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!