It is Farm Animal Week...lots of animal sounds will be heard during class this week.
Growing up my boys spent three weeks each summer at my grandfather's farm in Ohio. Grandpa was actually an educator (teacher, principal and a Dean of Education) but he had what he called a "gentleman's farm". A big garden, geese, chickens and a goat. He had a tractor and a big barn to play in with hay and a rope swing. He enjoyed farming but loved being an educator and this was the best of both worlds for him -- and for us! There was a big pond to paddle around on and spend time fishing or just watching the geese as they landed on the water several times a day. My uncle had the real farm with pigs, cows and a huge combine and tractor. He had the big tree with the rope and wood seat swing that you see in classic Midwest farm pictures. You could swing so high on that swing! I can still see the clothes blowing in the wind on the line behind the garden and my aunt picking beans and putting them in her apron to carry into the kitchen for our dinner. So many memories that we share with each other from those visits to the small town of Laura, Ohio. A trip to the farm was not complete until we visited the hardware store in West Milton. Squeaky door and creaky wooden floors. You could find anything and everything in that store and if it wasn't in the hardware store you could find it in the Variety Store! From canning jars to children's toys and tools to mops...if you needed it you could find it in these two amazing stores. We still have the tractors Joel and Nick bought at Wertze's Hardware store. All of the children in the small towns had tractors. The kind of tractor you had depended on the owner of the hardware store. They were either red Internationals or green John Deere tractors and trailers. They had so many pieces of farm equipment and accessories...our sons were in farm heaven when they went down that aisle. If you look on the bookshelf behind me during class you will be able to see what Mr. Wertze considered the proper type of farm equipment. I have to admit I googled Wertze's this evening...still the same and I bet it still smells the same inside! https://wertzhardware.com We will talk about farms, animals and what different kinds of food we can find on a farm. During the week you can ask your child what animals live on a farm, what they eat and what they say. It is also a time to talk about pets, wild animals and domesticated animals. You can ask them where their food comes from and how food grows. We will have conversations about animals, food and family for the next few weeks as we lead up to Thanksgiving. Hope you have fun on the farm this week. I know I will. ~Teacher Janice This week is Turkey Week. It is hard to believe we are moving into the holiday season. I love Thanksgiving and, in fact, it is my favorite holiday. This year will be a very different kind of Thanksgiving. As I read over the newsletter from last year I was grieving some of the traditions and events from years past that won't happen this year but I also realized how much of what Thanksgiving is about is still something we can focus on this year. It is a time to be thankful for what we have and appreciate all of our blessings.
We might not be celebrating with a big family gathering like we had in the past but we still have our immediate family to be with and to be thankful for the time spent together. We, as a society, have had a chance to reevaluated what is important. Time spent with each other has moved up the 'what is really important' list. It has always been important but we had let other things move it off the priority list. What I like about Thanksgiving is that it has always had a spotlight on relationships and thankfulness. We have so much to be thankful for as we finish up the year. This is a time to look back at what has been important to you this year. I am so thankful that our family has been able to connect online each Sunday with our Family Paris Chat. I am thankful for the chance to hear Zoe and Ansel laugh. I am thankful for the smiles I get to see during our preschool zoom sessions. I miss being able to be with people in person but I appreciate the creative ways people are finding to connect with each other. Life has definitely slowed down for some and this has given those people an opportunity to spend time doing things they wouldn't have had time for otherwise. Other people have had to reinvent their daily activities during this pandemic and are keeping quite busy. No matter which one -- busy or have more time -- we have all had the time to discover what is really important to us. There are so many things I took for granted that I will cherish once we are able to return to a portion of what was normal. Hugs, snuggles and going to the grocery store without feeling nervous - ha! Take time this month to count your blessings. The biggest one for me is time with my family. At preschool, for Turkey Week, we have always painted two big papier mache turkeys. It is so much fun to watch the kids paint these turkeys. They love it. I will have the turkeys in The Garden space during November for some gobble gobble time. During class we will be singing about turkeys and focussing on farms, animals, family and food. We will start our Gobble Gobble songs this week and be gobbling for at least a month. When you think you have heard enough gobbling we will start ringing our bells and some of you will be thankful you can turn down the volume when we sing Ring Ring Ring Your Bells! It is hard to believe but we are off -- It is November! ~Teacher Janice When people think of spiders they do not always visualize a cozy home setting. This week we will be talking about spiders and starting conversations about our homes. For some of you the thought of a spider is unpleasant or uncomfortable. Your child will pick up on that feeling. If possible you can have someone else be the person that shares spiders (or anything that makes you feel uncomfortable) with your child. My daughter-in-law has worked really hard to teach Zoe and Ansel about spiders and that they need to be careful with them even though she is scared of them herself.
With the spider we will be talking about their webs and how a web is a home for a spider. We will talk about other homes for animals – nests, holes, caves, etc. As we talk about homes for animals we will talk about our homes and where people live. When my sons were younger we had several pets that are not the typical pets. They were allergic to dogs and birds, Curt is allergic to cats and it made me sad to see fish die so we had a tarantula, an iguana, gerbils, a hedgehog and a turtle. Having pets is a way to teach children responsibility and empathy for living creatures. Showing them how to "touch gently" whether it be a plant or an animal teaches them to be careful with living things. If your family doesn't have a pet your child can nurture a plant. A way to teach responsibility is to let them feed the family pet or water a plant. They can care for something and feel quite proud of their ability to take of something that is alive. How can you help your child develop that empathy for living creatures? You can give them an opportunity to care for something. Giving them something to care for will help them develop a variety of skills. Not only do pets provide children with entertainment and affection, but they also teach them about responsibility, compassion, trust, coping with loss, respect, and loyalty, and they help build children's self-esteem, patience, and social skills https://rockandrolldaycare.com/7-things-child-can-learn-pet/. If you don't have the energy to have a pet -- and it is a lot of energy to have a pet whether it is a dog, cat or snail -- taking care of a plant develops several of the same traits as a pet animal. They can also develop compassion for animals in the world by watching them, talking about where they live and caring for them by setting out feeders. On your hikes in the woods you can teach them the importance of caring for all of nature. I loved going on hikes with the boys and having conversations about the trees -- What kind of tree is it? How old is the tree? Who lives in the tree? What can we do to take care of the trees? Learning to respect all living things is an amazing gift you can give your child. As you take your nature walks this week show your child the webs outside. An early morning walk, with the dew on the webs, is a perfect time for finding spider webs. The dew drops will highlight the webs in the gardens and make it easier for the children to see them. It is also a good time to look for nests in the trees now that the leaves have fallen. Ask your child where he/she thinks the birds live during the winter. You can ask them where they think the spiders go when it is cold. We will be talking about homes for animals, and people, during the next few weeks. ~Teacher Janice During pumpkin week we will talk about the color, size, shape, texture and weight of pumpkins. I will have some pumpkins on the screen to show the children. We will explore the pumpkin and see what is inside one.
Learning through sensory experiences is one of the many ways your child develops their awareness of the world around them. Talk to your child about the pumpkins you have at home and the ones you see growing in a garden/at the pumpkin farm. If you go to a farm you have an opportunity to talk to them about where food comes from and how plants grow. If you buy your pumpkin at the store you can find some books about farms and food or research it online. When you cut open your pumpkin you have a great opportunity to teach your child new words. Words that describe the texture of the inside of a pumpkin and words that describe their feelings while they are exploring a cut open pumpkin. Remember that some kids love to get messy and others will just want to watch as you pull a handful of goopy seeds out of the pumpkin. Either way your child is learning and creating new pathways of information in his/her brain. These early learning experiences are stored and used to build their foundation for later learning. We will talk about a variety of ways your child learns but one of them is through sensory play. Touch. (from an article by Danielle Steinberg)
As we start the month of October we will be exploring leaves, trees, pumpkins and spiders. I love being outside in the fall....well actually outside in any season.
There is so much your child can learn when they are outside. Just walking on the ground is a learning experience. For many children walking on uneven ground is something that they do not experience on a regular basis. They spend a lot of time walking on the level floor at home or on the sidewalk outside but they may not be out in the woods or walking on a trail with roots and rocks. Giving them an opportunity to learn how to balance on uneven ground helps them to build core strength, develop a sense of how their body works and allows them to take safe risks. When you allow your child to determine if it is something they feel safe doing it builds a sense of pride when they are successful. You can set up safe risk with developmentally appropriate activities. For the little ones just crossing over the tree root is a big accomplishment and for the older children climbing on the big rock may feel like they have scaled a mountain. If they try and can't do what they attempted then they have a chance to deal with disappointment and reassess what they are capable of doing. When you are there to help them set up safe risks you are allowing them to build their self confidence, learn how their body works and how they can safely explore the world around them. When they are outside they have an opportunity to discover how they are a part of this world we live in. This week we will be investigating leaves. We will talk about colors, size, shape and texture. When you take your child on a leaf walk ask them questions about the trees. You can ask what color the leaves are and what trees have changed colors. You can listen to the wind and the sound the leaves make when they are walked on. Compare a leaf that has fallen on the ground and one that is still on the tree. You can talk about an evergreen tree versus a deciduous tree. I found out an interesting fact about needles and leaves. It may not seem like it, but needles are leaves. They do the same job that broad leaves do— capture sunlight, “inhale” carbon dioxide, and “exhale” oxygen—providing the tree with food and air for us to breath...Needles have a thick, waxy coating that retains more water than a regular leaf. Learn something new everyday -- it should be a goal for you because it is definitely something your child does every day! Danielle had Ansel and Zoe make a fall picture for the cedar "leaves" they found today. They were at OO Denny Park. They made a beautiful picture collage using the leaves they found from the evergreen trees. I had not thought of collecting the types of leaves they collected as I have always thought of fall leaves that are red, orange and yellow from deciduous trees. We will be examining different leaves this week and I will add cedar tree 'leaves' to the mix. You may want to make a collage out of them on the day we make our leaf collage by using cedar leaves instead of dried deciduous leaves. Fall is so much fun! Be sure to take a small bag or little treasure box to fill up on your nature walks. We will have lots of activities this week that have natural items as part of the project. A fun way to gather items is to go on a Color Walk and try to find something that matches a specific color -- red leaves, brown pine cones, yellow dandelion and a grey rock. Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from an autumn tree. ~ Emily Bronte Have fun walking in nature and listening to the leaves! ~Janice This is Apple Week and we are officially starting the fall activities....and it definitely is starting to feel like Fall! I am always sad to see the summer season come to an end but I have to admit I love fall. I love the sounds of the leaves crunching under my feet as I walk in the woods or on the sidewalk in the neighborhood. I love the taste of warm apples in apple dumplings and the smell of apple cider and cinnamon simmering on the stove. It is fun to eat a cup of chili on a picnic in the mountains on a sunny day as you sit under the colorful leaves and listen to a river. So many memories of times spent outside in the fall with my family. For my family making applesauce is a family tradition. My mom would make batches of canned applesauce each fall. When Joel and Nick moved out of the house she would make them their own jars of applesauce to have in their apartments. She no longer cans, and I never felt comfortable canning, so we no longer have homemade applesauce sitting in the cupboard. What we do have is my version of homemade applesauce and we will be making it this week! It is so easy to make, yummy to eat and makes the house smell so good. As Joel and Nick got older it was one of their afternoon snacks when they got home from school. It is a comfort food for both of them. This year we may see a change to our family traditions. For some of you most of the traditions may stay the same and for some of us there will be a lot of changes. For me and Curt there will be so many of the fall traditions that we will have to change. I was just chatting about this with a family friend that has been a part of so many of our family activities. We always camped together, carved pumpkins together and spent time taking long, leaf walks at Discovery Park. Even though we cannot be together like we usually have been we are planning some new traditions. Carving pumpkins outside in the back yard while drinking our hot cider is on the calendar -- hopefully on a dry, sunny afternoon! There are many ways you can connect with family and friends this fall you may need to readjust the tradition or make a new one. One tradition you could add to your family activities is making applesauce together. It can be done in-person outside or over a virtual chat with the grandparents. It is easy to do and provides a point of connection that will bring back fun memories each fall. Another fun tradition is a fall walk. As you walk around the neighborhood point out to your child the different trees on your walk. Talk about trees that bear fruit, trees that loose their leaves and trees that stay green all year long. Collect some leaves and compare the colors, look for ‘helicopters’ (as we call the maple seed pods that are all over the ground right now), see if you can find acorns and chestnuts, look for pinecones of different sizes and see if you can find a spider web with dew or raindrops on the web. The spiders are quite active this year. I found 5 different webs in just one bush in the front yard today! On your walks it is also a time to talk about patterns. There are so many places you see patterns. Show your child things that look the same, things that repeat A maple leaf is an excellent example of symmetry that you can show your child. Another is the waves at the beach and patterns they make on the sand. You can show them patterns on their clothing, patterns from shadows on the wall as well as patterns they can make with their bubbles. Our sons loved to do bubbles is in the bath. Try adding some bubble fun to the bath. When they are wet the bubbles will stick to their skin without popping. You can make multiple bubbles and talk about the pattern the bubbles make. There are patterns in nature, patterns in words and patterns in math. Can you think of a favorite pattern to share with your child? If you want to find out more about patterns this is an interesting article to read about the different kinds of patterns. Natural patterns include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature I am looking forward to making some applesauce and some memories with the children next week! “Cooking is a way to teach kids about reading and math”. Emeril Lagasse ~Teacher Janice Friends and Family Week
We will continue taking about your child and how they are part of our community. This fall we will talk about homes, food, people, emotions and the world around them. At home you can talk about who is in your family, who lives at your house and who lives in other places but are still part of your family. You can talk about places people live — houses, apartment, farms, cities, in the mountains and by the water. When you are out on a walk (and hopefully we will be able to do that again soon!) you can talk about the people in our community and what they do when they are working. It is a great time to talk about the people in your family and what they do for work. Joel told us that when Ansel is pretending to be PaPa 'he talks in a deep voice and says he is going to go work on a project’! Children are aware of our activities and this is a time to add to their vocabulary, and their understanding, of what people are doing to help their community and family. As you talk about what people do for work, and for fun, you can ask them what they like to do with their family. What makes them happy when they are with family. It is a time to talk about emotions as well. When we are sad who helps us feel better? When we are sad what can we do to make ourself feel better? What happens when we are mad? How can we help someone else if they are feeling sad or mad. How can you tell if someone is sad? How can you tell when someone is happy? Be sure to let them know how you are feeling and how you are going to deal with it. You can say — I am feeling happy and want to dance. I am sad and want a hug. I am mad and need a chance to be by myself. I was wrong and need to say I am sorry. Giving children words to use with their emotions, and the actions that can be taken, gives them a strong emotional base to build on as they grow. Emotional Intelligence is the "capacity to be aware of, control, and express ones emotions” according to Daniel Goleman. We will work on his 5 key elements this year: ~ Self-awareness ~ Self -regulation ~ Motivation ~ Empathy ~ Social Skills More than ever we are dependent on our family and friends this year. I have realized how important my family is and how I had taken for granted my interactions with them. This is a great time to build that connection with your child as well as teaching them the importance of strong relationships with other people. Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson ~Teacher Janice |
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