Blog Week 7:
Welcome to Autumn Work!
Hello Parents!
During this
four day week we saw some entry level works leave the classroom but many new
autumn themed work enter. The kids
have this excitement growing inside of them ready to burst. It is amazing!
Also this week
the class met “Bob” the big blue marble,
“Oliver” the small orange marble, “Steve” the smallest pink cube, and
“Charlie” the thinnest rectangle prism in the broad stairs. Bob, Oliver, Steve and Charlie are
super small and cute. They also
tend to be adventurous. If they
happen to jump into a pocket or a lunchbox, please make sure they find their
way back to the classroom! Thank
you!
Monday: No
school because of Native People’s day, aka “Columbus day,” aka “Go look at
colorful leaves” day. I hope
everyone got their apples and pumpkins picked!
Tuesday: We
started the day off with Spanish groups.
The children are learning Spanish greetings, colors, and numbers
1-10. After work time we held
circle time and read Green is a Chile Pepper, a book of colors, by
Roseanne Greenfield Thong. This
beautiful book not only reviews Spanish words but also illustrates with autumn
themes some of the colorful customs of Hispanic communities. During both morning and afternoon work
cycles, there was a lot of new buzz around the new works, which required a
lesson before use. The
pumpkin-marker work seems especially popular. The giant sunflower seed work, flowers for arrangement, and
ghost scoop had many visitors as well.
Even the Broad Stairs saw some new life as a marble transformed this
visual sensorial activity into a sound activity.
Wednesday: We started
the day with morning circle, and read the book Many Moons, by Remi Courgeon. Everyone was reminded that the new
works require lessons because some of the tools are tricky to use properly so
that they don’t break. New
Practical life works include: Skulls and ghost sorting, pumpkin –bucket pouring
work, orange bead stringing, and pompom candy corn twister. Lessons on new works and some old works (new to some students) were very
popular today. We also had music
class with Mr. Wolfe, and sang “Down by the Bay.” We have some very exciting news! A big box of cultural works arrived and
needed to be sorted between the lower elementary and the preschool. This involved carrying and opening tons
of little boxes. Lots of permanent
new works will start appearing on the shelves in the coming weeks, so I’m super
excited!!!!
Thursday:
Circle time centered around the 30th day of school. It is exciting to measure the day of
the year with a physical representation because the children can really “see”
the passage of time. Work cycle
was super productive today. New
works targeted the Math and cultural area: fall sequencing works, bead chain
coding, and landform mat (part of the new cultural works). Many children make great work choices
today, either choosing challenging works for them, or trying a new extension of
the work. Sensorial works started
seeing a new life, with the introduction of “Bob”, the big blue marble and
“Oliver” the small orange marble.
The marble can transform a visual discrimination work into a visual
-auditory work. Language works
were also explored and sound associations were explored and for the older
children, spelling works continued.
We also had a life lesson taught today, as a child who didn’t have a
lesson in a new work, explore the work and therefore break part of it. Together as a class we talked about how
it is respectful to the material to treat it kindly. We stressed the importance to have a lesson either from a
teacher or a peer lesson before using the works.
Friday: What a
foggy morning! We came in earlier
than usual, to escape the morning fog and chilly weather. At circle, we read a poem called “The
Months,” by Sara Coleridge. I’m
going to try to read more poetry in class to reinforce rhyming of words and see
if any of the children pick up on it (So shhhh! Don’t tell them!).
Ms. Katie sadly was out today, but Ms. Stacey joined us and enjoyed
reading and singing to small groups of children. Today new works included Sensorial’s: the Pink Tower
and the 4th Knobbed Cylinder and a Practical Life/Art work: tearing
work. The tearing work is
challenging for the children because it requires a two hands opposition grasp
and a lot of concentration and coordination. However, rewards are immense: there are glue sticks involved
and the child creates a mosaic piece.
Just be aware if a child brings home a “half finished” mosaic piece, the
child did a huge amount of work just to create it.
The chill and fog burnt off so we went outside to enjoy
midday recess. There was also a
new work waiting for us: raking leaves!
The children loved raking piles and running through them. They also enjoyed finding the “perfect”
leaf to show me and we talked about the botanical shape and the parts of the
leaf. We also did some
sensorial work with size discrimination of leaves: organizing the leaves by
size and shape.
Important Dates to Remember:
Oct 25th- International day –(we’ll travel around
the world and learn about countries)
Oct 31st- Halloween- (Reminder- no treats are to
be sent in, but the children are allowed to wear a costume if they can be
independent especially when using the bathroom)
Nov 1st- Open House
Thank you,
Ms. Becky
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