Purple Week!

Purple Week added another color to our Spanish repertoire; "Morado"!  The children have enthusiastically embraced Spanish, routinely identifying the color of objects in both English and Spanish.  A large part of our week was spent preparing for our field trip as we talked about fire safety and demonstrated the intricacies of the fire fighter's clothing.  Ultimately, the children loved trying on and exploring the "real" fire clothes.  At story time, we read non-fiction and fiction books on the topic, and learned several fire safety songs.  Our field trip was both fun and informative as it brought all of this information together for the children in concrete way.  Many thanks to Reid's dad, Max for donning all the fire gear at the fire station, and to all of the parents who were able to drive and join us on our field trip.  As follow-up on Thursday, the children "wrote" thank you notes to Fire Fighters Diane, Bill, Joe, and Bart.

  

Happy Birthday to Louisa, who turned "Three" on Wednesday!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play!

We will look deeper at Dramatic Play often over the course of this year, as it is one of the most fundamental vehicles of learning for young children.  Within Dramatic Play, children literally "try on" roles as they seek to expand and learn about their world.  Dramatic Play utilizes and extends the children's language skills.  It is also a catalyst for cooperation, creative thinking, problem solving and sharing.  Additionally, it is often a vehicle for teaching Social Studies, as the children often take on the role of various Community Helpers within their play.  This week as we talked about fire safety, our discussions were often reflected in the children's play.  They consistently took the information gleaned at story time and incorporated it into the scripts of their play scenarios.  On any given day in the dress up area, one was apt to hear the following exclamations, "don't touch the stove" or "call 911".   The children processed and applied new information within their play, and that is indeed indicative of learning!

Have a fun and restful weekend!

Black Week!

Black Week marks the winding down of our color weeks and the peak of our exploration of Fall.  This week's art activities included collage and paint & fold.  Additionally, our classroom moved outdoors again as we took a nature walk on our beautiful school grounds to collect leaves for gluing and pressing.  Picture Day and Robert C. Parker Day also added excitement to our week!

Looking Deeper:  Exploration and Learning through Play

This week I would like to guide you through a closer look at Experiential Learning.

For the past month the children have been observing the leaves on the trees outside our classroom windows.  When our observations first began the weather was warm and the leaves were green.  We discussed how the leaves would change color and then fall from the trees.  I told the children;  "When all the leaves on all the trees have fallen to the ground,  the weather will be colder and winter will be on its way!"  

This week we noted that much of this has come to pass, and much like picking "our apples", we ventured outdoors to collect the leaves we would use for gluing and pressing. 

The children have observed first hand, and participated in each phase of our Fall study.  In so doing they have assumed ownership of this learning; this is the essence of Experiential Learning! 

The very intentional curriculum goal of the past four weeks has been to have the children "experience" Fall through field trips, nature walks, art, music, literature, science, math and cooking!  Experiential Learning is what makes the difference between learning about Fall and knowing Fall!

Have a fun and restful weekend!