FROM UNDER OUR BIG TREE: Week 8 at TKG

FROM UNDER OUR BIG TREE: Week 8 at TKG

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

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