On to October in Enrichment!
REMINDER: This Monday, Oct. 10th is a holiday, and Jack and Jill will be closed. We look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday!
There are lots of new things happening in Enrichment, and I want to fill you in, so bear with me.
This week we started Cooking with Ms. Pascal! You read about it in the paper sent home, and you tasted their bread, but I have pictures! Some kids really enjoyed kneading the sticky dough, some weren't big fans, but tried it out anyway!
This was also the first week of Community Helper Month! We'll be having community helpers come into our classroom all month long to tell us a bit about what they do and how they help the community! Today we were visited by three dental hygienists. They read a book about Sugarbug Doug, helped us practice brushing teeth, and gave us a bag of goodies to take home.
Our book this week was An Apple a Day by Melvin Berger. This non-fiction BIG book gives us facts about how apples grow, when and how they get picked, and some different things that can be done with them. We also came up with a few yummy options ourselves!
What's NEW in CENTERS?
Art- We made apple suncatchers to hang in our classroom windows. We used clear contact paper and cut pieces of tissue paper to create our masterpieces. The children also started looking at and coloring a community helpers book that we'll keep for the month of October so they can work on a little at a time.
Easel- The children decorated a big piece of paper with orange and green ink pads and stamps.
Math- Sometimes we do a little switching of tables to give us more or less room depending on the need. This was one of those times. We had Discovery at the Math table! The children experimented with Apple Volcanos! You can do this at home with them with a cored out apple, baking soda, vinegar, and some food coloring (optional). Each child had their own apple in a bucket. In the cored out apple we put in a few drops of food coloring, a spoonful of baking soda, and give them each a squirt bottle of vinegar. They had so much fun with these! We apologize if they came home smelling like vinegar!
Playdough- This month we have Orange playdough, pumpkin cookie cutters, rollers, and acorn and leaf gems.
Discovery- (Math) Using tweezers, the children picked up fruit counters (different shapes take different skills to pick up) and put them in corresponding colored cups.
Pretend Center- This month we're aking apple and pumpkin pies in our pretend center! Measuring cups and spoons, bowls, whisks, pretend spices, felt crusts, and "recipes" give us lots of room for imagination!
Block area- In addition to our wooden blocks, we have gears, magna tiles, and community helper lacing cards.
Literacy cart- Letter pumpkins and magnetic letters are helping the children to identify the shapes each letter makes! Identifying the lines and curves is the first step to letter recognition.
Writing table- There are pumpkins that need help getting to their pumpkin patch. Using dry erase markers, the children are tracing the path to help them get there!
Sensory table- This month we have shredded paper, fabric leaves, real acorns, and boxes for the children to play with and get lots of different tactile input at the same time!
I know I promised a few weeks ago that I would send a picture of our Enrichment family tree. I'm here to deliver. The kids did wonderful work, and enjoy looking at each other's creations!
A number of things went home this week for the fall festival, scholastic book orders etc. so please make sure to check backpacks!
It looks like it's going to be a nice weekend, so I hope you all get to enjoy it!
We'll see you on Tuesday!
Warmly,
Christina Renoni and Ashlee Taylor
