An Apple a Day in the OC! - Teacher Sheri

We are embracing Fall and all it has to offer! This month we'll spend time exploring things like apples, leaves, and squirrels. Take a look at what we had in the room when the kids arrived on Monday!

The texture table now has flax seed in it, which the kids love! It feels great to dig your hands into and runs smoothly and quickly through the windmills.

The kinetic sand continues to be a hot spot. We added molds, sifters, and things to push into the sand.

At the light table, the kids could decorate tree branches with acrylic leaves and collect or sort the colored acrylic pumpkins.

A collection of wood pieces, squirrels, and fairies kept everyone busy at the building table.

The kids crafted on paper leaves at creation station...

explored play dough....

and played with games and puzzles. Checkers was a hit!

On Monday, we remembered the month of October by placing mementos in memory boxes. They placed a spider ring in their box and added pumpkin and ghost stickers to their journals.

At our other activity table, the kids began a two day apple art project! The first phase was writing their names and gluing newspaper strips onto an apple shape.

The second phase, which they did on Friday, was writing the letter 'A.' Then, they painted their apple red or green and added a stem and leaf!

Wednesday, the children drew self portraits. All of the self portraits they draw will be included in a portfolio they take home at the end of the year. These drawings are a wonderful representation of where the kids are developmentally at each stage!

Along with self portraits, we measured how many apples tall the kids are! They counted all the apples and wrote that number on a page, which they got to decorate. Their "how many apples tall" photo will be included on the page. ;)

On Friday, we took advantage of the beautiful fall weather and took a nature walk. Armed with paper bags, the kids collected natural items and then came back in the classroom to glue them on our nature collage. You can see our collaboration hanging on the wall.

Teacher Lisa introduced everyone to the vowels this week! The kids had a blast singing "We Like to Eat, Eat, Eat Apples and Bananas!" using all the vowel sounds. Ask your child to sing some of them to you!

We began our Thankful Yoga sequence this week and it's a fun one! We are beginning to talk about things we are thankful for and this series reminds us of taking a moment to think of those things.

We boogied with beanie babies to the Bean Bag Dance.

And we read many fun stories like, Miss Suzy and Ten Apples on Top. On the flannel board, the kids used their flannel people and apples!

Here are some more pictures of the kids staying busy at school.

All in all, it was a GREAT start to November. Stay tuned next week for egg carton owls and apple pie in a cup!

Take care,

Sheri and Lisa