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.  :)  

Pets are Part of Families Too

Some of the families of Harmony's House have pets, and one family even has a parent who works with pets as a Dog Groomer!  When the children asked for the puppies and kitties to come back to the House Area, this seemed like the perfect time to make a Pet Salon.  

Check it out!  We have a waiting room for clients to hold their pets while they wait for the groomer to come get the animal.

The first stop for our stinky pups is the bathing station!  Our pets get top-notch treatment with a bubble bath and shampoo.  Then they need a quick towel down.

Next they need to move to the Styling Station.  The "groomers" can use toy blow dryers, brushes, clippers,  and bows to spruce up the pet's look!

Lastly, we have some pet crates (carriers) where pets wait for the client to come and pick them up.

We sure hope our school friends have a barking good time with our new House Area set up!

Create and Learn!

Our school friends have been expressing their creativity in so many ways!  It's amazing to see them build their brains in SOOO many wonderful ways!  One subject we talked about was "shades."  We started with blue paint, and then explored what happened when we added black and/or white paint to the blue.  We talked about how the blue would get darker, or lighter, but didn't change into a different color really.  Dark blue and light blue are shades of blue.  Each masterpiece of blue shades was truly a masterpiece!

 

We used balls and ramps to create different tracks.  It was so fun and educational to explore what happened when we changed the angle of the ramp by raising or lowering the end of the ramps.  The balls speed would change and we found natural ways to talk about force, gravity, height, and distance.

     

But sometimes the ramps made dog homes too.  :) Because open ended materials are useful that way!  Why not?

Our Explore Table has been filled with fuzzy sticks, dry noodles, and colanders.  We navigated fuzzy sticks through the holes, in and out, to make silly hats!

Friend "Alarm Clock" wondered why sometimes you could see the fuzzy sticks and sometimes you couldn't.  We noticed that if we threaded the fuzzy sticks from the outside of the bowl, versus the inside, the fuzzy stick would poke out the way she wanted.

Play offers so many opportunities for young children to talk about "big" ideas from art and physics, and practice "big" skills like threading and weaving.  It's no wonder that play is one of the fastest ways to learn new information and skills for children!

Toddler Masterpieces

Blue and purple have been the colors of choice at the art easel this month.  We mixed, swirled, splashed, and dabbed...

Toddler "E" even enjoyed the sensory experience of painting her hands.  The benefit of having a small group of friends is that there is time and space to do kid stuff... like paint yourself, and the teacher doesn't get stressed.

Paint washes off, but these experiences and memories will build the brain the child will have for a lifetime.  That is totally worth it.

Make Your Own Mermaid Cove

This has been a hot spot for play lately.  We provided a box with flat stones, natural seashells, blocks, ocean animals, and a variety of mermaids in shell seats.  The "water" was simply a blue and silver silky scarf tied around the table.

The children have set the stage, played, and reimagined stories and scenes over and over again.

Sometimes our mermaids befriended nice turtles and dolphins.

Sometimes the mermaids needed a spot to chill out and have a snack.  And sometimes they had to escape to safety from an invading shark or orca whale!

It's a beautiful thing to behold when young children develop creative thinking skills, scientific knowledge of living things, language, and role playing with a small box of simple toys.  <3