October Fun

Fall is here and we have been enjoying the changing season. At the park, our Sycamores have been busy collecting leaves of all different colors and crunching through big piles of them. The ability to observe the changing seasons and to engage in big gross motor play has been a thrill for the Sycamores. Even in rainy weather, we have found fun stomping in puddles and playing in the mud. More than ever, the outdoor time has proven invaluable as an extension of our classroom.

In our Sycamore classroom, we have been studying all the elements of the Sensorial shelf such as color, shape and size. Our students have enjoyed learning about the color wheel and color mixing to see how primary and secondary colors work. We have also been sorting big and small pumpkins and pine cones and naming all the shapes around us. The ability to weave the fall materials with shapes we find is one way to bring the concrete to the abstract.

From our Practical Life shelf, we have been working on sewing skills with needle threading and embroidery works. This work requires a lot of planning, concentration, and fine motor skills which the children have been enjoying a lot. The Sycamores have also been enjoying scrubbing little pumpkins which requires multiple steps to fill up a little pitcher of water from the bathroom, drop a few drops of soap, scrub, rinse, and dry before putting things to right for another student. Even our youngest Sycamores have been able to engage with an array of Practical Life works to help them build order, concentration, and fine motor skills.

On our Cultural shelf, students have enjoyed making their own water colored continent books and learning about the parts of a tree. There is such pride in making their own little "books" and the Sycamores love doing so.
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We had a wonderful Halloween celebration with sweet costumes, orange finger painting and  cutting up a pumpkin to find seeds for roasting. Thank you so much for another wonderful month at Sycamore! We look forward to November together along with our friend Leon Anand from our Seedlings class from last year. His parents Jackie and Raman are very happy to have Leon back in the wBees classroom!