Too Much Fall Fun, and NOT Enough Time!

Ms. Harmony loves all the fun changes that fall brings!  There is so much to do and enjoy! This post shares some of the ways we've been actively learning about fall.

Apples are ripe and ready to eat!  We not only tasted apples, we learned about the parts of apples, and made beautiful apple prints.

We used scented rice, funnels, bottles, and acorn toys in the Explore Table.  This smelled amazing!

We built homes for fuzzy forest friends and made sure they had plenty to eat!  Fall is an important time for animals in the forest because soon they will face food and shelter scarcity during winter.

We colored leaf prints by taping the paper on top of the leaf and doing rubbings with crayon.

We cooked with acorns we gathered and sand.

We noticed that the weather got cold, and so did the water in our table outside!  We changed the materials from water play to bubbles!

We shook up sensory bottles with googly eyes, bugs, and bands!

We made LOTS of art with play doh, googly eyes, paint, fuzzy sticks, pom-poms, stickers, and more!

We sorted bears into "families" which helped us practice color identification, size and color differences, and counting skills.

We applied our knowledge of fall leaves and forest animals by painting a forest scene in fall and telling a story about the animals that live there.  They were looking for food, building homes, getting camouflaged, etc.

We talked about Halloween being a fall holiday just weeks away!  We played with lots of funny things like slinkies, bracelets, pumpkins, and googly eye glasses!

We danced with fall leaves, tossed them in the air, and pretended to rake them into a pile!

It always seems like a race to do all the fun stuff each day.  I wish that the preschool hours could STRETCH out so we could pack more into the program... so I leave it with you at home to keep up the fall celebrations.  :)  

Train Engineers, Pilots, and Doctors! Oh My!

The best way to discover new passions is by trying them out... right?!  That's just what we've been doing during February.  Last week we shared about our work as construction workers and builders.  We continued to explore even more careers in the classroom.  

 We tried on train engineering for size.

One day for Small Group Time, we talked about different medical instruments and pretended to be veterinarians.  The children continued to work as vets and/or doctors throughout the week.

We loaded passengers and flew Little People to new destinations.

We put toothbrushes in the paint and brushed away at the art easel.  Dentists make sure we are doing our brushing just right.  *Bonus: this week was the first time Baby "E" painted and didn't try to eat the paint!  Way to go "E!"  You're growing up!

Friend "Sandwich" brought his fire equipment and did a show and tell.  He explained that helmets are for protecting your head, the extinguisher sprays out the fire, and the megaphone has a siren.  We used his equipment and materials from Harmony's House to build apartment buildings and houses, then rescued people, and put out the flames.

Toddlers "Kite" and "Koala" worked together to build many a road.

Thank goodness we all have a few years before we grow up and decide on a career.  There are just too many to choose from, and we had way too much fun working with these ideas to pick just one!

The Apple Game! (Gross Motor Skills and Sorting)

We LOVE the Apple Game at Harmony's House!  We mix up our "apples" in a basket, then say, "On your marks, get set, GO!" at which point all the balls ("apples") get dumped!

Then quick as a wink, we all run to pick up the balls and toss them into either the red tub or the blue tub (I wish I had a green one!) according to color.  All around, you hear, "Red!  Green!  Red!" as the children name the colors that they find.  Occasionally you hear, "Oops!  Wrong one!"  Then we fish out the "apple" that doesn't match and toss it in the correct tub.

By far, this is the MOST fun way we have practiced sorting by color and even the toddlers love it and can accurately sort by colors.  Yay by for apples!