Transportation & Travel!
Park days are always an adventure! Last week we followed the map north to the climbing tree, searched for the words “Morrell House”, found a fountain, made wishes, determined a small pumpkin floats, headed east to the dog park and counted dogs, moved south and played invisible baseball and ran the bases, spotted three trees by the playground and found pumpkins! Students began pulling out notebooks and magnifying glasses to observe and draw the pumpkins. (Picture teacher and parent volunteer’s beaming smiles at this natural occurrence.) Throughout the week direction words continued to play a role in our play. Go north, south, east, west, left, right, or take the shortcut were shouted while playing teacher tag.
We learned the lifecycle of a pumpkin. We read that pumpkins are a fruit! We are not sure why yet, but I’m sure as we continue to sort fruit and vegetable pictures we will have more ideas about this topic.
We read many books on spiders, pumpkins, bats, and other Halloween themes. Some favorites were:
The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda D. Williams
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! by Lucille Colandro
Our meetings are student led and we are working on what that looks like. So far most meetings have contained a greeting, question, story, and how to erase the whiteboard. I’m thinking we will have a set schedule on who leads the meeting so your child will have time to think about their meeting.
Monday’s class will be held at the park. We will be exploring. Last week we ran out of time for cutting and counting our pumpkin seeds so we will be doing this activity at the park. And who knows, maybe we will need a pumpkin head for a scarecrow. Rumor has it there is a pirate ship in the park. We will look at different parts of the ship and begin our week on transportation. Planes, trains, and automobiles will be built and tested later this week.
Our developmental plan this week:
Social
Leading and participating in meetings
Checking in with each other BEFORE beginning games, taking the next turn, climbing a tree, etc.
Emotional
Gaining confidence and independence
Acknowledging others’ feelings
Using names and explicit words to express feelings, needs, and boundaries so that others are clear on who is being spoken to and the message is clear
Physical
Large Motor Skills; Balancing on one foot, climbing, running, jumping, etc.
Fine Motor Skills; drawing, cutting, building, painting, etc.
Cognitive
Estimation and Prediction
Force, Velocity, Acceleration
Transportation from long ago, today, and the future
Simile/Antonym (We’ve started a list of synonyms for “cool.”)
Our resource of the week, as seen in the New York Times, draws attention to tech in the classroom…enjoy!
Happy Learning,
Michelle Goldbach-Johnson