Downstairs: Leaves & Cooking

What a wonderful fall week we have had with the Fungi Friends!  We have enjoyed some spooky celebrations at the beginning of our week and have been using the bounty of fall to inspire our play.  On Monday, we used skeleton tongs to serve ourselves at Fruit Cafe, testing out our fine motor skills.  With Nancy's help in after school, Isa prepared a ghost scavenger hunt that was waiting for us on Tuesday morning - we had so much fun seeking out all the ghosts and even needed clues to find some of the trickier ones.

The big news of the week was the addition of a manual water pump to our water table - thanks to Kekeli's dad Amakoe!  We dreamed up a way to move water through the sensory table using human power and Amakoe was up to the challenge.  Using the water table has been a great way to strengthen our gross motor muscles, as we haul buckets of water to fill it up and then use the pump to circulate the water.  We always have projects on deck that we could use a hand with, so let us know if you are interested!  Currently, we are hoping to create a collaborative mural and build and/or adjust some of our outdoor tables.

We have been collecting fall leaves to use for several projects, including our "leaf people" and leaf necklaces.  Inspired by Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man, which we read last week, we have been creating our own leaf people to star in an Ehlert-inspired book, written and illustrated by the Fungi Friends.  This has been a multi-step process and required sustained attention over multiple days.  First, each child decorated a cardboard person with leaves.  Then, they decided where their leaf person was going and what they were doing.  This step was scaffolded to each child's ability, whether they dictated the words or copied and/or traced some or all of the words themselves.   Finally, they drew a picture to go with their words and added a mini-leaf person to the scene.  It has been amazing to see where these leaf people go on all their travels and we can't wait to share the published book with you!  We have also been using magnolia leaves to create necklaces, punching holes and lacing yarn.  This has required concentration as well as fine motor muscles and coordination.  We have been wearing our (fragile) magnolia leaf necklaces with pride and care!  We hope to continue making necklaces, but with a shortage of magnolia trees on campus, we are asking for leaf donations :)

With just a few days next week and then Thanksgiving recess quickly approaching, we are hoping to use the time between now and Winter Break to continue our food-focused exploration, with additional focus on family and community, as we gather for many reasons during this time of year.  If you have special family/holiday traditions during winter or any other time of year, we would love for you to share those with the class.  That can look like sending in a book to read, setting up a classroom visit to share a food or custom, teaching us a meaningful song, etc.  We can't wait to learn more about each other!