Friday, October 20th

What a corker of a day! Outside we go to gather leaves.  RED, ORANGE, & YELLOW leaves were stuffed into bags to be used for our project; but first we will stretch our legs and take a walk. Today, the “little peeps” were scouring the landscape for leaves as we walked. Really serious about it too!
Back in the classroom, construction paper was placed in front of each child, & glue was squiggled onto the paper. Then leaves were poured into the center of the tables. NOT DONE YET!! Colored tissue paper was added. I showed them how to tear it & yes, they were raring to go. Actually, I showed them an example, but no one was interested, as each one was totally lost in the design process…
OH MY GOODNESS, I AM CREATING A ROOM OF “MINNIE MES!”

Before heading outdoors, we talked about how we experience nature by using our 5 senses. Ears, eyes, nose, mouth, hands – they knew it all.

Each season has very unique treasures for us to find and YES, we head outside with a mission plan!

We SEE fall berries, leaves, TOUCH bird nests, HEAR the wind blow, birds, SMELL flowers and crunched up leaves.

And YES, TASTE homemade Cranberry Bread!

P.S. We walked for an hour, through the wetland area and along the bridle path laughing and giggling. What a glorious way to start the weekend.

It’s one of those days that you “dialed ahead” and *bam!*, a Fall day both warm and a blaze of color. Leaf picking day my friends and yes we are heading up towards our apple orchard as we have spotted a “winner”.

Little ones, gather round and pick some leaves, stuff your pouches, and off we head to notice just about anything that takes our fancy. Sumac berries have a certain feel and yes the branch has a fuzzy feel.

Back at school, we are reading The Stowaway Mouse.  I am always comfortable answering their questions as I read each page.

Have a wonderful week and enjoy someone’s company!

The pumpkins were ready to be picked as Halloween is just about here. Outdoors we scurried, crunched ourselves into the pumpkin patch, and decided which pumpkin was “the perfect pumpkin”.

We retrieved a wheel barrow full!

Ditty demonstrated how to draw various facial expressions.  We were given paints, brushes and pumpkins and away we went to explore our inner creativity.

Ditty made us an apple pie and showed us how an apple peeler works, which I think is but a toy for grownups.

Enjoy the Fall weather.

For me, being with the children each week requires me to think ahead, read between the lines, and when my ideas aren’t that great, turn them into something else all the while maintaining a sense of humor. Guess what! It works and EVERYONE has a grand old time.

As you know, we  went “nature-picking” last week in anticipation of creating THINGS fashioned out of clay and bits of found stuff. The children really like the mooching of the clay.

We made caramel apples dipped in crushed pretzels.
We ended with “Scary Creatures” and candied apples . Perfect for this time of year.

This week, the children will be busy painting their creatures  once the clay dries.

Good Job my little friends!

We are READY for a walk today.

We are intent on gathering bits of nature to be used next week as we will be working in clay. Our goal is to fashion creatures, animals etc. We will perhaps use sticks for their appendages, nuts for eyes etc. You get where we are going with this?
Our walk took us from one bridge, along the horse path, to the Dragon Fly Bridge and YES we saw two horses.

And YES we gathered a lot of stuff and filled our pouches too!

Take a walk with the little ones this weekend and get some “chitter-chatter” going! They love it!