Falling into Autumn
As the days get shorter, we are using many fall items to explore science, sensory and gross motor skills. We have loved counting and painting our pumpkins and now we are exploring them in other ways too. This week we tried picking up different pumpkins and carrying them. This helps us build strength and motor coordination. Next week, we will explore the insides of the pumpkin and work on hammering pegs into the pumpkins. 🎃
To continue building strength and motor coordination, we have also been enjoying the other side of the playground at Rosemary’s! We have been calling it the spider 🕷 playground!
In continuation with our community unit, we have focused these past two weeks on our families and our feelings. We took turns sharing our family books at circle time and read books about all kinds of different families. We read about families with different people in their homes, from different cultural backgrounds, and more! A Family Is a Family Is a Family was a fan favorite!
There is also a Dogwood face matching work on our Cultural shelf right beside our “Dogwood, Dogwood, Who Do You See?” book. Another popular work on our Cultural shelf includes stones with emotion expressions and a mirror for children to watch themselves as they recreate the faces. We are working on identifying feelings and putting words to them, during work time and all day long! Every day, we work on building a stronger classroom community.
We have discussions at group time about asking before touching peers (“Can I give you a hug?”), and practice saying “Yes” or “No thank you!” - maybe “I’d like to do a high five instead!” Some great books about consent are Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like It) and Will Ladybug Hug? The Dogwood class has really loved chatting about their feelings this week! We have talked about how we show feelings and how we can express them with our words. We read Grumpy Monkey, The Rabbit Listened (a teacher favorite!), Llama Llama Mad at Mama and Wemberly Worried.
Lastly, as the weather gets cooler, we have been working on flipping our coats over our heads to get them on on our own. Ask your kid to show you at home!
