marked continued and deeper exploration of Fall Gifts from the Earth.  At the Art Table, the children painted pumpkins and squash, and glued beautiful fall leaves.  

We used the last of "our apples" to make a delicious Apple Crisp for Snack.  

The children were most excited about exploring and investigating our new basket of Fall Gifts which included a pumpkin, a butternut squash, Indian corn, and gourds. 

Divertido con Espanol / Fun with Spanish

In keeping with this week's theme, Rosalba guided the children as they glued hojas on to an arbol!

Palabras de la Semana en Espanol / Words of the Week in Spanish

Anarajado/Orange    Arbol/Tree    Hoja/Leaf    Otono/Fall    Viento/Wind 

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

Young children love repetition!  They never seem to tire of hearing a favorite book read over and over again.

A child who has finally mastered drawing a face or printing his/her name will replicate that image at the art table day after day for weeks, sometimes months.  So you can imagine how delighted the children were to see our nifty apple peeler, corer, slicer machine re-appear this week to aid in the task of making Apple Crisp!  They not only enjoyed taking their turn, they watched in rapt attention as their classmates "cranked away"!  Repetition produces mastery, and additionally it gives young children a sense of security and the ability to predict outcomes! They know what comes next, and this gives them an important and appropriate sense of power and control in their young lives.  Ultimately repetition has a very positive effect on their self esteem!

Over the past two weeks our Fall Field Trips expanded our classroom into the great outdoors. This week we brought parts of the great outdoors into our classroom!  Our "Gifts from the Earth" basket appeared in our room, and the children were free to explore and investigate its contents independently or with a friend during play time throughout the week.  

 Each day at Story Time, we made observations of the basket's contents together as a group.  We named each of the items and observed their qualities, then we compared and contrasted their properties.  We identified which items could be eaten and which could not, which items felt bumpy, which felt smooth and which was our favorite.  

At first glance one might accurately conclude that children have enjoyed "playing" with these beautiful Fall Gifts from the Earth.  Upon looking deeper one would further conclude that the children enjoyed engaging in "Scientific Observations" that led to the "qualitative analysis" of the items within their Gifts from the Earth Basket!

Have a fun and restful weekend!