Dramatic Play
Since Halloween is just around the corner, the dramatic play area turned into a pumpkin patch and corn maze! We really enjoyed crawling through the maze and looking for monsters inside. We also really like going through the maze with a friend and then playing peek-a-boo with them over the corn fields. We loved filling up baskets with pumpkins! We picked out our favorites and often carried them around the classroom with us. We used the pumpkins to cook different types of treats, such as pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies! Our friends really enjoyed eating them and sometimes we sneaked some “spicy sauce” into the baked goods—our friends’ surprised reactions were our favorite part! Since it is fall time, there were still lots of maple leafs all around. We really liked taking up the leafs to piles and jumping into them.
Cognitive
We still really enjoy building with the magnatiles. There were a lot of different types of houses— some had multiple rooms and some had fifty floors! We also built lots of spaceships and rocket ships that went out to space, while bringing animals there. It was fun when friends helped make our creations even bigger— the best part is when we get to crash it down together! Sometimes we crashed down creations on accident, but the loud sound of the crash is almost as fun as building it! We worked a lot on our communication skills, talking about how our friends can help and what we want to build. We also have been very focused on figuring out structures and how to build things that are strong enough to hold all the levels and animals we add.
Music
We really enjoyed playing on the piano and drums. One of our favorite songs to sing along to while playing instruments is “Wheels on the Bus.” It was especially fun when friends sang along and grabbed an egg shaker to add to the beat! We have been using the egg shakers a lot throughout the day and especially love listening to music an playing along with them. We have been experimenting with sound and tempo, shaking fast then slow, loud then soft and talking about what is different. We also are working on our coordination skills with the drums, trying to time our hands to the beat on the same drum and two different drums!
Gross Motor
It was so fun jumping into the ball pit area with our friends! Sometimes we would hide underneath all the balls and our friends would need to search for us. We really enjoyed burying one another into the ball pit. We also really liked to use the mattress as a diving board and then jump into the ball pit pool. We used the wooden horse as a ice cream truck! We would make ice cream daily and serve different flavors each day! The horse also became a dump truck, fire truck and hay ride for all our friends to go on. We still love jumping on the mattress- especially all together!
Quiet Area
We enjoyed reading books with our friends throughout the day. One of our favorite books right now is, “Goodnight Gorilla.” We think the book is very funny and we liked watching the animals escape from the zoo and going home with the zookeeper! We also really like reading all the different Halloween books. It was fun pointing out different objects that reminded us of the holiday, such as pumpkins, trick-or-treating and ghosts, and talking about how we are going to celebrate. We have been "reading" to each other often too- looking at books together pointing out and talking about what we see in the story.
Art & Literacy
We had a lot of fun playing with the play-doh, as we created different types of baked goods. We made dessert pizzas that were chocolate flavored and covered with cheese! We also made pizzas that had sausage, olives and pepperoni. Sometimes our friends would order birthday cakes and we made sure to put a candle in and sing to them! We also really enjoyed using the wooden boards and creating different patterns on them. We worked really hard following the line, and most of the time were particular about what material we used. We were really focused on following a pattern of only sticks or only green gems. We celebrated Elijah's birthday and made another birthday canvas. We loved painting together and seeing what other friends would add. We talked all about Elijah and his special day!
Block Area
We really enjoyedstill love building big train tracks and driving our trains all around them! It was especially fun when we combined our tracks with other friends. It made the whole train station even bigger, which allowed our trains to travel even further! We also really enjoyed placing arrows to show other friends which direction the trains were traveling in. That way, it would prevent traffic and crashes! We love using the signs for the other cars and people and making a town with the houses around the tracks too. The airplanes have also been lots of fun and we love loading them up with passengers and animals and flying them around. We've been using the ramps too, for the balls and cars. We love seeing how long of a track we can make and testing it to see if it works. We worked on problem solving a lot to figure out how to make the ball get to the end.
Nature
Our new caterpillar friends have now turned into beautiful painted lady butterflies! It was exciting to see the butterflies fly around their new home. It was also interesting to see the cocoons empty. We checked on the often to try and see one emerge, but they come out quick! We enjoyed watching them learn how to fly, once their wings are dried off, and of curse, eat the delicious nectar! We also really enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to observe different objects around the room. It was fun putting it close to our faces and seeing how our sight changed. We used them often to look at the butterflies and also the fish.
Outside
With the beautiful weather, we went on many different adventures! We first explored the zoo, where we saw so many animals! Some of our favorite animals were: lions, gorillas, tigers and kangaroos! It was fun watching the animals interact with each other. We loved talking about what they were doing and why. It was very fun getting on the train and exploring the different parts of the zoo! We loved going through the tunnel and listening to our echoes and of course the bubbles! After visiting many different parts of the zoo, we ate PB&J sandwiches in front of the grizzly bears and gorillas! We thought they wanted to have some of our food too, but they were actually eating alongside us too!
The pumpkin patch was filled with pumpkins and all sorts of halloween decorations! We really enjoyed visiting the hay maze and finding animals throughout the area. The tube maze was also exciting, when we saw each other from the opposite sides. We loved going on the hay ride and pointing out the decorations around the pumpkin patch. We were really excited to pick our own little pumpkin! There were big ones and small ones. With so many choices, it was hard to make a decision! Luckily, we all spotted one that was special. We also had a lot of fun decorating them afterwards! We talked about what faces we were painting on our pumpkins and loved getting to use lots of different colors.
In the backyard we spent a lot of time on the climbing structure, pretending it was lots of different things and places. We love acting out different scenarios with out friends! We went on the swing and pretended it was a rocket taking up to outer space. The climbing wall is also lots of fun and we often "chase" each other up and down the slides. We have been rolling different objects down the slides too and then going to catch them. We also love building with the pipes- making long poles and we also love pretending they are hoses to put out "fires."