Baking, Deliveries, and Enemy Pie (?!!)

There were a lot of pictures to post this week! Our art projects included painting with feathers, stamping farm animals, and painting with a "roller" painter. The children helped to bake the bread for the Harvest Feast, and discovered how eggs get smushed into batter, and how dry ingredients and wet ingredients get mixed together. It wasn't easy! We have new "unit" blocks in our classroom which have generated a lot of interest. The difficulty seems to lie in how to communicate your own idea to a whole group of friends with a whole lot of blocks. We're working on it, and have even tried a drawing board, which children can add their own ideas to. We wrote a "legend" or made up story together by passing around a story stone, and celebrated a "fire circle" with candles, sharing peace words with each other and chanting a chant. We delivered the bowls that we had made together to the art room for use in the Empty Bowls event.
Finally, a mom came in to share a favorite book, Enemy Pie, and we shared a delicious pie that we all made together!!!
The children shared a few wonderful sentiments with us this week, including "I didn't know prek4 could be so fun!!" and "I wish this day would never end!"
Until Next Time,
Michele

Legends, Dreamcatchers, and Harvest.....

It felt like such a quick week for us! We made shakers to shake to a popcorn song, and enjoyed our typical block building and bean table activity times. The children were very engaged in creating dream catchers, and you'll see one child dreaming away (look below) at her dream catcher so it can catch her dreams! You'll notice a sign up at the door, complete with marker, for "dinosaur adventures". I've been told that "they need to know how many are going to be there before they buy materials." The dino sign up looks a lot like the parent sign ups that are above them. Hmmmmm.
We baked yummy oatmeal cookies, with raisins and without, and continued our adventurous play with the large hollow blocks. Rescue heroes seem to be the mainstay of our play.
Until Next Time,
Michele

Safety, Still, and More About Harvest

Our big news this week was an exciting visit to the fire station. The children's play focused on their excitement, as there were many firefighters, rescue heroes in red, vehicles made from large blocks, "hoses" and possibly other rescue tools made from building toys, and loud rescue noises coming from the block rug. At the fire station, we were able to watch a dad get dressed in all the firefighter gear, and then pat him as he crawled around for familiarity and comfort. Exploring the fire trucks and their size was very exciting.
We painted with fall items for paintbrushes (or paintbrushes) and began a project of bowl making for a school-wide "empty bowls" fundraiser. "Magic cutting" was a choice at the table, and the children cut on the lines to make "butterflies" (squash) and other flying objects as well as spirally vines. Our baking project this week was a recipe for pumpkin corn muffins that was shared by a family. "Guess how many children ate a muffin? All of them!!"

Until Next Time,
Michele