It feels great to be back on track after my trip to India and to be rejuvenated from all the jet lag. When the kids came running to me with their arms wide open, giving their welcome hugs and kisses, telling me how much they missed me, it was a priceless moment :)
To be on the same page, I want to update the families with highlights of three weeks where children encountered the Pumpkin exploration, Diwali (Indian festival of lights), Halloween fun, and the Harvest festival and much more.
S in action- patting and kneading and rolling the pumpkin color dough with flour...
L trying to keep the dough texture dry and powdery so that she could roll in into a big burrito...
Teacher Richa reading and talking about Diwali...
Later we made 'diyas' which are little mud baked pots that light up when filled with oil and a string of cotton that catches fire when lit.
But for this activity we decorated the diyas with paints and sparkles, and added tea lights to give a similar ambiance of light and a new hope...
We then sat together and enjoyed the lunch feast with our diyas as centerpieces...
Pumpkin carving and sensory exploration!
B digging the cool inside of the pumpkin....
D made a ball of all the gooey and squishy pumpkin fibers that she scooped and collected. It was super interesting how it bound together into a 3- dimensional ball! Indeed very skillfully done!
Saving and washing the seeds to bake them and eat...
Scarecrow!!!!!!!
This season we were doing a lot of discussions about scarecrows after seeing many at the pumpkin patch field trip. That inspired us to create our pumpkin patch which was set up outside, in the Blue Room yard. The only thing missing in the patch, according to friends, was the scarecrow!
Digging in and collecting hay to fill the scarecrow up...
Filling the shirt and pants...
Hey! This totally is a hay exploration!
Tada! There it stands and makes our vision of a pumpkin patch complete!
Adding the pumpkin head and final touches...
Harvest festival!
This day we played fun games, did some table activities and had a nice social get together!
Making trick-or-treat bags for the parade next day...
Making skeletons...
Making popcorn gloves...
Pinning the nose...
Playing the cup cake walk and later....
...enjoying the cup cakes!
Next day we got busy with the Halloween parade and trick-or-treating!
Other activities...
We decorated the gourds with feathers, added eyes and transformed the gourds into animals...
Math, shapes and fractions....
We will be introducing the children every month to an artist and doing some portraits related to the same. It is really important that this valuable art does not get lost and our children are enriched with this knowledge.
We began with the artist, Van Gogh. It was so interesting that after we finished the project, they remembered what kind of strokes and style Van Gogh used for his 'Starry Night' canvas painting.
Children are getting interested in building. We have been and will continue to facilitate this reggio aspect in different learning areas.
The boys building a city...
They are explaining their ideas to each other...
Letter N week!
We worked with 'Names' where they wrote their names with glue, added sparkles, and folded the paper in half to see the mirror image of their names...
We also went on a 'Nature walk' carrying our clipboards and checking off items that we could find.
Pre-K
Another orangey activity we got involved was peek a boo...where they wrote with white crayons on white paper, and could only see their text after brushing orange water color over...
Working with signs - less than, greater than, and equal to.
They made their own signs and placed the correct signs to the amount of pasta.
With teacher Richa, they worked with the number line.
Wow! We are moving on and on without skipping a beat! That's the fun of this age.
Reminders do go out in every month's preschool newsletter, but just a quick one here to please update your children's extra clothing with long sleeves tops and long pants (winter clothing) and other accessories like boots, warm caps, mittens etc., according to the changing weather.
Keep seeing you around!
Hugs,
Teacher Rashida
