Updates from school:
Week of September 29, 2014
All About Apples!
This week, we will shift our learning about the farm from animals to crops. Our focus this week is apples! We will learn about how apples grow, how to pick apples, the parts of the apple, and what apples can be used for. We will play with apples in the discovery table, cut a few open to see what's inside (especially the star!), learn a poem about apples, paint with apples, work as a team to pass apples to the basket in gym, smell apples, and taste them!
Some of the vocabulary we will introduce and review this week includes farm, tractor, scarecrow, apple, peel, core, seed, harvest, autumn, and fall.
Music and Poetry!
We will learn this poem and perform its motions throughout the week! We start out standing up, holding up two fists as apples. As the poem dictates, we smile at the apples, shake our fists, come down to the ground, and pretend to eat one!
Apple Poem
Way up high in the apple tree,
Two red apples smiled at me.
I shook that tree as hard as I could!
Down came the apples. Mmmmmmm,
They were good!
We are so fortunate to have such a musical teacher! Ms. Stephanie sang at chapel and goodness her voice was amazing!
Lining up in the gymnasium.
Cutting into an apple.
Can you find the star?
There it is!
Apple tasting :)
Results are in: Emma prefers Golden Delicious!
Two of Emma's classmates busy being little Picassos!
Once a month the students go to a thirty minute chapel service at the neighboring Park Street Church. Parents are allowed to attend but are discouraged from distracting their children and other students. Patrick and I loved going this week and watching Emma in her element! The service was very sweet - the focus was on learning that God makes everyone special and unique. This was when we heard Ms. Stephanie's amazing voice! The kids all sang the interactive song "God Made Me Special" that can be found in the previous post which was fun to watch. Emma did great following along 90% of the time but did get a little distracted by the kids sitting behind her and was told once or twice sit back down :) Patrick and I are excited to go back!
Following the all about apples week at school, Patrick and I thought it was the perfect time to take Emma apple picking. Especially since we were going to miss Emma's class family outing to the farm for apple picking :( Emma loved every minute and we now have a giant bag of apples that we have been working our way through.
Later that night we took a spin around the carousel in the Boston Commons.
Week of October 6, 2014
Corn-y Time Ahead
This week we are checking out our next popular crop on the farm: CORN! We will learn that corn grows on the farm, about some of the uses of corn, popular corn products, and the many textures of corn! The children will have the chance to draw in trays of corn meal, play with dried corn kernels in the discovery table, shuck an ear of corn and feel the husk, silk, and kernels on the cob. They will get to paint with corn, taste corn, and we will learn a poem about popping corn! I will show them home video about how popcorn is made in class. I have attached the video below. I encourage you to try making popcorn together at home this week from kernel to popcorn!
Some of the vocabulary we will introduce and review this week includes farm, tractor, harvest, crop, autumn, fall, apple, scarecrow, corn, husk, silk, kernel, stalk, and seed.
Music Time!
After we sing "Hello" and "The Calendar Song" at morning circle, we usually finish that time with the weather! We practice making observations as we look out the window to see what we notice about the weather and applying our observations to how we dress Mr. Weatherbear for school!
What's the Weather? (to the tune of Oh, My Darling, Clementine) (this is one of Emma's favs)
What's the weather, what's the weather, (questioning arms out to sides)
What's the weather like today?
Tell us friends, what's the weather,
What's the weather like today?
Is it sunny (arms above head in circle),
Is it cloudy (hands covering eyes)
Is it raining out today? (wiggle fingers as you bring them down)
Is it snowing (hug yourself and shiver),
is it windy (swoosh arms side to side)
What's the weather like today? (questioning arms out to sides)
Here they are shucking corn. Every so often the parents can volunteer to donate a few small things for the class. Emma and I purchased this corn the day before at the farmers market and she was very proud to give it to her teachers.
Painting with corn! Emma is in the background washing her hands.
Patrick and I agree that her teachers go above and beyond! This week they had set up a farm stand. Produce, shopping bags, money, cash register, etc… such attention to detail!
Here is Emma's friend Evan buying an apple.
One thing remains the same - Emma's love for puzzles.
This was the day Emma refused to take off her jacket…
Hard at work.
One of Emma's favorite times of the school day - playing in the gym!
Lastly, Emma made a big announcement this week by donning her new big sister shirt! As you can see she wears it with pride and is very excited to share her news!!!
