Hibernation and writing

We started our morning with play dough as an option.  Play dough is always a popular choice.  We read Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See, and made snowy caves.  I have had some children that are becoming frustrated with not being able to write their names as well as they would like; this is something we work on, but it is usually in the way of write your name on the back of your paper.  Some can, some write a letter or two, some just scribble, but these are all acceptable for their age.  I don’t push it we don’t write our name over and over and over, when they are ready it will look more and more like their name.  I do “help” them, and encourage them to try every day, and by the time they go to Kindergarten they are writing their name.  That being said I also let the children guide our curriculum (I use that term loosely) we don’t really follow a curriculum in a play based setting, but some of the children in this group really want to write their name!  So, this week we have spent a lot of time writing our names.  We explored static electricity in the motor room with balloons.  Our VIP shared his superman toy, a camera, and his adventures with our bear Norman.

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Paper Bag Fall Trees

We created Fall Trees with brown paper bags, and finished our hand/arm trees we started at the beginning of the week.  I do believe children get more out of process art and I try to do mostly process art, but sometimes product art is just too cute to pass up!  Who doesn’t love cute handprint art!  Process art is when you lay out materials and don’t give children a direction to go.  You let them use their own creativity to create whatever they wish. If every art project looks the same then it was probably more the work of the teacher and not the child, and that isn’t teaching children much.  So, Yes today was all product art, but the children did get some fine motor practice in; they also enjoyed the process and none of them look exactly alike :o)  Here is a link to a handout about Process vs. Product http://www.ooeygooey.com/handouts/art.pdf

Painted Fall Trees

Dress-Up Center was the popular area today!  We looked at and talked about the three homework bags that were brought back.  We then added all of the items to baskets and put them in our Science Center.  We painted a tree template with fall paint colors and cotton swaps.  We stacked our plastic apples, Big Emilea holds the record of 4 apples stacked!  Don’t forget, if you haven’t already done so,  to go on a walk with your child and help them look for signs of Autumn and collect some items for their bag.   Our VIP shared her Frozen bag with us, and we got another Grandparent letter!

Torn Paper Trees

We read When the Leaf Blew in today.  That one leaf caused a lot of trouble for the farm animals!  We shared our VIP’s adventures with Norman the Bear and she shared her Dallas Cowboy’s hair bow.  She also had a special visitor for lunch that also happened to be having a Birthday today!  Thank you to our VIP’s Grandma for joining us for lunch and sharing some Birthday Cupcakes with us! We made torn paper fall trees and added plastic apples and baskets to our fall Science Center.