Another busy month, half of which I was not here for including what I heard was a fabulous Halloween performance! In the week leading up to the festival, the kids spent quite a bit of time rehearsing the story of "The Little Old Lady Who wasn't afraid of Anything". They also illustrated the story in their “Red Writing Books”. This is now one of the stories in their cannon of tales and this is one of our goals, to have them really “live” stories, to see the pictures in their minds when they retell them and to feel excited about literature and the tradition of oral storytelling. We can really see this happening in their classroom play time. Setting up and performing puppet shows is a current class time favorite, no doubt inspired by the beautiful puppet plays Kathleen presents to the children regularly. Here is Zachary getting ready to perform to a small group of friends doubling as stage hands.

Math: We’ve gone over the numbers 2 and 3, both how to write them perfectly, and some deeper associations with each number. For 2 we explored the symmetry of the body and face where almost everything comes in twos and for 3, Kathleen had the kids draw triangles and then make triangles out of twigs. A general math theme all month has been symmetry. The children are quite clear on the terms “symmetrical” and “asymmetrical” and have been building pattern block shapes in partners using symmetry. This ties in nicely with our study of butterflies in science and further discussion of examples of symmetry in nature. We’ve also been practicing counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. And our new mathematical theme has been sorting and how to organize various materials. The children came up with groupings for our cache of acorns based on shape, texture, color, and other features such as holes or no holes, caps or no caps. They then sorted out our acorns into these grouping.

Sorting Acorns:

Language Arts: We worked on handwriting the letters and identifying the sounds for Cc, Aa, Ss, and Tt which are among the most commonly used letters in our language. More practice on names and pencil grip. And copying various words and phrases from the board as we worked in other subjects. Some children worked on the sight words “the” and “and” but many were absent on this day. This is something you could reinforce and develop at home if you wish. While you are reading to them, stop and have them read some of the “the”s and “and”s. You can do this with other words too to develop beginning reading and making story time a more collaborative effort.

Science: We did a sink/float experiment where the children guessed and tallied the guesses on whether a variety of items would sink or float, the grand finale being a pumpkin that everyone guessed would sink because it was so heavy but which actually floated. We talked about density and molecules and the children came up with a number of intelligent theories on what determines why things float or sink. The children then made little walnut boats that they sailed on the pond. We’ve also been studying metamorphosis as it relates to monarch butterflies, while witnessing this process in our butterfly garden before our eyes. Some children made a butterfly lifecycle poster to document their studies.

Handwork: The kinders worked on their leaf embroidery, using a hoop on burlap with thick cotton threads, sewing beautiful autumnal leaf designs. They focused earnestly and carefully as each one stitched their leaves into a medly of color and design as unique as each of them. They wrote a poem on the back and turned them into wall hangings that were sent home.

In cooking, the kids made pear sauce and thumbprint cookies for the harvest festival, bread shaped into ghosts which unfortunately got a little overcooked, and then today they made a gift for the birds — pinecone bird seed feeders.

There were plenty of seasonal inspired songs and crafts. They made a multi-media piece inspired by the verse “Five Little Pumpkins”, a torn paper apple tree, as well as orange and black paper chains to decorate the classroom and leaf rubbings.