October 2013 Highlights

Dear parents,

We have had a great month and I can't wait to share it all with you. My favorite thing about this month was to see how excited the children were about the garden. Each school day they ran outside to check on their peas. It's the very first thing they did. And when the first frost came and killed most of the other plants, they were delighted to see that the peas survived. The children thought that was a pretty cool creature power!

 

 The children's obvious interest in the pumpkins and peas growing in the garden prompted me to choose gardening (or farming) for our study topic in October. So we have learned about plant anatomy, plant life cycles, and where different foods come from. Our farmers' market dramatic play encouraged children to incorporate all these new ideas into their play.

We also had a wooden barn, Lincoln logs, and farm animals in the building center for pretend play.

 

The children used the Lincoln logs to build fences for the animals on their farm. 

 

Here the children are cheering after completing a large farm puzzle. I was so pleased to see them cooperate to finish this work and celebrate their accomplishment together. 

 

Other table activities are shown here.

 

The children have really enjoyed reading farm story books this month, especially "Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type" and "Ten Red Apples" (which they acted out using our story-telling basket). Information books about wheat, apples, pumpkins, corn, and farm animals were also provided in the school library.

The children are still finding science in their world. They talk about it for share-and-learn. We've had acorns, rocks, a whistle, fall leaves, garden produce, tree seeds, and a sunflower, to name a few. The children have been especially interested in how plants in our world change in the fall.

For example, one student brought two peppers from his garden for science share-and-learn. He noticed the peppers changed color as they grew. They started out green then changed to red. He brought a red pepper and a green pepper so we could compare the color. I was pleased to see him making comparisons. That's thinking like a scientist!

We have also been watching the pumpkins in our garden change color, from green to orange. (You can see the pumpkins we harvested from the garden here.) One student said plants change color when they ripen. Most of the children agreed with that. But they were still curious about how it works. We thought about the leaves on the trees. They were changing color too. But not because they were ripening. We decided to add a question to our board: How do plants change color? We want to keep thinking about this.

  

The boy who brought the peppers invited us to tour his garden. So we took a field trip to the boy's house. We found many foods growing above the ground, below the ground, and on the trees.

 

His mother showed our class how she uses the apples from her tree to prepare homemade applesauce.

 

 

The children got to help. They turned the crank on the apple machine. It separated the skin and seeds from the apple, and turned the apple into applesauce. What a cool invention! The applesauce was warm and delicious!

 

During snack time over the course of this month, we started noticing that the food we eat comes from many different parts of the plant. We eat stems when we eat celery, leaves when we eat spinach, roots when we eat carrots or potatoes, seeds when we eat pomegranates, peas or corn, and fruit when we eat apples, plums, and grapes.

 

At a circle time, we sorted foods based on whether they grew below the ground, above the ground, or up in a tree. The children signaled to give their answers. We also learned that some foods can't grow here, like coconuts. We want to ask our pen pals if coconuts grow where they live. They live by the beach, so maybe!

The children discovered holes in some of the apples from the student's tree. We were curious about what kind of "worm" might be eating the apples. A week later we found a worm in our box of apples. When we looked closely at the worm, we discovered that it had feet. It wasn't a worm, it was a caterpillar! The students wondered if the caterpillar would turn into a butterfly. After a little research, we discovered that the caterpillar would turn into a coddling moth. So cool!

 

After making this discovery, one of the girls noticed holes in the wood fence around the school yard. She wanted to know what kind of bug was eating the fence. Another student had a hypothesis: termites! We are going to watch our fence now and keep an eye out for termites. We added another question to our board: What is eating holes in our fence? I was pleased to see her making a connection between the holes in the apples and the holes in the fence. Making connections is an important part of critical thinking and problem-solving. 

Unfortunately, we had to cut down the dead cottonwood tree in the front yard last week. The tree had completed its life cycle. But before we cut the tree down, we made some observations. The children thought the tree looked sick because it was "bleeding" sap and most of the branches didn't have any leaves on them. We added another good question to our board: How can a tree get sick? When we cut down the tree, we found trails on the branches underneath the bark. What creature made the trails? Was something eating our tree?

Other questions added by students this month were: How come we can't get nectar or honey from flowers but bees can? Why do cows give milk? Why do cows and horses eat hay? Why does stuff grow on trees (e.g., prickly balls, helicopters, nuts, snakes)? (Hypothesis: They are seeds!) How do leaves change color? Why do farm pumpkins grow bigger than garden pumpkins? (Two hypotheses: bigger seeds, more water.) How big can a pumpkin grow? So many great questions!

 

We decided to focus on that last question: How "big" can a pumpkin grow? We read a book called "Big Pumpkin" by Erica Silverman. We thought of different ways to measure how "big" our pumpkin was.

We measured how tall our pumpkins were with Unifix cubes, we measured how fat our pumpkins were with string (circumference), and we measured how heavy our pumpkins were with a scale.

We also wanted to know how far our pumpkins could roll. In the book "Big Pumpkin" a pumpkin rolls down a hill. We were curious to see which of our garden pumpkins would roll the farthest, the big pumpkin or the little pumpkin. We went outside to roll pumpkins down the slide.

 

Each student made a hypothesis before we began our investigation. Most kids thought the little pumpkin would roll farther than the big pumpkin. Why? Because it's not heavy. Was this a hypothesis we could test? Yes! Let's do it! The children were surprised to discover that the big pumpkin rolled farther than the small pumpkin. Their hypothesis was NOT correct, but we still learned something!

 

I then invited the class to look around the school yard to find other things that would roll down the slide. They each found something different. Did big and heavy things always roll farther than small and light things? Why? We need to keep thinking about this.

We also did some float and sink experiments outside with found materials: rocks, sidewalk chalk, metal screws, leaves, sticks, apples, and a dirty sock. At first the sock floated. But when a child squeezed the air out of the sock, it sunk! They came to the conclusion that things float when air is inside them.

  

I suggested the children test a pumpkin. Each child made a hypothesis. Will the pumpkin float or sink? The children were delighted to discover that pumpkins do float. They screamed and jumped up and down.

We opened up the pumpkin to see if there was air inside. Sure enough, the pumpkin was hollow! (We learned a new word.) We also found lots of seeds and goop inside the pumpkin.

After making some observations, we made a list of describing words. We described both the outside and the inside of our pumpkin. We recorded our observations in our science journals. Below are some work samples depicting our pumpkin investigations.

When we opened up the pumpkin, we discovered another way we could measure it. We can measure how much water our pumpkin holds. That's called volume! Then we made pumpkin soup in the sand and water table. Good times!

 

We also counted how many seeds were in our "big" pumpkin. We looked at all the seeds and wrote down our predictions. Then we counted. First, we divided the seeds into groups of ten. We put each group of ten seeds in a cup. Everybody helped.

 

Second, we counted the cups and stacked the cups into groups of ten. This made groups of 100 seeds. At last, it was time to write down our big number. How many hundreds did we have? 5! How many tens did we have? 4! How many seeds did we have leftover? 2! That means our pumpkin had 542 seeds. Wow! That's a lot of seeds!

The children's interest in apples, pumpkins, and peas inspired our math and literacy works this month.  Below are some of the Montessori-inspired activities that were popular with the children.

 

We counted pumpkin seeds, matching the quantity to a numeral. We rolled dice and used pumpkin seeds to do simple addition problems.

 

We learned how to do addition using a ten frame. Students were challenged to discover all the different ways they could make ten by filling an ice tray with green and orange pumpkins.

 

This student was particularly interested in this work. He worked at it for a very long time one morning.

  

We played an apple picking game, rolling dice to determine how many apples to put in a basket. The first person to pick all their apples wins. Students used tweezers for fine motor practice.

 

Students sorted "apples" pom-poms by color into baskets using tweezers, as part of an apple life cycle work.

Students also used pretend apples to count by 10s and to do simple addition problems.

 

 

One student suggested we use the apples to make pies and do apple pie math. I thought that was a great idea! So we added some pie tins to this work.

After sorting the apples by color, he did a big math problem and added them all together using a calculator. It was fun to see this apple work evolve over time according to the children's needs and interests.

Many literacy activities were also available to students this month. Students found letters in an I Spy bottle filled with green peas. They raced to see how many letters they could find before the sand timer emptied.

 We played a game similar to Don't Eat Pete where students try to find a worm (or caterpillar) hidden under one of the apples. Students call out letters and try to win more cards than teacher.

 

The movable alphabet was a very popular activity. Students could spell the names of farm animals, then switch the beginning sounds to make a nonsense word (like in the book "Young MacDonald"). For example, if you put a pig and a horse together then you get a hig and a porse. The children thought this was quite hysterical.

 

I think every kid at the school wanted to use the letter stamps on the shelf. Here, children put the pumpkins in the right order to build the word "pumpkin". Then they trace the word, stamp the word, and write the word. On the back of the paper, they can draw a pumpkin.

 I will definitely find more ways for the children to use these letter stamps.

 Sandpaper letter puzzles.

 

The sensory table was filled with acorns and leaves. Students could match the lowercase letter on the acorn to an uppercase letter in the ice tray.

The children also enjoyed simply transferring the acorns into "squirrel holes" using tweezers, strengthening fine motor skills.

 Finally, a book-making activity about the life cycle of a pumpkin was available.

 

Students order the picture cards in a sequence around the pumpkin to make a circle (or life cycle). They can also use the photo cards to create their own book.

The student here liked the activity so much he made the book twice. The second time he helped another student know what to do. That was great to see. 

 

The pumpkin life cycle book includes a page about decay. Here a boy discovers decay happening to our pumpkins outside.We are starting to find lots of decay in our world now.

In addition to math and literacy, we practiced some art skills this month. We talked about the importance of choosing our colors carefully. Peas are green. So if we draw peas, we choose a green marker. If we draw pumpkins, we choose an orange marker. I know this sounds obvious, but I have students who don't yet do this. :)

We stamped real fruits and vegetables in paint, carefully choosing the right color of paint to match the food.

 

 Here are photos of the work in progress.

 

 We also experimented with using paint brushes of different sizes to make lines. Big paint brushes make fat lines; small brushes make skinny lines. Lines can be straight, or squiggly.

 

The children painted pumpkin vines in a pumpkin patch using the different brush sizes: small, medium, and large. The results were lovely.

 

Children used their fist to stamp the pumpkins with orange paint, then painted the vines green with the brushes. 

 

More photos of the process.

 I love to see the quiet and careful concentration at the art table.

  

Here is a sneak peak at the alphabet books the children are creating.

The week of Halloween we had an art lesson about contrast. We observed that black and white are opposite colors. We made black spiders on white paper, and white ghosts on black paper. The choice of paper here was important. We wanted contrast, not camouflage. And the kids' hand prints were dang cute!

Below are the fall and Halloween books we had in the classroom.

On Halloween the children enjoyed a haunted house dramatic play inspired by the book "Ghosts in the House" by Kazuno Kohara. The book is about a witch who moves into a new house that is haunted. She solves the problem by catching all the ghosts and putting them in the washing machine, hanging them to dry, and creating new uses for them (curtains, table cloths, blankets). 

 

Here are the children acting out this story, and also making pumpkin pie and sharing it with friends. 

 

 

Wooden blocks were used by the children to build a haunted castle.

 

We played Halloween sounds bingo. Children listened for a sound then put a marker on the matching image. All the kids looked so great in their Halloween costumes!

Well, that's it for this month. I will leave you with a few photos of the children enjoying their outside time, raking leaves and playing soccer.

 

 

  

 

  

I loved watching this spontaneous soccer game unfold because all the boys were on the same team. They just kicked the ball to one fence and shouted, "Score!" Then all ran and kicked the ball to the opposite fence and shouted, "Score!" again. They did this over and over. It was awesome! 

 

The day after we cut down the tree, the children were all playing on the logs. I got these great photos of our entire class. They are priceless to me. Parents, each one of your children seems to be enjoying school and learning a lot. Please let me know if there is anything more I can do for your child. I sincerely care about each one of them. It is so fun to see them learn and grow. They truly are wonderful children.
Yours,
Teacher April