Something Smells Good...

What's that on the air? The scent of winter baking, and all the seasonally-favored spices, was part of our Morning Gathering on Tuesday. Tubes of scent: vanilla, cinnamon, clove and pepper, were all passed around the group to be sniffed and examined. T recognized  the pepper, as he likes it on his popcorn during our picnics, and the children asked a few questions about the chunky cinnamon stick sitting in the tube with a little ground cinnamon as well. From there, we moved over to the school table to make clove and cinnamon stick sachets. B liked wrapping the rubber bands around the top; V worked hard to tie the knots with the rick-rack ribbon and T's mom was visiting for the morning, so she and T made his together. Soon everyone had a nice-smelling sachet to take home.

On Thursday morning, we gathered around a plate of shelled nuts, and each child was given 4 whole nuts: walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds and brazil nuts. Then we went around and tried to match the shelled nut on the plate to the whole ones; each child held up the nut they thought was the match, and after Gathering, we sat down and began the best part: cracking and eating nuts. V loved this activity so much from last session, I knew we'd have to do it again, and there was no less enthusiasm this time around. The lighter-colored walnuts, the almonds and the hazelnuts were most popular, and it was fun to watch and see if there was actually a nut in some of them; a few hazelnuts were 'duds' and so we began shaking the whole nuts first to discover if there was a nut inside before bothering to open them.

We played a lot of games too: our "Animal Mothers and their Babies" matching game was offered on the table,  and it was lovely to hear the children remembering how to ask for pieces from their friends to match up the pairs. At Wednesday Gathering, we played our New Name Game, where the children continued to select the letters of their name from a pool, match and orient them onto their name card. We did a little tricky thing by asking the children to raise their hands if the card/letter was not in their name, and encouraged each child to spell their name aloud. On Thursday, we played our "What's Missing Lotto"; the children remembered the names of some of the 'missing' parts that we learned from last week, "handle" being the most useful and easily remembered. Game playing reminds the children to take turns (and keep track of them) and during our What's Missing game, when a child couldn't find the picture on their own card, I asked if anyone else could see where the picture was, which gave the children a chance to help each other.

You might have noticed an envelope of cut-out snowflakes come home last week-- or not. B embraced the activity of cutting, and her snowflake ended up looking like a pile of tiny flakes indeed. T and V were interested in cutting out the colored origami and decorative papers I had offered for this activity and took their snowflakes home. T made a snowflake which he declared "looks like a windmill". Perhaps they are taped up to window, or are being sent off enclosed in holiday greeting cards. I never do know what sort of life the children's artwork has once it is taken home...

Speaking of art, we had our usual Wednesday easel time this week, and with a new twist: the children are now going in one-by-one to use the easel and work. While we have had the group hanging out and watching in the past, I've noticed that this can be distracting for the artist, and a bit crowded to boot.  Something to share, too: when we are talking with our children about their artwork, asking questions and telling your child what you see can be helpful in encouraging them to continue expressing themselves creatively. While our kids like to hear "oh, that's beautiful" and other kind things, when we focus more of our attention toward what's on the paper ("I really like blue, and I see you made five blue circles, all in this corner. Tell me about that...."), this lets them know both that their work is worth notice, and tells them what you personally found interesting. "I see you used some bright colors, right next to each other. So many bright colors makes me feel like...." Children are much like adult artists; they like discovering how you, their beloved parent, relates to their work. When we give our children this sort of feedback, they are more encouraged to take chances in their artwork and to express themselves more authentically.

Outside in our sandbox, T and V were digging trenches for water to flow through. We talked about how a part that circled around looked like an island, and recalled one part of the story "The Little Island", where a kitten asks the island, and later, a fish, how it is that the island is surrounded by water and is still connected to the land. Then, we dug our trench deeper, and filled it with water for a live demonstration of this very concept. Their eyes grew wide as the lone island in the water appeared. (These are the moments teachers live for!) Amazing what one can learn in a sandbox!

Our playdough story this week started with a yellow flat circle of playdough, which one child dubbed a "magic golden meadow". A popsicle stick was laid across and then, B added green balls to the playdough to become "tigers". V and T were busy creating replicas of the original work, figuring out how to hollow out small pieces of dough and stick them  upside down to look like 'big rocks'. V discovered that when the dough sticks to the bottom of the red-handled rolling pins, that you can make it go back and forth on the bottom like a pendulum. B gave me a playdough cake with a candle in it, for my birthday, and T told me "I'm working on a wormhole. Here's a worm to go in the wormhole. See, the worm have protection in here and then the worm can stay in there."  Even worms need shelter too.

On Thursday, we celebrated V's 4th birthday together. Her mother and little brother brought delicious fruit skewers and a book to share, and the children were very, very happy to have a birthday time at school! We sang a song about the Earth going round the sun; B was the sun V traveled around, and we honored each year with a verse of its own. Thanks for the yummy nibbles!

Some other moments:

Wild weather drove us indoors on Wednesday, so we gathered to read William Steig's "C-D-B" ,a book made up of phonetic little sayings that the children chimed in to help me read when they could. Fun!

V and B like two peas in a pod, sitting close together on the rug to look at the "Dinosaur Bones" book, and then wrapping up babies and carrying them around. V told me that "both the babies are girls", and their little girls were wrapped snug in scarves and blankets.

The rubber-band pegboard was out again. We talked about the different shapes they made: triangles, squares, parallelograms and trapezoids (these big words made them giggle), and T made an "H" out of rubber bands, which was 'an H for Hazel. See?"

V working methodically with the magnetic crane truck and  shape blocks, using the crane to neatly unload, and then reload, that set of blocks back into their 'trailer'.

T and B worked with the other set of magnetic blocks to make cars and skateboards; V joins in too.

Sandbox treasure hunts outside were a blast, along with playing "Find the Shoe" and shooting baskets with the balls.

I wish all of your families a peaceful and fun winter break. We'll see you in the new year!

Wind!

Just a reminder for parents: We'll be playing outside every day, even when it's rainy, so please don't forget to send your child in warm layers, warm hats and waterproof boots and shoes. The days can be very cold when we are out for our half-hour or so!


This week was a bit of a topsy-turvy one, with two children each spending a day at home due to the those nasty bugs that are going around. Be assured that we are doing plenty of hand-washing, encouraging kids to use tissues instead of sleeves, covering our coughs and then...washing hands again!

With all the blustery weather present, it only made sense to enjoy and explore it. On Tuesday morning, I asked the question "How do we know the wind is blowing?"

V: Because it's windy.
B: Because the wind is blowing the leaves.
V: Because it's almost wintertime. The wind doesn't blow in the summer because the sun is out.

With those conclusions, we decided to watch for a sunny winter day to see if the wind blows. At each gathering, the children loved trailing streamers back and forth as we sang about "My Lady Wind", who blows around the house, through all the cracks and crannies. Arthur Lobel's classic "Owl at Home" features a short story of how Owl invites Winter into his home as a guest, only to regret it when the wind and snow take over. We also spent time over our week constructing windsocks from card stock and crepe streamers to take home. The children had fun decorating them with crayons, peeling off the little star stickers, gluing on the streamers and helping to punch the holes for hanging. Just find a place at home to hang your child's windsock over a heat register or near a ceiling fan and let the fun begin.

Wednesday came along, and so did our Pajama Day! The children looked very sweet wearing their favorite jammies, sitting on comfy blankets, and we kept with the theme, having peppermint tea and toast for snack time and a nice wood fire going besides. Since this was so anticipated, and since some children couldn't be here, we will revisit this in January, after the novelty of the holidays has passed. We read a new story called "The Quilt" about a child's quilt that's made up of her old clothes, and how their patterns inspire her to dream of a fantastic landscape of gardens, forests and even a circus. We also played "What's Missing" lotto, where the children work to match cards with pictures of everyday objects on them to larger cards, which featured the same pictures with one part missing. Along with the work of matching the cards, the children were asked "what's missing", which gave us an opportunity to recall or newly learn the names of the different parts of these objects: the 'teeth' of a comb, the 'stem' of a cup, the 'spoke' of a wheel.... this game is a great vocabulary builder and encourages the children to think of how the parts of each object work to make the whole.

Dried rolled oats were introduced into our sensory bin, and the children became engaged immediately. On our first day, V shaped the pile of oats into a mountain slope up one side of the bin, working to pile them up as high as she could before they slid down. B loved filling up containers; we've some old lids of different shapes and sizes to use as scoops this week. Later in the week, the cardboard tubes in the bin were explored as "phones" by the children, one child holding their tube up to their ear, and another putting a separate tube to their mouth and holding the extended ends near each other. All of the kids explored the sounds blown through the tubes, which mimicked gargling or blowing raspberries. (Big laughs, there!) Then, T uses the tube in a different way: "Look, I have a telescope," he said, holding the tube up to his eye.

I love our time each week at the playdough table. This Thursday, B started us off with our usual "Happy Birthday" song, two popsicle sticks poking straight up in the dough, and singing everyone's names to celebrate. This week, I fashioned a "Lake in a Crater" and invited the children to add things to it. When B offered a couple of 'skateboards', a path was made at the crest of the crater. B then added some 'snakes' to the lake. T made some snakes, and V decided she wanted to make a crater lake too, and asked some questions about the process before trying it herself. The table became quiet as the children concentrated intently on their work. T then announced he'd made a "Big Circus Ball" and V was happy with her lake and showed it to us. "Is it to swim in?" asked T.

A few more peeks into our week:

Twice this week we headed out on walks around the neighborhood with 'treasure hunt lists'. (The 'treasures' are finding the listed items which the children chose themselves, seeing them and crossing them off.) Holly berries, pumpkins, snowman decorations, green leaves and cats were found; spiders, scarecrows and squirrels weren't seen as we walked round the block. This is a great activity, by the way, when you need a walk and your reluctant child doesn't want to go.  A lovely distraction.

We revisited a question V posed a while ago, about cotton and clothing, and read a book titled "From Field to Blue Jeans", which depicts every stage of this transformation. Hopefully I'll be finding other materials as well for us to explore this topic, because it is certainly an interesting one. At home, you can show your child the labels in the clothes they wear and talk about where the fabric comes from: cotton, flax, silkworms, bamboo or petroleum. It really is fascinating.

In the block area, B takes apart the cone puzzle, recreating last week's play. "Who wants ice cream?" she calls to us.

T working the dressing puzzles and beading with the ribbon and lacing grids.

During journals time, B stacks and counts crayons. Our block crayons are irresistible when it comes to playing with them. The kids almost have more fun organizing them than they do coloring.

Gathered round the bristle blocks, all the children building. V and T take turns making airplanes from the same blocks.  Children wander in and out of this and a side-by-side mailbox play, with wooden fruit dominoes for the 'mail'.

V makes a neat rectangle with small pegs on the pegboard. Then she and B work the shape spindles and pieces, some of them are used for the mailbox.

Lots of little moments of observation from our big window overlooking the back yard. The shoes area has been moved beneath the kitchen table so that all the children have room to stand near the window. We watched the usual birdy goings-on and saw some surprising drama-- a squirrel had been caught by the beefy neighbor cat. I ran out to chase it away before our rodent friend was any the worse for wear, and was grateful that we'd been present to save the little critter.


This upcoming week is our last for this calendar year. In keeping with our school philosophy, we'll be focusing on our seasonal curriculum instead of the upcoming Christmas holiday itself. Oh, and those paperwhites your children have taken home? Don't forget to give them water up to the tops of their roots. Now that they are blooming, they may be a bit pungent, so you can remove them to a sheltered spot on your porch for longer-lasting flowers. See you Tuesday!

Bird Business

Sometimes there is nothing more interesting or satisfying than watching the birds and squirrels busy in the backyard. Tuesday morning, I scattered a few handfuls of mixed seed on the ground as the children came in, and we have been watching the activity all week, taking little breaks in play to check the scene out the back window. Lots of sweet little juncos are present, a chickadee or two, and we still see that nutty upside-down squirrel having a grand time devouring the suet we hung out on Tuesday afternoon. My favorite part is hearing the children yell to me: "Hazel, there's a big blue bird (scrub jay) on the feeder!" or "Come and see the birds! They're eating the food!" These conversations are full of exclamations and enthusiasm, and I love sharing something I love so much with the children.

On Tuesday morning we came together to sing about our weekends; these songs always seem to reveal what's memorable to the children, because we know that they often have a hard time recalling and sharing what happened even a couple of hours ago. V sang about going to playgroup; T "built a plane with mommy" and B "read a fancy-dancer book". Then we worked together to take apart a bird puzzle, identifying the parts of the bird (head, bill/beak, body, wing, tail feathers and feet) and then reassembled it in its frame. The children noticed, too, that the puzzle bird had "no neck", but that other birds like ducks and flamingos do have long necks. We played a game, reading Ruth Heller's "How to Hide a Parakeet", taking turns to find camouflaged birds hidden in their native habitats--the children very obviously enjoyed this. We also have some resin birds for them to play with and examine, nestled snugly in a bowl of mixed birdseed on the sharing table, too.

In keeping with our theme, I had told the children we were making birds, and they chose two different colors of paper; one, I traced their hands on, and the other was a bird stencil. Once these were cut out, the children were given clean feathers and paint to make their birds beautiful.The children noticed how the feathers changed shape as they became saturated with paint, and I observed that some children began to use them in a different way, dragging them over the paper instead of brushing the paint on.On Thursday, the children put their birds and hand/wings together with fasteners and some real fun began! Our scarves became nests on the big rug, pattern blocks became bird food; V and B played having "tea" with their birdies, then told me they were "having a picnic and a sleepover". The tea turned into a full-blown affair, with the entire contents of the little kitchen arranged picnic-style on the scarves. T moved in and out of the play, and also experimented with using his bird like a paper airplane and flying it around the room. "I wish it had a remote control. Then it could really fly!"

We also did some triangle study on Wednesday, making triangles with our bodies at Gathering (three children holding hands is a triangle!), putting together our Big Barn puzzle to find and count the triangles hidden in the doors of the hayloft, and during our walk to see the big kiwi vine (complete with orbs of frostbitten kiwi still attached), we looked around for the triangles on houses. While we found many pointed rooftops, V also observed that the sword ferns were full of triangles. I also offered some cards which showed how we can use four of our small pattern block triangles to make one big one.

One of our big delights this week was playing with water and ice in the big bin. We started with warm water, and a tray of ice cubes, placed in a couple separate containers for the children to add in as they desired. Long handled slotted spoons were offered. T and V held the ice in the spoons over the water and told me they were "roasting marshmallows", while B decided that she was "fishing". Two questions and their responses:

Hazel: Is the ice as big as it was when you first put it in the water?
T: It's kind of getting smaller.
V: (reaching into her spoon) I don't feel any.
Hazel: What happened to the ice?
B: It's getting smaller now.
V: I think it all melted.
T: But this is warm water.
V: The ice needs to have cold water.

Isn't science fun?

 A few more moments from our week:

We had a great idea come up at Gathering on Tuesday: what if we wore our pajamas to school? The kids thought this was a grand idea, but were a little confused as to the 'when' of it. On Wednesday, they loved helping to make backpack tags for this event. So don't forget-- next Wednesday the 8th is Pajama Day!

T, B and V gathered together on the big rug. T has the cone puzzle in front of him assembles "ice cream cones" for his friends.

B sits, cutting strips of paper happily as we practice using our scissors.

Big tea parties this week with alphabet cookies, horse chestnuts, tongs, spatulas and trays upon trays of goodies.

V and T have another skate park creation, which B later joins. Cars are used as skateboards. T and V tell me all about it~
T: We had cars.
V: And then we had white things. (Block boards.)
T: And then you go through an arrow and jump up.
V: And then you  then you jump across the rug.
T: And then you know what we did? We goed in the dirt and got mud all over us.
V: And then we went through a wash-through (car wash) with water!

Lively dancing with felt snowflakes as we sing the "Snowflakes, Soft Snowflakes" song, and boisterous clapping as we sang "Eliza Jane", rolling a ball back and forth to each other while singing a verse with each child's name.

T brought a sweet 'treasure hunt' type book called "Pip in the Grand Hotel" that we all enjoyed. Thanks for sharing it with us!

We have some new daily jobs for our special helper board. Folding clean place mats, being a helper with coats for our time outdoors and picking out a book for storytime. Some are for skill building, and some just for fun.

Our playdough time was a delight, too. I flattened a piece down and counted out to twenty, while pressing a dowel end into the dough to make circles. "What could go here?" I wondered aloud. B took up the idea. "Here's two little snakes" she said, passing them to me. V began her own twenty circles and T contributed more snakes, B, another rock and it all ended up with endless birthday parties, once again!

Have a great weekend!

Let it (sort of) Snow

Tuesday surprised us all with a nice dusting of snow on the ground and the coldest weather we've seen this season, which delayed our morning start. Since our Gathering Time is so important, we started our day instead with some playdough, rolling big balls to make snowmen and using the patterned rolling pins to create lines, which were furrows for "a farm"; V and I spent several minutes rolling tiny balls to place on the furrows as seeds. A little bit of a backward day, once everyone arrived, we had our snack a bit early and then rounded up for the Gathering, where we made up some little stories and counted bears as we moved them back and forth from their cabin, the snowy meadow, the frozen lake and the pine tree forest. Reading a book on weather, I showed the children a picture of a snowed-in town and asked them "what happens when there's too much snow". Everyone agreed that "cars can't go" and V added that "everything is white". What do you like on a cold day? B: "I like to play on snow days." V: "I like to eat snow on cold days" and T said "I really like to play in the snow". Afterward, the children were given paper snowflakes with holes and a length of yarn for lacing; T liked to loop his around his neck and announced it was a guitar, V followed suit.

This week, our water play bin was open, and we added color on both days, a straightforward blue on Tuesday and a mix of red and green, which the children decided  looked more purple than brown. Our marble run pieces are still out and available. B connected many of the support tubes together then declared "Look at this big tower I made for the princess!" T and V spent a lot of time, trying out pieces to see if they connected and observing to figure out how they worked together.

Over in our little housekeeping area, the Alphabet Cookie play continues. I offered the puzzle frame to load the cookies onto, and T announced "Coming in for landing" as he placed the letters into their rightful places. B worked to get them back out of the frame and into her kitchen, and offered me a tray of them, correctly identifying several letters. The children came together at a few different times in this area, spreading trays all over the little kitchen, an extra stool serving as another counter, and used tongs and spatulas to distribute both cookies and horse chestnuts to all. In keeping with our letter-recognition, we played our Name Game at Wednesday Gathering, but in a new way; this time, the children were asked to choose 3 letters each from a pool of all the letters before receiving their name cards to match them on. It's apparent that the letters of our names are becoming a little more familiar, as only two letters of the entire group weren't correct matches. We finished out our cards, still working both on matching the letters as well as correct orientation.

Speaking of letters, we had some time on Wednesday to work with the stamp pads on pieces of paper cut specifically to accommodate the little mailboxes. B and V decided spontaneously that they wanted to mail their artwork home to their mothers instead of taking it via backpack, which T was very proud to do. He later confided this to a neighbor, that he "liked to take it home in my backpack for my mommy today", on our walk to the big mailbox. The girls enjoyed picking out a pine cone stamp and licking/sealing their envelopes. Our walk was a brisk one, but we did spy the neighbor, out chopping wood, and a lone hummingbird, visiting the fuchsia's near 47th. "Do you think the nectar in the flowers is frozen?" I asked, and there was a unanimous "yes".

Other outdoor activities this week included setting out more suet and water for the birdies (we are now seeing goldfinches, along with juncos, sparrows, a scrub jay and one fat flicker) and watching the acrobatic antics of a squirrel or two. We observed how the bigger animals knocked suet crumbs onto the ground and how the smaller birds, chased away from the suet cage by those larger creatures, ate the crumbs in relative peace. We also noticed that the birds don't visit when we are close by, but if we stand over by the gate or are inside, they'll stick around. Ice was a big attraction, too;  the tarp over the sandbox had collected puddles which then froze, as did the water in the bottom of the ball bucket. The patterns in that ice were fascinating, taking the shapes of the different knobbly and patterned surfaces of the balls; it was fun matching 'which ball?' to the icy patterns.The children liked to drop and break pieces of the ice, and used sticks to 'write' in the snow that had accumulated on the rounds. We also noticed how our breath makes steam, although the children still confuse it for "smoke".

A quiet little week--here are a few more moments:

Painting at the big easel~ V says "This is a picture of a beach with blue water and red sand because there is no yellow". All the children sit around, watching her paint. Later at the easel, T continues the theme. "I'm making a big beach with lots of water. See the water?"

Playing "Doggie Doggie Where's Your Bone?" on Tuesday, all the children imitating panting, cute dogs.

We had the wood fire ablaze on Wednesday, and moved our Popcorn and Pears Picnic to the big rug. The children giggled as we sang "Way up High in the Apple Tree", shaking down apples, pears, lemons ("oooh! they were sour!") and kiwis, for which we adjusted the song to become "Way up high on the kiwi vine tree".  Later, we read "Katy and the Big Snow" while playing with lacing cards.

T and B, then T and V, working with the nuts and bolts puzzles; T creating another game with his bolt, a couple nuts and some blocks.

All in a row: sometimes we have a series of nonsequitors that arise spontaneously. We were listening to some old Miles Davis, and listening to the sounds of the different instruments. The children identified a piano (which started us off, I'm sure) a horn, and drums.  T starts us off: "The piano flied out of  my house because I left the door open. So then I got a new piano, but the new one was yucky So I got another one and it was the same."  This was followed by V announcing "Itsy Bitsy Spider!" and then B following up with an excited series of "Ta Da! Ta Da! Ta Da!" 


As I said, a quiet week. As we sang our farewell song on Wednesday, I asked the children what they were glad and thankful for. T mentioned "skis" again, as he did last week. B, who loves to be the helper at lunchtime, brightly said "Lunch!" and V tickled my heart: "I am thank you (thankful) for school." I hope you have all had a happy Thanksgiving holiday and I'm looking forward to our next week of birds, triangles and so much more!

The Cozy Days are Here

Thank you, dear families, for your flexibility in moving our week back one day. Hopefully we are past the worst of this cold and flu season!

Sometimes, in the quiet after school, I find myself marveling at all that has taken place during the day: how much the children are learning in so many realms--physical, cognitive, social--and the progress I see; how their questions keep becoming more interesting and in-depth, and frankly, how much I enjoy spending time with this group, each child very unique in themselves as well as their contribution to the group.

So now, an hour or so after the children have left, I want to share a lovely moment with you: this afternoon, a rosy fire glowing in the wood stove, your children were so engaged in their own activities that all I could hear was the ceiling fan whirring round. B, content on the rug near the puzzle and manipulatives shelf, lost in concentration working a cord through holes in a horse lacing card. V, sitting at our group activity, a collage on sticky paper, focused solely on the scissors in her hand and some magenta curling ribbon. And T, working silently at what he calls 'the tangled book', which is a skill-building quiet book: he was poking laces through holes in a 'shoe' and tying them into tiny knots between holes. This quiet, cozy afternoon time lasted for about four minutes before the children came together again, but it reminded me how much a well-fed, well-exercised child can get lost in playing.

It's been a busy week for your children. We are moving into thinking about winter, how the weather affects the animals around us as well as the neighborhood itself. On Thursday I shared one of our family winter traditions with your children,:we planted paperwhite bulbs, filling up glass jars with pebbles and water, then placing a brown paperwhite bulb on top. We are looking forward to watching their roots emerge and the shoots growing green and tall, eventually to be crowned with those white, star-shaped flowers. Today, our time outside was pushed earlier, after our Popcorn Picnic snack time, so that we could get out before the storms came. While we did get rained on, the children thoroughly enjoyed several rounds of "Hide the Shoe", which is very challenging right now, as the leaves falling from the grapevines are of similar colors. These leaves also reminded the children of umbrellas (with their stem) and butterflies (without) and the children played an informal game of chase with their butterflies. You have never heard such gleeful shrieking! Later, we took a walk down the block and checked the storm drains, clearing leaves with a turning fork from one of them to ward off the development of "Lake Flanders", the giant puddle that can form at that intersection which is a neighborhood low point. We talked about how leaves can become a plug, just like they have in their drain at bath time.

Another cozy moment was on the rug, all the children engaged in experimenting with the marble run. It's fascinating to me how some children like to just run a marble from the top to the bottom of a single piece of track, or to rock that piece back and forth with the marble going along, while others are becoming more interested in building. Identifying the purposes of certain pieces and their names is of interest; the support tubes are hugely popular for making "old man sticks" (this was V) and just putting them together for long, long pieces and rolling the marbles through them or trying to stand them up. (Interestingly, one child suggested the tubes together "looked like a sword, but we don't play swords at school". It's never come up before, but no, we don't!) Our dollhouse was set up on the large school table, too, and B spent quite a while having her dollies go in and out through the doorways before moving over to the marble play.

On Thursday, the weather was decidedly uncooperative, and so we played "Doggie Doggie, Where's Your Bone?", a group game that involves one "dog" who must suss out who is hiding the "bone" in their hands. Because there was so much disappointment around missing Hide the Shoe, we played an indoor version of Hide the Slinky; here I have to say that your children are getting very crafty at finding hiding places. We also did some play acting again. Here are their stories, as they told them to me.

B: A girl and a mommy and Sophie and a daddy. they play with B with her toys. B will tell the story about the bears in it with the girl and the mommy and Sophie and the daddy.

V:Once upon a time there was V and B and T doing a spiderweb in the kitchen and T and B and V are going to be the spiders. (perhaps recalling our first episode of play-acting?)

T: Once upon a time there was a B and V and V  and they were kitties. They played with some kitten things.

The imagination of these stories was only trumped by the hilarity of today's Morning Gathering discussion. We read a book called "Thank You, Thanksgiving" about a child who is sent off to buy the whipping cream for Thanksgiving dinner dessert. Along the way to the store through the park, she thanks everything she notices. We talked along through the story about what she might have appreciated about the things she was thanking. (pretty clouds. rabbits, snowy hills) Afterward, I asked the children what they  might be thankful for. V replied "I am thank you (thankful) for Christmas is coming soon." T seconded that idea, then added that he was "thankful for skis". V decided to support this statement too, then added, "but I don't never use skis before".

Other sweet, busy moments:

Fingerpainting! On Wednesday, everyone had a chance to fingerpaint. B used her fingers, T used the tools available, choosing a popsicle stick and a fork to mix the colors and make big/skinny lines. V did two pictures, one with fingers and one with all sorts of tools. Big fun.

 Cutting folded origami paper for "snowflakes". All the children got very busy, practicing their cutting with each other at the big table. V chose some paper the same color as her friend. "T, I'm having green too", to which he replied "Oh, what a treat!"

B, scooping rice in the bin: "I'm making a cake and it's hot!" Later, she and T sit and work on the large wooden Nuts and Bolts toys. T uses his bolt to knock a puck-shaped Nut around, and blocks become the 'goal'. B sits and watches, happily threading and removing a few Nuts on the other Bolt.

All the children spreading cream cheese or butter on bagels for snacktime. Hard work, figuring out how to hold the bagel and use the knife to spread.

Poring over a nature book's illustrations: V had proposed that it would be neat if "your sweatshirt came from a flower". When I mentioned that it was made of cotton, which was a flower, we had to check out the book. No pictures of cotton, but we got out a few cotton balls to show how cotton is spun into thread, and enjoyed looking at flax flowers as well as more familiar herbs like rosemary, sage and lavender.

B, coloring. What are you making? I ask. Her reply: "Breakfast!"

The big easel with blue, white and black paint. Amazing how their techniques differ. Their stories and various observed techniques will go home with pictures next week.

Morning Gathering on Wednesday. We are singing a new version of "Mary Wore A Red Dress" which instead recounts what they remember from their days off school. B wanted to sing about falling on the sidewalk, T shared how he bit his lip and V "ate mac-n-cheese at a restaurant with daddy".

I'll be interested to hear what happens on our off-days next Tuesday. Have a great weekend!

Alphabet Cookies

This week found our housekeeping space transformed into a cookie bakery! We are using the large alphabet puzzle pieces as ‘cookies’ and together with a baking tray, tongs, a spatula and little plates, the children got right into our new cookie play. The tongs and spatula give the children another opportunity to work on their fine motor skills and when I offered a bag for the children to pack the cookies in, the counting play began as well. Here’s one scene:
B makes tea at the table. T is placing some of the cookies on the tray and puts them into the kitchen cupboard (which doubles as an oven). “Now we cook them for twelve minutes” he announces. B then counts out 10 cookies for a bag. Then B calls out to us “T, Hazel and V, I’m baking some cookies and they’re hot!”

I am calling attention to each letter of cookie I am ‘served’. If you decide to continue this play at your own house, keep it fun and remember that we are just introducing the names of each letter to the children. If we begin to quiz them about what they remember (other than a few letters in their name) they’ll often clam up and want to move on…

We also played a new Name Game at Gathering on Wednesday. This game goes as follows: each child is asked to recognize their name on a card I hold up. The child then receives the card and begins to match up letters from a pool of them on the floor. (All the letters in the pool belong to our names.) We then line up the letters either above or below the name on the printed card, taking care to orient them correctly. This can be tricky with some letters (e and l were noticeably challenging and took a few tries). Sometimes, too, some letters can become confused with other ones- a lower-case‘t’ and ‘r’ are a good case in point. We are focusing on names because these are the words that hold the most relevance to your children right now, and I’ve also been inviting the children to sign their letters to each other with their first initial.

At the easel, too, I drew big letters of each child’s first initial for the children to print-paint, using a tube and some corks. They’ll be bringing these cut-out letters home next week.

Play on the big carpet this week took on some new themes. We’ve been doing a lot of work on ‘skateboard parks’ recently, but when V was home sick on Tuesday, this prompted T to say “If V was here, I’d build a skateboard park. (With the magnetic blocks) Now what can I do?” I invited him look at the blocks and “see what you think they could make”. Two minutes later he presented a little car with three seats in a row: “This one is for the mama and this one is for the kid and this one is for the baby”. B joined T, making a car too, drove her car along the dark border of our rug, singing “I’m going around in circles! It’s going around in circles!” Then, of course, we did have to move into skate park play. B watched T build his park, arranging and then rearranging blocks, and then followed suit, lining up three blocks in a row, two inclined on the first block. T then imitated B’s work for his already-existent park.

On Wednesday, the block play continued: T and V were making rocket ships. The children began by using the colored blocks, and when they ran out of the sizes they needed, I reminded them of the shelves of unit blocks. T’s creation had “these yellow things are so there can’t get cold inside it. So it can lift off.” Then V and T talk about making an airport. Lots of discussion follows, and B builds “something to make chocolate things. I’m making a tall tower.”

A few more interesting moments from our week:

We worked with glue sticks at the table, making ‘leaf pictures’ by pasting lovely paper leaves onto paper. We’ll be sending this home soon. It was interesting to observe how some children were specific about putting a lot of glue onto a designated space while others ‘drew’ with the glue sticks.

At the big table this week: stamp pads and stamps; some children make ‘mail’ with this while others took their work home. Also, soapy fun as we ran our cars through the suds on top of the table. Lots of dramatic play conversation emerged from this.

Tongs and horse chestnuts at the little puzzle table. The children loaded the nuts into a plastic artists palate from a beautiful blue bowl. Just in case you want to do some of this sort of work at home, I’ve found wooden tongs at Finnegans for around $3. Your child may need a little help in positioning their hand on the tongs. (they tend to want to hold it up near the top instead of the center, and some children try using two hands to hold it; I ask them to place their second hand on the table or in their laps once their first hand is positioned correctly.) Puff balls, nuts, round stones are all great props for this activity. They can be pulled out/ put into bowls, egg cartons (place in is easier for this), Kleenex boxes, muffin tins, palates and more.

At the rice bin, T asked me for a cap to a container. I handed him three to try out (only one was correct, or so I thought) and another one worked. The kids are always teaching me too…

As I made a real cup of tea in a clear mug, we observed the sugar crystals as they were in the sugar bowl, at the bottom of the mug, and after stirring for a moment. Were they still there? Some were, and then, stirred again, they all dissolved. And the color changed when milk was added…interesting…Your house, too, is filled with ‘everyday’ teachable moments.

We had fun at our Tuesday Gathering, each of us with a wooden spindle of different shapes, onto which different shapes and amounts of pieces fit. All the pieces were in a pool on the rug, and as we chose our spindles, we fitted the pieces on, talking about the shapes as we went. We also read a great book entitled “Owl and Woodpecker”, about two forest creatures whose living habits cause conflict. What happens when a day-sleeping owl moves into the tree next to a noisy woodpecker? Can they resolve their disagreement and become friends? Even when their forest friends chime in and attempt to help, nature has it’s own way of bringing creatures together.


Next week, we’ll be moving into some Thanksgiving and giving-thanks stories and planting jars of paperwhite bulbs to observe. I’m looking forward to our time together. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you Tuesday!

Big and Little Mailboxes

Hello Families~ It was great to see each of you for our conferences this week. Our conversations gave me a more complete, well-rounded knowledge of each sweet, special child at our school. Thanks for your enthusiasm, great questions and most of all, thanks for coming!

Because this was a conference week, our group met just once on Tuesday--but what a busy day it was!

Morning Gathering found us all shaking maracas and clackers as we sang our "Hello Everybody" song, and then "Mary Wore a Red Dress", each child choosing an item they wore to sing about. Some of our conversation today was about how it is work to share space and toys, and to take turns, so we are learning how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to help figure out such things like "who goes first" or whose ideas to play out first.  Sometimes, our friends like to play with toys or to play a story differently than we might, and sometimes, even when we've really tried to work things out, we can still feel sad and mad. To this end, we have a new cozy space in the hallway, on a soft blanket with a few books and a basket of fine-motor activities. The children were very impressed with this new space, and one asked me later on if she could "use the little sitting room", she was so interested in trying it out.

We have brought out a little plastic mailbox to play with, for sending notes to each other. This is exactly what T and V got right into: creating 'notes' by scrawling blocks of color onto the small pieces of paper offered at the big school table, then popping them into the mailbox. B immediately asked for a "mail basket", so we dumped out the wooden animals and she got started with that, even moving her own school mailbox over into the housekeeping. T and V continued with the mailbox play, and B was wanting company at the tea party she'd set up. "I'm making tea for everybody" she told me, so I suggested that we send T and V an invitation, just like in the story of "Dandelion" by Don Freeman. I drew a big letter "B" and a teacup, then she folded it and put it in the mailbox for the others to discover. They were excited and brought it to me, wondering what it said. When they learned what the invitation offered, they headed right over to the set table in the Housekeeping and sat down to a nice cup. Our play continued in this vein; T made pancakes in the little kitchen and V asked some questions about making envelopes for her mail.  Later, we gathered on the big blanket in the real kitchen for a popcorn picnic, munching on apples and chatting while the popcorn popped.

Our playdough stories were a continuation of the one last week. I made a little square dough box and offered it to the children. What could go inside the box?
V: Little seeds for the birds. Not bad seeds, good seed cause the bird not wants to get sick. The bird is a bad bird, but it's okay. It can have the food.
B:(points to three Popsicle sticks she's stuck in the playdough, all of different heights). This is the mommy and this is the girl. And this is a daddy. A pretend mommy and a real girl and a pretend daddy.
T makes a "waterfall". Then "a mommy on a snowboard!"

Lastly, our day ended with a lovely busy walk over to the big mailbox on 47th and Hoyt. I had a couple of postcards to send, and so we held hands walking along 47th and the children took turns pressing the buttons for the crosswalks. They were very impressed with the sheer size of the real mailbox and each child had a turn to help either hold the mailbox open or drop a postcard in. After our walk back to the preschool, we finished our day with several rounds of hide-the-shoe (we are introducing "hot and cold" hints) and of course, a story about Princess Pinkie and the Green Prince and all of their friends.

Don't forget, as we follow the Portland Public Schools schedule, we will be closed on Thursday the 11th for Veterans Day. I hope your families got out to enjoy the sunny times, raking in the yard or taking a walk to enjoy the beautiful color outside. See you next week!

They've Got Mail!

What a busy, beautiful week we've had! We kicked off our art time on Tuesday with the much-requested marble track painting; the children each had a chance to make three creations, choosing different colors of paint and paper each time and shaking the box of marbles hard. On Wednesday, we gathered by the easel to create colorful leaves: each child chose a leaf from some that we'd pressed, I drew an enlarged leaf of the same shape onto a sheet of paper for them to paint in as they pleased. Once the 'leaves' were dry, they were cut out, and the children remarked how they looked like real leaves we find outside.

Thursday, we focused on mail and mailboxes. Each year, we create mailboxes for the children and I to leave notes to each other. Sometimes, these are simple pictures, scribble drawings, and sometimes there's more intention and the children ask me to write the messages they have for each other, or make a go of it themselves. At our Morning Gathering, B brought in a wonderful sharing item-- a sweet Jack-o-Lantern card, complete with envelope and stamp, sent to her. The children passed the card and envelope around. We noticed the address on the front, how B's name and the name of her street and city were all there. (They all know we live in  Portland, by the way.) We saw the stamp and talked about how it is the 'money' that pays for sending the card from one place to the other, and then read a book on Postal Carriers and what they do.

After Gathering, we began to get things ready for making our mailboxes. First, a little fun with hole punches (both hand-held and the larger 3-hole punch kind) and colored paper, and lots of bright curling ribbon for cutting with scissors. After gathering up our tiny circles and ribbon bits, we took a break for our popcorn picnic, and then returned to make the mailboxes. We used sticky paper, adding a name tag and plenty of our little bits from our morning work, then finishing it off with a marble track painting of their choice. These are by far the most beautiful mailboxes I've ever seen! Then, the real play began. V and T wanted to put mail in the boxes, so they used ink pens to decorate scraps of paper. V moved her mailbox into the housekeeping to "pretend a mailbox is at my house", where B was setting out tea and treats for herself and her friends,  T delivered the mail to her. Then, V and T switched roles; V dumped out a basket of magnetic blocks and put several pieces of 'mail' in, before delivering them. Soon, all the children had a basket for mail delivery, and were sticking pieces of hastily-scribbled paper into each other's mailboxes. They had a blast!

We are enjoying a new storytime book called "The Little Wood Duck".  In this tale, a mother wood duck has six ducklings, who love to swim in a straight line through the reeds on the lake--all except the littlest duckling, who will only swim in circles and "can't do it any other way", despite the impatience of his mother and siblings and the teasing of other forest creatures. A wise owl notices how one of the duckling's feet is larger than the other, and chides the animals for their unkind and foolish remarks. When a hungry fox comes to call, the littlest wood duck becomes a hero and saves them with his dizzying circles. This tale of inclusion sparked a lunchtime conversation where the children noticed what each child 'was good at'. T said that B was 'good at learning how to be at school, cause she is new', which was true and made B smile with pride. V said that T was 'good at playing', and he commented too that he was good at 'not being sad when I say goodbye anymore' , and then V told us that she was 'good at being friends and listening to the teacher'. I love conversations like these, where we can be thoughtful and reflect positively back to our friends what we like so much about them (or ourselves), and for each child to know they are an appreciated person in our little group.

You might have noticed, too, that your child may be eating more at school. I've begun using a timer set for 20 minutes to encourage the children to eat more (instead of eating a few bites in order to get back to playing) as well as developing table-conversation skills. The children are asked to sit with the group until the timer goes ding before running off to play. This has created a more relaxed lunch time and gives us opportunities for the more productive chats like the one above.

Here are a few more glimpses into a wonderful week~

Ramps and counting at Morning Gathering on Tuesday: we rolled seven horse chestnuts down the ramps, and counted how many  landed on a placemat and how many rolled onto the carpet.

Spelling puzzles at the school table.  Each word has a separate piece for each letter, the completed puzzle creates a picture of the word. V calls to B "Hey hey, come over here on this stool and watch me. I'll show you!"

Some experimenting with pattern blocks, which we tried stacking atop each other-- they are too tippy to stack-- and then the children each made a 'sunshine' with very different interpretations of what a sun should look like, and even how many suns there were! Some children liked to create random patterns, B liked to scoop and feel the soft, smooth wood of the blocks and to pile them onto her tray before sliding them back into the basket.

Rice play in the bin-- it seems the children never tire of this. What giggles I heard when the air vent poofed the floor blanket up, billowing. We are still engaged in playing 'ice cream' in this area and hiding our hands in the rice.

V and T playing babies and princesses, while B dresses up in layers upon layers of dress-up clothes.

Gathered around reading "Leap!", a book about how animals move. With it's blown-up text, the children began a spontaneous game of letter recognition, telling me which letters they saw that they recognized from their own names.

We've revived our game of 'Hide the Shoe" outside, which was a huge hit. Some of the children are starting to find some very tricky places to conceal the searched-for shoe, and I'm introducing "hot and cold" type hints.

Lastly, we learn so much about how to be together at the playdough table. This week our play started with birthday cakes. I made a wee playdough bowl and asked the children what could go in it. The conversation that followed:
V-"a treat, candy"
T-"chocolate, vanilla ice cream" (the conversation takes a new direction)
V-"It's for a bird. For a clockwork bird." (points to cuckoo clock)
T- (placing a piece of dough in the bowl) "It's vanilla cream sauce. It will make the bird get sick."
V-"No. These are good bird food. It won't be sick forever."
B-"This could be the bird. (places yellow playdough knife next to bowl) This could be a squirrel".(adds blue scissors to scene)
T-(has made another bowl) "This is sick food. It's not for the birds. It's only for the squirrels. And it goes up way in the trees in a nest."
A big story, and T decided that if he didn't like what was in the first bowl, to make another one. I love how they all joined in. Next week, we'll see what can go into a playdough box...

Don't forget! We have conferences next week and will have school on Tuesday only. See you then~

Pumpkin Play

There's nothing more interesting to a child than the children around them. Babies demonstrate this to us, watching their playgroup cohorts and older siblings, and while our kids get busier and enjoy spending time with adults, getting to play a story their friend has created can sometimes be more fun than anything a teacher could ever dream up.

We've started doing some very basic storytelling and play-acting with our group this week. The first opportunity was spontaneous in origin: the children were having  a blast playing under our newly made spiderweb of yarn which created a low canopy of sorts, V and B pretending to be spiders crawling in a web. I asked them to share their stories with me, and after writing them down, the children acted them out.

V's story: "Once upon a time there was two spiders and the spiders went to find some food." V and B were spiders and they ate their 'food' with large scooping hands and loud 'Owp! Owp!' sounds.

T's story: "Cluck Cluck. Once upon a time there was five cluck clucks they were playing they were running a race and they hit a straight corner and they said 'mommy mommy' and they had to go to the hospital and then the end."  T said he wanted to act his story out with horse chestnuts, so we counted out five from the bowl, lined them up and then they all had a turn 'hitting the straight corner', which is actually the edge angle of two adjacent walls. The little cluck clucks did cry for their mommy, and the story was finished.

B's story: "About a fish. They swim. It has a buddy. It swims with the camel." B was the fish and V offered to be the camel; as I read their story back to them, they wiggled around on the floor, laughing, under the spiderweb.

On Tuesday, we read a sweet book on cooperation called "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever" about two mice who have differing intention for the same pumpkin. Later, we painted pumpkins with their choice of colors. B commented as she painted "I'm coloring a lot!" and T, perhaps observing the curved surface of the pumpkin, said "This is like painting yourself". We are working on holding our paintbrushes in our fingers, not our fists, and I think the children are noticing that they have better control of their work with their fingers. On Wednesday I brought the dry,colorful  pumpkins to Gathering and asked the children to tell me some Pumpkin stories for us to act out.

B's story: "My Mommy she cooks it and puts it on a plate." To act this out (as I read it, bit by bit), B decided to be herself and V wanted to be the Mommy. We used an imaginary plate, and V repeated her 'lines'. "I put it on a plate for you and now you can eat it." They noisily pretended to eat the pumpkin.

T's story: "At the house. It gets so so little. It got this little. They cut it up and put it in the fridge and then then grind it up and then it goes into the corn patch." T decided to act this one solo, using his hands to demonstrate how little his pumpkin became; the chopping and grinding were quite lively.

V's story: "This pumpkin will be in a cornfield and it will grow big and I'm going to take the biggest pumpkin to the pumpkin place. Mallory will cook the pumpkin and V will eat it." V was herself, B was Mallory; V used her body to show how big her pumpkin became, stretching her arms to the sky.

We'll be doing more play-acting in the weeks ahead.

Later on Wednesday, our easel painting offered a pumpkin-shaped paper and some red and yellow paint for color mixing. Some painters relished this and created some orangey hues. Not to limit our art time to brushes, I also offered paper, crayons and scissors; their activity seemed to center on doing a lot of cutting and finding envelopes to put the pieces in to take home.

Other moments of our week:

Our little group loves the newest song "Five Little Pumpkins"* and gets very excited before we sing it at Gathering. We also enjoyed a cooperative matching game of Baby Animals and Their Mothers.

Outdoors, we dug holes in the ground a planted a few daffodil bulbs around. The children had fun placing the bulbs in their holes and covering them back up. We've also been "poofing" the calendula petals all over the place, especially happy when the orange flowers fall into our hair and faces.

V and T finish lunch early and build a "track" with blocks for their cars to go on. Once B finished her lunch, she too joined in the fun. Then we had fun being cranes and bulldozers, scooting all the blocks back to the shelf to be put away.

B and V working together on the letter and numbers puzzle. B stood next to V and helped her find the correct places for pieces.

T and V again playing 'skateboards' with magnetic blocks.

Long fun conversation overheard at the rice bin~
V- Ice cream! Who wants ice cream?
seconds later...
V-Help! Where's my hand? Where's my hand again? (hand buried in rice)
T-I'll find it.
B-There it is!
B offers us chocolate ice cream.
V-I'm hungry. Can you give us something to eat please?
B-You want me to make some food for you?
V-Yeah. (B gets busy putting rice into cups. I ask what she's making.)
B-Chocolate.
T, scooping rice. "I'm a cement truck. I can go beep beep beep so deep. Cement can go deep and become hard as a rock. It actually goes for the cement."

I couldn't have said it better myself! See you next week!

*For those of you who are familiar with the Five Little Pumpkins song~ I've changed a lyric line from "'The second one said 'There's witches in the air'" to "The second one said 'It's chilly in the air'". I know that many children can have different feelings about the decorations they are seeing around Halloween time and I want to be sensitive in that respect. Kids can somewhat appreciate explanations about being "silly" or that some people like to 'get the shivers' or 'feel creepy crawly'. With so many more realistic-looking decorations these days, finding safe language that doesn't go into detail about those characters but instead discusses the feelings they might inspire can help.

Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting at the gate

The first one said "Oh my, it's getting late"

The second one said "It's chilly in the air"

The third one said "But we don't care"

The fourth one said "Let's run and run and run"

The fifth one said "I'm ready for some fun"

SO~Whoosh! came the wind and

Out! went the light

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

Little Moments of Play

It's lovely to see those times when the children come together, creating their own stories, work and discoveries in the moment. Let's listen in...

After T and V make chains of our "Barrel of Monkeys" monkeys, they use the barrel pieces as phones, holding them to their ears and mouth.
T- What are you doing?
V- Oh, I'm just going to the store to get some chocolate. Do you want to come with me?

In the housekeeping, seated at the table~
B- Would you like to have tea party with me?
V- Pour me some tea please.
B- That's my tea. This is your tea.
V- Pour some tea. (slurp slurp, loud sipping) Sugar. Milk. Okay.
B- Pour some tea. And stir my tea. (lots of slurping sounds)
V-Thanks for the tea.

Packing the sewing grid projects into backpacks~
T- I really liked that sewing I did because it's so fun. Sewing is fun.

At the playdough table, V's playdough 'cake' has every popsicle stick stuck in for candles~
V- The candles are for everybody's birthday. Happy birthday to everyone...Happy birthday to everyone. Everyone can blow out the candles!

B, outside: It's a ghost! Watch out for the ghost!

Shapes seemed to be on some of our minds this week. At our Tuesday Morning Gathering, I placed stones around the cup which holds the stones as well as our little wastebasket to find the shape of those objects--once we removed the cup and basket, the circles of stones was very visible. Our crowns, now finished? Also circles. Then we sang "Ring Around the Rosy" and "Make New Friends...But Keep the Old". Later, we were wiping clean a basket of freshly gathered horse chestnuts, and there was some discussion as to the shape of the wiping clothes. (Square). The children had fun folding the chestnuts into the cloths just so, and explained their different techniques. "I fold it this way, and this way..."

We also saw squares in the sewing grids I offered on Wednesday. We used pipecleaners to attach beads and buttons to the grids. The children commented several times that this activity was "tricky". 

Another fine motor challenge was our snacktime that day; we had half-slices of toast, with butter to be spread upon it, and a little dish of almonds with a spoon for serving. T decided that he wanted to cut his toast in half and did so, with a little help.  There were a lot of "please pass" requests as the almonds went round the table.

We've done a lot of counting this week too. First on Tuesday, we counted how many discs went on each of the shape spindles the children had chosen to work with. (These were later played with and I heard counting then, too.) We took turns touch-counting fish in Lois Ehlert's book "Fish Eyes", going from one to ten. As usual, we incorporate counting into the different jobs the children have: gathering smocks for "how many children are here?"; setting out placemats,bowls/knives/spoons for "How many people are eating snack/lunch?" or asking the children to look and see if we have enough stools at the table for meals, etc.

On Wednesday, we used our Outdoors Time to take a neighborhood walk, by turns running, picking dandelions, and collecting leaves and 'pricklies' (pods from the Sweet Gum Trees) and met our neighbor's very sweet corgie, Lizzie Buttercup, who always wears a smile and adores kids. We visited a garden filled with five gorgeous, fat orange pumpkins, and one hidden besides, which we couldn't decide was green or black. T suggested that we take the leaves back and "put them in water to see if they'll float". We did do this on Thursday, and the leaves were used for all sorts of things-- it was especially fun for V and B to 'wash' the basketball stand with wet leaves; T liked just loading his with water and flinging it around, splashing everything. He eventually took his splattering water work over to a spiderweb in the raspberry bushes, and stood on a round to reach it.

We also had our easel out on Wednesday, and watching the children's different modes of painting is always interesting to me. V, as usual, was right there the second I opened the easel up, as she loves to paint. She worked quietly, loading the color onto the brushes (and enjoyed the sponge brushes I offered this time) and filling every space on the paper. T was a narrator, he told a story as his brush moved over the paper, and there was a lot of action going on. B thoughtfully painted a big circle on one side of her page, and a smaller circle to the left of it.

One of the funny things you might have heard from school recently is that we "practice arguing". I've been using this at times when we need a little levity, and a bit of distraction from the start of what could develop into an actual argument. When I begin to hear the "yes it is"/"no it's not" exchange, and if it's appropriate to what's happening, I might suggest "Oh, should we practice arguing? Here, you can say 'Yes it is', and then you are going to say 'No, it isn't' and we'll do this a few times. Ready?" After a few giggly exchanges, I then have the children switch their answers, and they really get into it. Make no mistake, this isn't teaching them to argue, but giving them a safe way to explore having differences, as well as diffusing a little tension that can sometimes develop over a day of playing side by side and the negotiations and sharing that go with it. ( I also do this with my son, by the way, and it can help smooth over a tense moment, as long as we keep it light.)

On Thursday, it seemed that all the imaginative play during the week exploded into something very enjoyable. We started out gathered at the dollhouse, where once again there was some discussion as to how the pieces of furniture 'should' be used. The vanity sink was deemed a "water fountain". B had her dollies going potty, laying on beds and walking through the doors, carefully closing them afterward. V wandered over to the horse chestnuts. "They're doing a water fountain" she said, dropping them. She then brought one of them over to the vanity sink and placed it in. "This is the water." V and T then noticed the cone puzzle and began 'feeding' each other ice cream (the top piece of the cone) while B looked on. "You can have chocolate, vanilla or vanilla." V offered.  "I want gummi bears." T replied. The dolly basket was then emptied out to be the 'gummi bear basket', and the play continued with lots of horse chestnuts being distrubuted via tongs onto trays and containers and baskets. T squeezed the tongs together, laid them flat, then balanced a nut on the depressed end. Then he let go to spring up the nut several times. B kept busy with the dollies, and then worked with the big pegs, filling up every hole.

Our shakers were a fun project too. The children helped to tape the ends of the tubes, used a scoop and funnel to pour in the rice, pulled hard on the cloth ends to help tie the knots and liked choosing the strips of autumn-themed fabric to wrap the tubes in. I also received several requests for activities next week, so we'll be revisiting the spiderweb play and marble painting will be coming back soon. Have a great weekend and we'll see you all on Tuesday!

Stories...All the Time

These days, our group is book-hungry, story-hungry. It seems that every time I turn around, there's a child sitting in the little wicker chair in our book corner, remembering a story as they turn the pages, or someone's pushing a book my way with a request to "read it to me". T has been perusing "I Am A Backhoe" by Anna Grosshinkle Hines; B is fond of carting around "Pancakes Pancakes" by Eric Carle and considers it "her" book; V loves "First the Egg" by Laura Vaccaro Seeger and brings it to me daily. Everyone is enjoying  the sing-along book "A Hunting We Will Go by John Langstaff, and V is pointing out the rhyming words in each verse. "A Tree Is Nice" by Janice May Udry wears its Caldecott award deservedly--this is another book that has become well-loved and brought to me regularly. It makes me excited to see the children so engaged in the world of books and reading, because this is something I love dearly as well.

On Tuesday we began our week reading "Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea". If you haven't introduced your child to Portland author Cynthia Rylant's Mr. Putter and Tabby books, they are a must. After this story,we had a lovely snacktime inspired by the story. We poured peppermint tea into dainty chinese cups and worked hard using butter knives to spread cream cheese onto cinnamon raisin bread. Delish!

On Wednesday, we read Lois Ehlert's "Planting a Rainbow" before heading outdoors to do just that! (Well, it's likely only part of a rainbow, but still...) Each child now has a large round planting pot of their own which will live at school. On Tuesday, the children helped to scoop compost in to mix with some potting soil. The next afternoon, each child helped to plant a hyacinth bulb, 4 daffodil bulbs and 6 crocus corms into their pots. It was tricky work making sure they went in pointy-side up, especially with the crocus corms, which took some careful investigation before planting. Thursday we heaped on more potting soil and compost and topped the planters off with bunches of winter pansies. These will provide a little color and the bulbs can grow in around them next spring. Heading outdoors on Thursday afternoon, one child asked "when the flowers going to come up?" Wait and see....

Last week we took a shady break in the sandbox and a child asked me to tell a story. So began the adventures of Princesses Pinkie, Red, Yellow and Purple. I thought nothing more of the story, but on Tuesday afternoon, as school was winding down, V reminded me of the story and wanted more. Enter the Green Prince, who has taken the Princesses to visit his land in the Green Kingdom and tells them of the Magic Green Mountain, where a Cave of Treasures (emeralds, of course!) is protected by a wise and gentlemanly Old Green Bear. The Princesses practice remarkable restraint in just looking at the treasures but not taking them! Next week, we will meet the Friends of the Green Prince, who like skateboarding. At the mention of this newest development, T lit up with a huge smile. Perhaps they'll all snowboard down the Green Mountain?

At Gathering Thursday, we talked a little bit about crowns. The conversation went something like this:

Hazel: So, I was wondering, who wears a crown?
V (excitedly): I DO!
B: I do too!
(T just frowns and shakes his head at them, which makes me want to laugh.)
Hazel: Why do people wear crowns?
V: You put on a crown and it makes you pretty!

With that definitive explanation, we moved to the big table to make crowns out of feathers, pompoms and a big letter for their first name right in the middle. They are very, very cute and I have a feeling they'll be worn home next Tuesday. We followed up later with straw piece necklaces, which helps the children to practice lacing and those ever-important fine motor skills.

More moments from our week together:

B, T and V all gathered together around the table in the housekeeping, pouring tea and making pretend food for each other.

V and T chasing each other around the soapy table, running their cars through suds and then using foam sponge brushes to wash the cars. V singing happily: "Washin' my car, washin' washin' my car!"

B and V shrieking happily in the hallway and laughing at themselves in the mirror. At preschool, the hallway is the place to go make loud sounds.

B working steadily at the big pegboard.

T and V linking the Barrel O' Monkeys carefully to create chains of monkeys dangling from the blocks shelf.

Everyone gathered on the carpet building marble runs; T later experiments with marble run slides in the bean bin. "They go down, Hazel!" he yells to me, excited.

B, V and T working with scissors, crayons, stickers and paper. B studiously works on cutting her paper into teeny bits while T and V use stickers on theirs. They begin counting the stickers on each paper in Spanish.

Dollhouse play on Wednesday. This time, there were lots of different ideas on how to use the furniture. Is it a stove, or a television? Some children like to use the bed with the cushions and pillow, and some prefer not to. There was a gentle ongoing coaching about taking turns, and how, when it's your turn, you can use the toys how you like.

At our weekly Popcorn Picnic, T said "Let's talk about something", so we did. There was a bit of discussion about babysitters and "who watches you when Mama and Daddy go out"-- this group has some very beloved grandparents, relatives and babysitters. Halloween also came up too, and the children talked about what they thought they might be dressed as. "What are you going to be?" one child asked me. "I'll be a Mommy" I replied. (If any of you have ideas for a Fire costume to pair up with my son's Firefighter homespun costume, let me know!)

Have a great weekend!

Learning...in the Moment

Hungry to learn, curious and so willing to experiment— this description fits so many young children. Mister Rogers has a song called “Did You Know?” in which he tells us that it is in those moments of wonder and marvel that our children learn so much, if we give them the opportunity to let the learning unfold. While our focus on autumn is still in full swing via lesson plans, I wanted to share with you some of the spontaneous learning your children delight in. Much of this is started through a question or observation on the part of a child, and piggybacked on through either hands-on exploration or, in some cases, quality reference materials.

On Tuesday, during our outside playtime, T was leading an effort to create another lake in our sandbox. The huge stock pot was filled with water for the proposed project, and V noticed the sunlight reflecting off the water, dazzling a patch of white light onto the side of the house. “What’s That?!” she asked excitedly, pointing. I only briefly explained that it was a reflection, just like in a mirror. What could we do with it? I suggested kicking the side of the pan of water to see if the light did anything different, and then more exploration continued with covering the pan, standing in different places next to the pan, and watching as the light moved, became still, or disappeared altogether. T and B joined in on the action, and keeping track of what the light was doing became the center of attention for a while before the group’s efforts to fill the lake (taking turns filling and dumping a large container with the water) moved them along in their play.

“Would you eat a snake?” We were playing “Raise Your Hand if You Like….” at the snack table, asking about all sorts of yummy treats, when T asked me this question. My “yes” answer drew their surprise and distaste, until I explained to them about eels.  Reveling in the ‘eeww-yuck’ creepy factor and giggling, we looked through one of our nature books for pictures of eels. When one page showed an illustration of not just eels, but other underwater creatures, the questions came quickly. What was that one? What do you call that? What’s this one doing? Anglerfish were interesting, with their forehead-lures lit up to draw in other fishes; sharks were inquired about; the odd gulperfish, all mouth with a skinny body following behind was a fascinating creature. Other, more familiar creatures like lobsters and prawns were also asked about until their curiosity was satisfied, as were their stomachs, and they left the table to go play. It’s these cozy moments that, I hope, will augment their love for books and interested perusal, and teach them to keep asking questions, no matter how silly they seem. You never know what the answer might be!

Working with crayons at the big table on Thursday, I was transcribing T’s comments about his pictures on the back of his page. When I flipped it over and set it aside, V noticed the lines of color on the paper below and her eyes grew wide. “What are those lines?” I asked her if she’d like to try it. We re-created the process of this crayon-color carbon-copying, first coloring a sheet of paper with crayons (our block crayons were rubber banded together in sets of three for a little fun this day) and then using a ballpoint pen on the reverse to create the ‘copy’ onto a paper below. Her face wore an expression of being very impressed and pleased with herself.

In all of these instances, just giving the children an explanation would have been ‘enough’, but offering opportunities to explore their own questions makes this learning so much more relevant for them. On my end, it is deeply rewarding to see the children immerse themselves in pursuing the answers to their questions.

One of our ongoing topics is trees, and this week, we explored the question “What lives in the trees?*” At Thursday Gathering, we used the whiteboard to draw a tree and then add in all sorts of critters: a bird with a nest; a squirrel with a nest too; a ladybug, spiders, and bees rounded out our local tree inhabitants. Then we took a walk to investigate the trees in the neighborhood and discovered that something else lived on the trees—mosses and lichens made their homes their too. On another tree, seedlings were growing in its hollow, four feet up off the ground, and there were the telltale sings of ants, their neat holes scarring the exposed wood near the hollow. We heard, but couldn’t spot, a well-hidden squirrel in a large evergreen and noticed both the nascent and mature pinecones above our heads. We spotted huge spiderwebs, fat spiders waiting in their centers, searched for a hole high up in a bee tree, and spied a small family of immature crows on a walk, plucking up breakfast from between the blades of grass. The children watched for several minutes, squatting low and quiet as the crows came ever closer, until we decided that it was time to head back for a snacktime popcorn “picnic”.

A few more glimpses into our week:

The playdough table is dramatic play central! T begins with making burritos for one and all. B makes herself a birthday cake, complete with a popsicle stick candle, and sings a Happy Birthday to herself. V decides to fete herself as well, and plunks four popsicle sticks into her cake, declaring that she’s “three and a half”, then offers cake to everyone. T is on to making pizza while B works with scissors to cut up her orange-colored playdough into “macaroni and cheese”. T’s work turns experimental, using the sides and ends of different tools to see what sorts of impressions he can make in the dough, and V is a ‘bug’ and ‘going to eat a pretend snack’.

Spiderweb play! Using balls of yarn, the children moved like spiders through the kitchen, fixing their yarn to various drawer and door knobs and letting their trail of ‘silky thread’ follow behind them. It took no time at all before the random wanderings became enough of a web that we had to crawl under it. Now we know why it’s so easy for a fly to get stuck!

Outdoors, we are gleaning the last few weeks of berries. I love watching the children wander over to pick a few berries and then run back off to play. B especially seemed happy to plunk down and enjoy a handful of blueberries in the shade.

We are still working at extracting sunflower seeds from the giant sunflower head with tweezers. On Thursday we got a big surprise when we found that a squirrel had devoured our activity for breakfast! The seed head was empty, but we have more… We are also offering different activities that ask the children to use tongs to manipulate materials. We have offered cotton balls (easier) and our shiny blue glass ‘gem’s (more difficult) to be pinched, grabbed up, and placed into various sorts of trays. This encourages both fine motor skills, counting and arranging. I heard lots of counting and saw rows of the gems being arranged and rearranged to make them even.

In the housekeeping area, B has been loving up the dollies, while T and V have some interesting culinary creations cooking!V and B play dress-up, festooned with aprons and lacy doily-type shawls and necklaces.

T and B huddled over the water play bin. B using small tubes to pour minute amounts of water back and forth while T works with the bigger scoops pouring water into the mill.

Check out our autumn leaf paintings on the window of the preschool door, and the preschool space is showcasing some of the bigger art done at the easel.


As usual, I'm looking forward to another fun and busy week with your children. Have a restful weekend and we’ll see you Tuesday!

All Things Autumn

“Oh, I’m as happy as a big sunflower

  That nods and bends in the breezes

  And my heart is as light as the wind that blows

  The leaves from off the trees-es”

In a week where we have been celebrating all things autumn, this movement song seemed to sum up the fun we’ve been having at school. On Tuesday, we took a walk around the block, gathering leaves of all colors, admiring the tall cornstalks in a neighbor’s garden and marveling at the fat spiders and their enormous webs, hanging from trees and strewn through our backyard as well, where we returned to pick the golden raspberries and blueberries for our snack. Of course, we had to read Robert McCloskey’s classic, “Blueberries for Sal”, and this story of prompted B to ask repeatedly, “Where’s the mom?” Quite a legitimate concern for a child…

Wednesday, too, found us on a short walk, this time on a different block. The main attraction on this venture was a fallen apple that had been claimed by a colony of sugar ants. V pulled back the grass at the edge of the sidewalk to expose the swarming little workers, taking invisible bits of apple back to their home under the ground. V was impressed that the ants carried their food back and forth in their mouths. Returning to finish our day outdoors, B played with sidewalk chalk and V made sandcastles, inviting B to stomp them down.

Other autumn-related activities have been keeping us busy and happy: we’ve been singing about gray squirrels swishing their bushy tails, leaves and nuts waiting for the cooler days of autumn to fall down to us, and of Itsy-Bitsy Spiders. At Gathering, and at a few meals, we have enjoyed the light of a ‘corncob’ candle made of beeswax—V declared that “the candle smells like honey!” On Thursday, we had our snack picnic-style on a blanket in the kitchen, enjoying apples and popcorn and talked about warm and cozy things. What’s cozy? B says “a blanket”; V says that sheets and a soft teddy bear make her feel warm and snug. Indoors, we played with seed pod shakers from a tree, and outdoors, we used tweezers to pull sunflower seeds from a huge sunflower head.

Don’t you just love fall? Keep bringing those leaves, seedpods and other treasures…

Here are some other moments from our week, which was a girls-only week as T was out of town. We are looking forward to welcoming him back next Tuesday!

V and B played with our wooden animals and a couple of dollhouse dolls, which were a Big Sister and a Little Sister. (The dolls were assigned to me—“You be them” said V.) I asked them to make up stories about the Dog and the Beaver (V’s animals) and the Duck, Gray Bird, Squirrel and Cat (B’s) which we then acted out with our toys. Our stories centered on the animals hiding under baskets and the Sisters finding them.

Lots of art: large easel paintings, print painting on paper with corks and lids, and using watercolor pencils on soaked-watercolor paper umbrellas. We also had our usual playdough time, where V and I made “beetles” to feed the hungry bird in our cuckoo clock. Artistic and exploratory arrangements were made on trays as we played with pattern blocks during a storytime too.

Dollhouse play was a big hit. The children assembled the dollhouse with pegs, then put furniture in the various rooms. B and V had their dollies visiting the bathroom to go potty and wash their hands repeatedly. (The dollhouse toilet is one of the most continuously fascinating and attractive pieces of furniture, I’ve noticed.) At one point, B had all the dollies in the bathroom (6 of them!), showering, using the toilet and washing hands…she even added chairs into the bathroom to accommodate her crew of characters! Then several dollies played “Ring Around the Rosy” together.

V used blocks in random arrangements to create “a skating project for boys and girls”. Interestingly—and appropriately—she used only the curved and angled blocks for this project, leaving the rectangular and square blocks on the shelf.

Sometimes, the children’s questions unfold to great moments. Reading “First the Egg”, V wondered about the tadpole which becomes a frog. This led to our reading a book about frog development from “frogspawn” (egg clusters) to the mature frog. Then we brought out our frog “teacher puzzle” to examine frogs in a different way, labeling the parts of their bodies (fore and hind legs, etc.) and seeing how the smaller legs are in front while those large and powerful jumping legs are in back.

There’s been a continuing interest in lacing activities, so we had fun making up a story with our lacing tree, then stringing the leaves and animal ‘beads’ for the tree into a long strand.

Thursday we got very silly washing the paint from the big school table with bubbles, and then driving our cars through the suds to make tracks. Big fun!

The rice bin is still Ice Cream Central, and B offered us ‘chocolate ice cream’ while V made ‘pink ice cream’. We’ll be offering water play next week, so you might find wet clothes sent home in your child’s backpack!


I’m so looking forward to next week. Have a great weekend, and enjoy the gorgeous signs of autumn!

Trees!

Regretfully, back-to-school is the beginning of Virus Season, and we were closed for two days due to family illnesses. Please know that we are recovering and school will reconvene next Tuesday. Tuition accounts will be credited for those days we were closed.

We are so fortunate to live in Portland, where trees are everywhere. I had invited the children to bring a leaf to share from their neighborhood, and on Tuesday morning at Gathering, we had fun examining them. T brought a leaf from a bamboo plant in his backyard; B's was from "a walk", and I shared a brightly colored one from a sweet gum tree. We noticed the different colors and shapes, then had fun building a tree puzzle which featured the different parts of the tree--the roots, trunk, branches and foliage--as separate pieces of their own. We helped to take it apart and build it together; this is part of our new set of "Teacher Puzzles"*.

In keeping with our discussion, we moved over to the table to do some painting of paper leaves. Holding a small paintbrush can be work, and the children all worked differently. Some mixed colors; some painted just a bit while others used the entire space. I let the children work as they choose on these activities, for as long as they choose, and it shows in how different each child's work looks.

Popcorn was a big hit at snacktime! T hung out in the kitchen to hear the kernels popping in the pan.

Playdough time always seems to gather the children right away. Today, there were lots of different activities going on. B spent most of her time cutting the playdough with scissors, right from the huge piece I'd given her; she'd cut off little bits and put them in the cups of a palate and we'd count them from time to time. V and T were working mostly on forming balls of playdough, and T invented a flicking game in which little balls of dough were aimed at a hole in a container. "SCORE!"

Rice play was turned into 'making ice cream--cookie dough ice cream' by T. B and V played in the housekeeping for a while, V dressing up and B making food and taking care of babies. Later, T and V built towers with the boxy stacking blocks, loading up nuts and stones into them.

At storytime we read a Henry and Mudge book that T had brought to share and the children sat working on lacing activites as I read; we had beads and big buttons available. This was very satisfying for everyone, and I enjoyed the side chatter as the children offered things to each other. "You want the purple button? Here." was the gist of the little conversations back and forth.

Outdoors, we went on a spider hunt--Huge Spiders!-- to find the webs and remove them before descending on the raspberry and blueberry bushes. The children ate most everything they picked, and some quality time was spent in the sandbox as well. Lots of digging!

I wanted to add a note about your children's lunch boxes and messy faces. When they arrive home, you might wonder at the disarray. Along with other areas of self-help that we develop at school, I am allowing them repack their lunchboxes at the end of lunch without a lot of direction and only assisting if asked. Your children need to be able to practice these things without micromanagment on my end, and this is something that other preschools support as well. If you are feeling challenged by a messy lunchbox, please come talk to me about options for containers, etc. that will encourage your child to do more of this themselves. Messy faces are par for the course as well, and while I do ask the children to use their napkins, they might have other ideas or may not quite 'get' the smears of food on their face. The point of it all is that I am giving your children the chance to do things on their own, and sometimes what's important to us (clean faces) isn't significant to them. Rest assured, if there is a food that does cause rashes, such as cinnamon or tomato sauce, I will ask them to follow up on their cleanup!

I'm looking forward to next week-- I was disappointed to have to cut our time short, as I have some very fun lesson plans laid out that I'm excited about. Let's hope all of your families are healthy too, and I'll see you then!


*"Teacher Puzzles" are Montessori puzzles which teach the nomenclature and assemblage of a variety of living things. Because the puzzles have very small, snug pieces, we work with them as a supervised activity. This also augments the practice of labeling the parts and discussion of the function of the individual parts. These puzzles cover a range of plants, insects, mammals, and fish and birds. And, of course, a child!

Supporting Scissors Work

Every day at preschool, children are offered a variety of opportunities to hone their fine-motor skills. Using lacing cards, eyedroppers for dripping color, peeling small stickers off paper, constructing puzzles with small pieces--all of these activites help to increase their manual dexerity, which supports the development of their self-help skills, such as using zippers, buttons and snaps, and eventually tying their shoes. Add to this the creative expression of cutting paper into strips, zigzags, and other small pieces--when children cut up paper, they will often direct our attention to a small pile of scraps, instructing us to "look at what I made". It's easy to see why scissors work is a great way to help our children develop essential skills in a potentially creative way.

Here are some tips for making your child's scissors work time fun for them and comfortable for you:

Setting the Stage: Plan ahead to sit with your child while they work, and understand that a child who is very engaged in scissors work may sit for 20 minutes or more. Find an easy-to-clean place where dropped paper scraps won't be trouble to clean up, and know that as your child becomes more adept with the scissors, they will be able to focus more on keeping their work over the table. For now, however, their focus will be on manipulating the scissors and paper, which will take nearly all of their concentration, so leave the television off and keep distractions ot a minimum.

Considering Which Kind of Scissors to Use: Know, first of all, that even scissors labeled "safety scissors" can cut flesh. The only kinds that can't are suitable only for playdough; generally, the plastic-blade safety scissors can only cut construction paper, and not very efficiently; this product usually provides more ripping than cutting. That said, you do have two choices: providing coils of playdough for your child to practice cutting with the blunt scissors, or using safety scissors with appropriate materials.

Create Clear Guidelines and Expectations: Just as adults need to learn safety precautions for their tools,  children need much guidance in scissors safety. Every time you sit down with your child, be clear which materials are for cutting and which aren't. Children using scissors must be sitting down in a chair, so make sure all your materials are at the table before starting. Children should be taught the safe ways of holding scissors for work (with the correct fingers in the holes) and for carrying/passing scissors to others (holding blades and presenting handles to the other person). Note: if you must remove scissors from a child's hand, don't grab the blades to do this. You can be badly cut. Trust me on this--I know this from personal experience!

Not All Paper Is Created Equal for this Task: Young children often need their paper selections tailored to their level of skill. The size and thickness of the paper do matter; generally, children can cut things between tissue/crepe paper and cardstock, and the thicker the paper is, the larger the paper can be. Avoid thicker papers like cardboard and tagboard, which can 'trap' scissors; instead, offer full or half sheets of cardstock, standard-weight printer paper, and similar sizes of gift wrap or construction paper. Lighter-weight materials like tissue or crepe paper should be presented in smaller pieces or strips for cutting, as they have a tendency to tear. Tearing paper, in and of itself, is a fun activity, however, it isn't necessarily supportive of this particular skill. Scraps can be offered in a box or paper bag, and don't forget that much of your recycled junk mail  is suitable for this purpose. Children love cutting into catalogues and circulars, as well as ribbons on gifts and other packages. Fun!

Use their Work: Consider if some of their larger scraps can be used for little notes, and set these aside in a small basket. This not only teaches the importance of reusing materials before they hit the recycling bin, but also gives your child a sense of having been helpful by creating something useful and necessary. If we focus primarily on the process and less on the product, your child may feel pride in having "done the job" of creating scrap paper. They can be instructed later to get paper from this basket for lists and notes, which adds to the value of their work.

Inspire Your Child: Folding paper and cutting out 'snowflake' type patterns or doll chains for our children is fascinating to them. They may, of course, continue your work by cutting it apart, however, these sorts of activities intrigue children as they are curious about these sorts of things. Once they have some dexterity with scissors, show them how to press a fold into paper and cut on the fold. They'll be delighted with their work!

Playdough Activities: For some children, and some settings, offering safety scissors may not be your safest or best first choice. Nonetheless, all children need to have practice with this tool. Playdough allows us to present scissors practice in the safest way possible, with plastic scissors especially made for the purpose. I've regularly seen young children while away large chunks of time happily cutting up coils or strips of playdough into empty muffin tins, containers or palates and playing candy shop or bakery. If you are working with a group of children, be sure each has their own container/s for this activity. This is a great activity for children who may be prone to acting out physically when they are upset or frustrated, or in larger group settings where one-on-one supervision can be a challenge. Be sure to offer other play props, too, such as popsicle sticks or caps and corks  for making impressions, so that if the child becomes upset or frustrated with the scissors, they have other options immediately available and can take a break from the scissors work if need be.

Lastly: Understand Your Child's Perspective on Scissors and Cutting. I can't stress this enough. While we adults have lots of understanding about which materials are for cutting and which aren't, your child may think that everything can be for cutting. This is for two reasons: first, our children just don't have our experiences and cannot critically judge which items are suitable for cutting and which should be left alone; second, we ourselves model some of the cutting we don't want our children to do. If your child sees you using scissors on food in the kitchen--say, preparing chicken or snipping herbs-- they may likely want to try cutting their food with scissors. Many of our children have had the experience of an adult cutting their hair with scissors and might want to try this themselves. Likewise, if you have occasion to cut fabric or clothes while you sew or modify clothes, your child may think this is interesting too. The point of all this is to sit with your child as they work and to store the scissors out of reach when they aren't in use. When I was four or five, I cut my own hair as well as my sister's, and hid the hair in a crayon box so that the adults "wouldn't find out". While these incidents (and their resulting hairdo's--or hair-don'ts!) result in stories and photos for the family, know that this sort of cutting is rarely an act of defieance...at least, not until they are significantly older!