October 2010 Archives

Dear Families,

The children in the Construction Group were originally grouped together because some children had shown interest in manipulating objects (such as blocks and other building materials) in order to create some sort of structure while other children had shown interest in the trucks that they used for loading and dumping. The group has been together for 3 weeks and has already increased development in both cognitive and social skills. The children began by reading books about construction and doing hands-on activities. They were provided with various sizes and colors of blocks to collaboratively create various structures, such as a wooden house or a road. They were also given wooden pegboards and pegs to practice their hammering skills. Soon the children were walking around the Lab School, finding structures to "fix" and began learning how to look and create their own blueprints. The Construction Group will continue to examine various types of blue prints and be exposed to original blueprints from an architect (and possible group guest!) The group will soon be venturing off to a construction site nearby on campus. I look forward to continue learning about different aspects of construction with the children!

Sincerely,
Nora

Dear families,
The construction group has been working hard the past few meetings!
We recently visited the construction site outside of the playground on
our field trip. The children seemed to enjoy getting a closer look at
some of the tools, vehicles, and processes that we have been learning
about. After the field trip we returned to our own construction site
(on the playground) and the children were anxious to imitate some of
the skills they had seen the previous day. I look forward to our last
few meetings with the construction group, as we will continue to
collaboratively build outside with some new materials (possibly snow?)

Dear Parents,

The music and movement group has been filled with action over the past few weeks! The children have participated in activities that have involved stretching, dancing, moving like animals, singing, and playing instruments. The children who are a part of this small group have brought their individual interests to make our small group a success so far. These past few weeks of small group have given me insight to what types of music and movement activities work best for each child in the group. Relationships have already begun to form in our small group, and I plan to emphasize and focus on these social interactions and relationship. We will continue to explore different activities that promote different types of movement and large motor development.

I look forward to continuing to have action-filled and fun experiences with our music and movement group!

Thanks!

Jessica

The music and movement small group has been going so well the past few weeks! The children have really started to connect more with each other and I'm seeing relationships blossoming between the children. We continued to do activities that included different ways to move our body. Most recently, the children have really enjoyed "Going On A Bear Hunt". We read the book, participated along with the song, and went on our own bear hunt throughout the school. The children showed interest in wanting to do another bear hunt and next week we will be going outside to find another bear. I am really looking forward to our field trip next week and I hope the children are too!

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Weekly Lesson Plan for Ross' Class
Date: November 1 - 5, 2010
Lead Teaching This Week: Ross

Overview: The energy in the room continues to remain high even thought the temperatures are getting lower! As the small groups continue to meet and the children dive more into their topics, the teachers have noticed an increased intentionality and focus with the children's play. Throughout the fall session, the children have made a choice between three areas in the room after large group to focus their play right away, allowing them to venture out to the other areas when they feel ready to move on. With this intentional choice made by each child, we are noticing that they are staying involved in areas longer, and are thinking about where they want to go next (i.e. telling the teachers they are "...all done in the sand and going to go paint at the art table."). We feel this intentional thinking/planning (as well as the inclusion of the daily docs and classroom-picture-slideshow on the computer) have really helped foster this focused play, and as a result, has supported the many friendships that have formed this fall! We have also noticed the children are ready for some new experiences with new materials and will be making a few changes around the room. Be sure to read through and talk about these new areas with your child!

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: watercolor paints, primary/secondary colors at the easel, bottle caps, puff balls, new natural/"beautiful" materials for collage, markers, crayons, clay (with supportive materials for more symbolic representational sculpture: toothpicks, wood lacing beads, carving tools, wet sponges to help with adhering pieces, and examples of other sculptures made with clay)
• Rationale: The children have really enjoyed exploring the watercolors, as we've seen many children come over and paint. To extend this interest in painting, the teachers will add trays that will hold multiple colors and invite the children explore additional color mixing possibilities, as well as introduce the use of permanent markers to draw an image that can then be painted over - increasing the intentionality with the watercolors.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, using resources in the classroom to help build their knowledge of the world

Sensory (flaxseed table)
• Materials: flaxseed, scoops, funnels, measuring cups, graphs/chart of how many scoops fill a container
• Rationale: The children had fun with the sand, but the teachers feel they are ready for a new material. We will be adding flaxseed to the area and invite the children to revisit the counting-of-scoops game to utilize the knowledge they developed while using the sand. We recorded the children's answers with the number of scoops of sand needed to fill the containers and will ask the children if it will take more, less, or the same number of scoops to fill the same containers with flaxseed. This requires that the children recall their experiences from before and create new hypotheses - promoting scientific and critical thinking skills.
• Skills: counting, recording data, math conceptions related to more/less/the same, critical thinking/reasoning skills, large-/fine-motor skills

Science
• Materials: red/yellow/blue colored water, pipettes, clear containers for mixing water, light box, color gels, glass gems
• Rationale: As the children have been using the watercolors, there has been much discussion about how the colors are mixing together (especially in the rinse cups, where all the colors mix together!). To build on this intriguing conception of how/why the colors mix into the colors that they do, we will set up two color mixing stations in the room: one at the science table and the other in the "nook" behind the art table (where the large light box is housed). The children will be able to mix primary-colored water and discover/revisit the concepts of color mixing, while comparing their results to the mixing taking place at the art table. We anticipate many visits between both tables!
• Skills: color recognition, concepts/properties of color mixing, scientific investigation/inquiry, hypothesis creating/testing, recording of observations, supporting social relationships through shared experiences

Dramatic Play
• Materials: child-size door, SCUBA props (flippers, masks, air tanks), additional Playschool doctor tools, fabric/scarves, shoes, purses, house furniture, plates, pretend food, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies
• Rationale: The children have continued to enjoy creating underwater scenarios: sometimes involving underwater doctors taking care of sick mermaids/sharks/other sea creatures and other times involving deep-sea diving expeditions to explore the murky depths of the ocean floors. When not water-bound, the children have been taking shelter in the "house" to stay protected from various elements "outside." We will continue to support these play themes as they unfold!
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships, recalling factual knowledge related to various themes (e.g. doctor/hospital/ambulance/sea creatures/oceans)

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Various shaped/colored building blocks, Bristle-blocks, egg-shell sorting pegs
• Rationale: The relationships are continuing to grow stronger as we pass the half-way point of the fall session, and with that strong community established, we will begin bringing more skill-supporting games and activities to the manipulative table. We will be focusing of patterning first: exploring, "What is a pattern?" and challenging the children to finish existing patterns with the blocks and egg-shell pegs as well as ask them to "show us what they know" by making their own patterns.
• Skills: patterning, color recognition, one-to-one correspondence, collaborative problem solving, critical thinking, creativity

Language and Literacy
• Materials: alphabet book, writing supplies (i.e. pens, pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, etc.), mailbox for each child
• Rationale: As the children continue visit the writing center, the teachers often overhear a child ask how to write various letters of the alphabet/spell words for pictures, signs, or notes to loved ones. Also, after many discussions about literacy during conferences, we want to begin exploring the world of literacy with more intentionality. To help with this, we will invite the children to help us create "Our Alphabet Book," where each page will be devoted to a letter of the alphabet and the contents of each page will be created by the children! They will be able to write each letter of the alphabet, cut it out, and add it to the corresponding page in the book! We hope that seeing various ways of writing each letter (made by their peers) will inspire each child to continue writing and begin looking up how to write letters in the alphabet rather than simply asking
• Skills: pre-/early-literacy skills, letter recognition, fine-motor coordination/endurance, supporting/fostering social skills and relationships

Blocks
• Materials: Large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, multi-colored inch cubes, Peg-People, gems, granite
• Rationale: The hollow blocks continually come off the shelves and are used to create various structures in the back of the room (as seen in the daily docs!). However, we would also like to bring attention back to the unit blocks. To do so, we will add supportive materials to inspire new building projects and possibly create new/extend existing storylines.
• Skills: Large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, creativity, social relationships, construction/spatial relation skills, opportunities to practice negotiation/collaboration

Large Motor
• Materials: GYM: balance beams, basketball hoops (and balls), climbing wall, monkey bars, slide-climber
PLAYGROUND: tricycles, shovels, buckets, rakes, ropes, tarps,
• Rationale: We got a new gym set-up. Allow the children were enjoying the cars, we feel they are ready to practice/development new skills. We will start with focusing on balancing and propulsion skills (separately, of course). For balancing, we will have two balance beams stacked and crossing each other using the A-frames and some mats. It will require the children to stay focused while negotiating various heights (and potentially other children) as they cross. As for propulsion skills, we have set up two basketball hoops in the back of the gym, encouraging the children to shoot high and low, while focusing on their growing targeting skills. In regards to the playground, the children have enjoyed the wind, falling leaves, and are seemingly content with the dropping temps. They have several stories taking place and we will continue to support the storms, superheroes, fairies, and fossil-finding play as we brave the dropping temps! (Don't forget to send along the hats, mittens/gloves, and jackets every day!)
• Skills: balancing, depth perception, propulsion skills, large-motor strength/coordination/endurance, eye-to-hand/foot coordination, spatial skills, visual targeting, turn taking, social skills, sharing and problem solving

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)
• PICTURE DAY is Wednesday Nov 3. Be sure to send your order forms along if you're interested. We will be asking for a few volunteers to help that day. We'll send more information on Monday.
• We would like to welcome the arrival of Quinn's new baby sisters Zahra and Penelope. They were born Friday morning while we were at school!
• I want to say thank you to all the families for all the great discussion during fall conferences! It is great to hear from each of you and working together to develop goals for your child. We're doing some amazing stuff this year!
• Just a reminder about the "Tantrum Talks" coming up on Nov 11th (@ 2.30p) and 12th (@ 10a) in room 105 (just upstairs from the Lab School). See the flyer (send from Kelley last week) for more information!

Snack
Monday: Home-style oven fries
Tuesday: Pretzels and raisins
Wednesday: Frozen peas and corn crisps
Thursday: Carrots and hummus
Friday: Cinnamon toast (made by the children!)
*All snacks served with water and milk, unless otherwise specified*

Fall lesson plan - week of November 2
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM Classroom
Jessica Lead Teaching

Overview: We are now into the seventh week and the children are continuing to become more comfortable and are forming relationships with one another. We will be continuing to have a strong emphasis on literacy and mathematical development throughout a variety of activities in the classroom. To encourage social interactions and collaboration with one another, the dramatic play area will be expanded into an area that will promote working together and sharing in experiences. The weather is continuing to change and the wind and cold weather is upon us. We will continue to promote opportunities for the children to think about how wind affects objects and how they can create their own "wind." Their interest in birds has continued to emerge and they have shown a growing interest in bird eggs and the hatching process. We will continue to foster this interest in a variety of ways to expand the children's knowledge and interest in bird life.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Colored play dough, rolling pins, a variety of molds (such as turtles and houses), Alphabet cookie cutters, cutting tools, name cards
Rationale: To continue to promote literacy and letter awareness with the letter cookie cutters and name cards. To encourage the use of a variety of molds to represent objects and ideas. To encourage cutting with tools to make different marks and shapes.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, alphabetic awareness, symbolic representation.

**Materials: Primary paint colors, sponge brushes, and paper
Rationale: To provide an opportunity to experiment with new painting tools. To encourage creativity through mixing colors and experimenting with different paint strokes.
Skills: Fine motor, hand-eye coordination self-expression, risk taking, observation, comparison, and promote social interaction.

**Materials: 4x4 grid paper, various colored bingo stampers, and markers
Rationale: To continue the practice of creating patterns and shapes, such as circles, and to encourage one to one correspondence.
Skills: Fine motor, counting, one to one correspondence, patterns

**Materials: Scissors and paper with lines
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping. To experiment with different methods of cutting (little snips, longer cuts, straight-line cutting) on different lines on the paper
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

Sensory
**Materials: Shaving cream and trays.
Rationale: To explore the texture and smell of a new material that allows them to use their hands and fingers.
Skills: Sensory input, observation, manual dexterity, comparison, try out

**Materials: sand, scoops, rakes, sifters, and paddlewheels
Rationale: To explore and experiment with sand by using different tools and containers
Skills: Sensory input, observation, measurement, familiarity with new materials, experimentation, math skills (spatial relations and volume), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

Science 

**Materials: Ribbons, cotton, leaves, feathers, light materials.
Rationale: To experiment with creating our own "wind" by blowing and using fans to move light objects.
Skills: Observation, comparison, try out, prediction, cause and effect.
***If any families have any air pumping devices that are not sharp (for example, hand air pumps for balls) that you are willing to bring into the class it would be greatly appreciated. We hope to expand the idea of creating our own wind by having different devices available for the children to experiment with.

**Materials: Sticks, twine, natural materials, sunflower seeds, neutral colored play dough, tree stumps, real bird nests and eggs
Rationale: To continue to support the children's interest in birds and the process of making their own bird nests.
Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas. 


**Materials: Plastic and stuffed animal birds, basket nests, acorns, seeds, pictures of birds (highlighting the nesting and egg hatching process), and books about birds (in the Cave).
Rationale: To continue to encourage the children's interest in various types of birds, their habitats, and the process of hatching and caretaking of baby birds through dramatic play scenarios.
Skills: Observation, role play, social skills, classification, comparison, prediction, creative expression. 


Dramatic Play 

**Materials: Familiar kitchen furniture, table, plastic foods highlighting those that encourage serving (pizza, cuttable fruits/vegetables cake, cupcakes), serving trays, silverware, plates, bowls, cups, pitchers, menus, aprons, notepad (to take orders), and writing tools.
Rationale: The kitchen area will be extended to be a part of a restaurant setting to encourage the children's interest in preparing and serving various foods and drinks to others. To encourage and promote writing and taking food orders from other children.
Skills: Role play, symbolic representation, communication, collaboration, creative expression, cooperation, social skills.
***Please let the teachers know if your child has any favorite restaurants or specific restaurant experiences you would like to share to make our classroom restaurant more personal and familiar to the children.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Pegs and pegboards, sorting bears
Rationale: To continue to encourage one-to-one correspondence and seriation with the pegs. To give the children opportunity to group, sort, and count the different colored sorting bears.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, one-to-one correspondence, grouping and ordering, counting, seriation, turn taking, manual dexterity. 


Language and Literacy
**Materials: Books related to the birds, the changing weather (wind, rain, snow), and the alphabet
Rationale: To promote finding resources and new information in books while continuing to facilitate the development of the basic components of language.
Skills: Listening, speaking, reading, phonological awareness, alphabetical awareness, heuristic language, give and ask for information.

**Materials: Letter cookie cutters, name cards, letter matching game
Rationale: To continue to support knowledge of symbol and representational systems. To promote alphabetical awareness, name recognition, and letter formations and letter matching.
Skills: fine motor, reading, writing, alphabet awareness, and vocabulary expansion

**Materials: Menus, notepads and markers
Rationale: To encourage writing and reading to promote letter and word recognition in the restaurant area.
Skills: fine motor, writing, alphabetical awareness, and vocabulary expansion

Blocks 

**Materials: various sized wooden ramps, hollow blocks, wood blocks, wooden planks, various wheels, small trucks, cars, and road signs.
Rationale: To promote road building with different surfaces (ramps, tunnels, streets). To continue to foster experimenting with speed, weight, direction, acceleration and slope.
Skills: Cooperation, collaboration, creative expression, large and fine motor, spatial concepts, construction skills (building), scientific skill, experimenting, reasoning.



Large Motor 

**Materials: Indoors- climbing wall, slide, stairs, A-frame and balancing beams, donut hole, monkey bars, basketball hoops, balls, and mats.
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physical skills. To provide opportunities for the children to practice climbing and upper and lower body strength. To focus on receptive skills including throwing, catching, and grasping.
Skills: Upper and lower body strength, endurance, hand-eye coordination, receptive skills (throwing, grasping, reaching, catching), balance, visual/spatial discrimination

**Materials: Outdoors- trikes, wagons, buckets, shovels, sand molds, ribbons
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physicals skills including a focus on propulsion skills through riding the trikes. To encourage the children to make creations out of the sand with the variety of molds and buckets. To give the children the opportunity to see how the wind affects the ribbons that will be tied to different areas of the playground.
Skills: Fine and large motor, body manipulation, physical fitness

Large group 

**Materials: Songs and rhymes led by teacher (gather, name, and topic songs and rhymes), guest dancers
Rationale: To expand on specific topics of interest (birds, wind, rain/snow) through sharing a common experience; practicing a routine and being part of a community of learners.
Skills: Attention span, attending and orienting, respect for one another, following directions.

Music

**Materials: Piano, drums, chimes, tambourines, interactive music PowerPoint
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To allow the children an opportunity to use the computer to chose different instrument sounds to listen to 

Skills: Mathematical concepts (beats and patterns), imitation, call and answer, communication.

Snacks: 

Tuesday: Pretzels and raisins
Friday: Cereal and milk

Fall lesson plan - week of November 1
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
November 1-5
Jessica Lead Teaching

Overview: We are now into the seventh week and the children are continuing to become more comfortable and are forming relationships with one another. We will be continuing to have a strong emphasis on literacy and mathematical development throughout a variety of activities in the classroom. To encourage social interactions and collaboration with one another, the dramatic play area will be expanded into an area that will promote working together and sharing in experiences. The weather is continuing to change and the wind and cold weather is upon us. We will continue to promote opportunities for the children to think about how wind affects objects and how they can create their own "wind." Their interest in birds has continued to emerge and they have shown a growing interest in bird eggs and the hatching process. We will continue to foster this interest in a variety of ways to expand the children's knowledge and interest in bird life.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Colored play dough, rolling pins, a variety of molds (such as turtles and houses), Alphabet cookie cutters, cutting tools, name cards
Rationale: To continue to promote literacy and letter awareness with the letter cookie cutters and name cards. To encourage the use of a variety of molds to represent objects and ideas. To encourage cutting with tools to make different marks and shapes.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, alphabetic awareness, symbolic representation.

**Materials: Primary paint colors, sponge brushes, and paper
Rationale: To provide an opportunity to experiment with new painting tools. To encourage creativity through mixing colors and experimenting with different paint strokes.
Skills: Fine motor, hand-eye coordination self-expression, risk taking, observation, comparison, and promote social interaction.

**Materials: 4x4 grid paper, various colored bingo stampers, and markers
Rationale: To continue the practice of creating patterns and shapes, such as circles, and to encourage one to one correspondence.
Skills: Fine motor, counting, one to one correspondence, patterns

**Materials: Scissors and paper with lines
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping. To experiment with different methods of cutting (little snips, longer cuts, straight-line cutting) on different lines on the paper
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

Sensory
**Materials: Shaving cream and trays.
Rationale: To explore the texture and smell of a new material that allows them to use their hands and fingers.
Skills: Sensory input, observation, manual dexterity, comparison, try out

**Materials: sand, scoops, rakes, sifters, and paddlewheels
Rationale: To explore and experiment with sand by using different tools and containers
Skills: Sensory input, observation, measurement, familiarity with new materials, experimentation, math skills (spatial relations and volume), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

Science 

**Materials: Ribbons, cotton, leaves, feathers, light materials.
Rationale: To experiment with creating our own "wind" by blowing and using fans to move light objects.
Skills: Observation, comparison, try out, prediction, cause and effect.
***If any families have any air pumping devices that are not sharp (for example, hand air pumps for balls) that you are willing to bring into the class it would be greatly appreciated. We hope to expand the idea of creating our own wind by having different devices available for the children to experiment with.

**Materials: Sticks, twine, natural materials, sunflower seeds, neutral colored play dough, tree stumps, real bird nests and eggs
Rationale: To continue to support the children's interest in birds and the process of making their own bird nests.
Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas. 


**Materials: Plastic and stuffed animal birds, basket nests, acorns, seeds, pictures of birds (highlighting the nesting and egg hatching process), and books about birds (in the Cave).
Rationale: To continue to encourage the children's interest in various types of birds, their habitats, and the process of hatching and caretaking of baby birds through dramatic play scenarios.
Skills: Observation, role play, social skills, classification, comparison, prediction, creative expression. 


Dramatic Play 

**Materials: Familiar kitchen furniture, table, plastic foods highlighting those that encourage serving (pizza, cuttable fruits/vegetables cake, cupcakes), serving trays, silverware, plates, bowls, cups, pitchers, menus, aprons, notepad (to take orders), and writing tools.
Rationale: The kitchen area will be extended to be a part of a restaurant setting to encourage the children's interest in preparing and serving various foods and drinks to others. To encourage and promote writing and taking food orders from other children.
Skills: Role play, symbolic representation, communication, collaboration, creative expression, cooperation, social skills.
***Please let the teachers know if your child has any favorite restaurants or specific restaurant experiences you would like to share to make our classroom restaurant more personal and familiar to the children.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Pegs and pegboards, sorting bears
Rationale: To continue to encourage one-to-one correspondence and seriation with the pegs. To give the children opportunity to group, sort, and count the different colored sorting bears.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, one-to-one correspondence, grouping and ordering, counting, seriation, turn taking, manual dexterity. 


Language and Literacy
**Materials: Books related to the birds, the changing weather (wind, rain, snow), and the alphabet
Rationale: To promote finding resources and new information in books while continuing to facilitate the development of the basic components of language.
Skills: Listening, speaking, reading, phonological awareness, alphabetical awareness, heuristic language, give and ask for information.

**Materials: Letter cookie cutters, name cards, letter matching game
Rationale: To continue to support knowledge of symbol and representational systems. To promote alphabetical awareness, name recognition, and letter formations and letter matching.
Skills: fine motor, reading, writing, alphabet awareness, and vocabulary expansion

**Materials: Menus, notepads and markers
Rationale: To encourage writing and reading to promote letter and word recognition in the restaurant area.
Skills: fine motor, writing, alphabetical awareness, and vocabulary expansion

Blocks 

**Materials: various sized wooden ramps, hollow blocks, wood blocks, wooden planks, various wheels, small trucks, cars, and road signs.
Rationale: To promote road building with different surfaces (ramps, tunnels, streets). To continue to foster experimenting with speed, weight, direction, acceleration and slope.
Skills: Cooperation, collaboration, creative expression, large and fine motor, spatial concepts, construction skills (building), scientific skill, experimenting, reasoning.



Large Motor 

**Materials: Indoors- climbing wall, slide, stairs, A-frame and balancing beams, donut hole, monkey bars, basketball hoops, balls, and mats.
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physical skills. To provide opportunities for the children to practice climbing and upper and lower body strength. To focus on receptive skills including throwing, catching, and grasping.
Skills: Upper and lower body strength, endurance, hand-eye coordination, receptive skills (throwing, grasping, reaching, catching), balance, visual/spatial discrimination

**Materials: Outdoors- trikes, wagons, buckets, shovels, sand molds, ribbons
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physicals skills including a focus on propulsion skills through riding the trikes. To encourage the children to make creations out of the sand with the variety of molds and buckets. To give the children the opportunity to see how the wind affects the ribbons that will be tied to different areas of the playground.
Skills: Fine and large motor, body manipulation, physical fitness

Large group 

**Materials: Songs and rhymes led by teacher (gather, name, and topic songs and rhymes), guest dancers
Rationale: To expand on specific topics of interest (birds, wind, rain/snow) through sharing a common experience; practicing a routine and being part of a community of learners.
Skills: Attention span, attending and orienting, respect for one another, following directions.

Music

**Materials: Piano, drums, chimes, tambourines, interactive music PowerPoint
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To allow the children an opportunity to use the computer to chose different instrument sounds to listen to 

Skills: Mathematical concepts (beats and patterns), imitation, call and answer, communication.

Snacks: 

Monday: Oven fries and milk
Wednesday: Pretzels and raisins
Thursday: Cereal and milk

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Monday, November 1st, 2010

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Wednesday, October 27th, 21010

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Please click bellow to watch video clips from the MIA field trip
MIA-1-Mobile.m4v
MIA-2-Mobile.m4v
MIA-3-Mobile.m4v

Monday, November 15th, 2010

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Monday, November 1st, 2010

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Overview: Happy November everyone! As the month and weather changes, we have been discussing what has been happening in nature with the fallen leaves and rain. The children have been busy with dramatic play fixing our classroom with tools, being construction engineers building hospitals and offices with the blocks, and using stethoscopes and other tools to be doctors and veterinarians in the hospital. We have also started our small groups! Lisa's group is studying animals, and will continue looking at a variety of animals that live inside and outside. Lindsay's group is fall harvest, and they are currently comparing different sized pumpkins and the seeds. My group is the science group, and after discussing some topics and tools we will begin experiments this week. Please check out the small group tab on our webpage to see updates and photos from our groups! This week, we will be making some changes in our environment and introducing some new materials. We will be replacing the sand in the sand table with flax seed, while continuing to use the measuring cups and containers to fill. We will also be changing the science center from leaves and seeds to a color mixing focus.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, playdough)
•Materials: primary color paints with empty cups for color mixing at the easel; natural materials for collage; markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, and hole-punchers; colored playdough, rollers, cutters in familiar shapes, and pounding tools.
•Rationale: The children are continuing to use primary colors, while mixing secondary. The natural materials with different textures are being used for making collages, as well as the hole-punchers and scissors to make interesting designs with the paper. Blue play dough has sparked curiosity and conversation of how it got a new color, while continuing to develop fine motor skills through changing the shape of the dough.
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition, sensory input, sharing materials

Sensory (flax seed)
•Materials: seeds, measuring cups, funnels, a variety of different sized and shaped containers, and scoops.
•Rationale: To change the sensory experience with a new natural material while continuing to use measuring cups and scoops to continue comparing and counting.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses

Science
•Materials: Red, yellow, and blue water, mixing containers and test tubes, pipettes, color wheels, light table, transparent colored shapes, water based manipulatives.
•Rationale: to encourage color awareness and development of inquiry skills through hands on experimentation with primary colors and colors they can make.
•Skills: observing, predicting, recording, scientific investigating and inquiry, sorting, fine motor, use of science tools, sharing and discussing

Dramatic Play
•Materials: Tools, blocks, fabric, stethoscopes, doctor bags, clipboards, stuffed animals, food, kitchen utensils; the caves continue to have blankets and pillows, and baby dolls for house play.
•Rationale: To follow the children's interest in building and fixing with tools as well as helping injured and sick people and animals. They are also interested in cooking pretend meals and pretending to watch funny movies in the caves, which has created a lot of laughter and built social relationships.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, puzzles, and shape blocks
•Rationale: To continue supporting the interest in construction of buildings and vehicles with the Bristle Blocks. The puzzles have themes which are consistent with themes in the classroom. Shape blocks have been introduced to encourage construction as well as patterning with shape and color.
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, counting, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, critical thinking, creativity, and fine motor development

Language and Literacy
•Materials: At the writing we have writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and stickers with letters, numbers, fall shapes, and familiar characters. In our story center we have a variety of familiar books, seasonal books with harvest themes, as well as a variety following their interest of constructing and hospitals.
•Rationale: To encourage writing, recording, and creativity. To support pre-literacy skills, follow the themes of the classroom and encourage new ideas within the theme, and allow for a quiet space for exploration of the books.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, receptive language, listening, supporting social skills and relationships.

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, tools
•Rationale: To continue dramatic play themes and support creativity, teamwork and collaboration, and problem solving.
•Skills: large motor development (strength, coordination), dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, directional awareness, cooperative play, problem solving

Large Motor
•Materials: The gym setting has been updated from the dramatic play racetrack theme into a large motor obstacle course. A-frame ladders, horizontal and vertical climbing bars, mats, balance beams, large rubber balls, and a basketball hoop are included. On the playground we are continuing to have rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows to collect fallen leaves, as well as scooters and bikes.
•Rationale: To promote development of a variety of large motor skills along with providing a group game to foster cooperation. The playground includes rakes to support their interest in the changing seasons and connect them with nature while incorporating physical development.
•Skills: coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, body awareness, upper and lower body large motor development, physical fitness, and building community through social interactions

Snack
Monday: Sunbutter with crackers and milk
Wednesday: Peas and pretzels
Thursday: Carrots and hummus
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

WK 6 (NOV 23-24)

WK 5 (NOV 16-18)

WK 4 (NOV 9-11)

WK3 (NOV 2-4)

WK2 (OCT 26-28)

WK1 (OCT 19-20)

WK6 (NOV 22-24)

WK5 (NOV 16-18)

WK4 (NOV 9-11)

WK3 (NOV 2-4)

WK2 (OCT 26-28)

WK1 (OCT 19-20)

WK6 (NOV 22-24)

WK5 (NOV 16-18)

WK4 (NOV 9-11)

WK3 (NOV 2-4)

WK2 (OCT 26-28)

WK1 (OCT 19-20)

Fall lesson plan - week of October 26th
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM Classroom
October 26th-29th
Nora Lead Teaching

Overview: The children have started to form relationships and increasingly shown interest in one another. Specifically, the children are starting to become interested in their own names, as well as names of others in the class and various objects. To encourage this interest, literacy will be intentionally woven into the curriculum areas. Strong wind has been affecting us as the weather continues to change. We will highlight how wind is visible around us, both inside and outside. As the children are displaying their emerging interests in birds, nests, and each other, we will adapt the class environment to continue to stimulate and support these interests in various areas of the classroom.


Expressive Arts 

**Materials: Colored play dough, rolling pins, a variety of molds (such as turtles and houses), and Alphabet cookie cutters.
Rationale: To introduce the components of literacy and to encourage the use of a variety of molds to represent objects and ideas.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, alphabetic awareness, symbolic representation.
**Materials: Dark colored paper and chalk (at the easel). 

Rationale: To provide an opportunity for children to experience novel ways of writing and drawing. To form ideas and concepts.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction. 

**Materials: Colored paper, laminated alphabet letters, various colored bingo stampers, and markers
Rationale: To continue the practice of creating shapes, such as circles, and to encourage early writing skills, such as the imitation of letter formations.
Skills: Fine motor, alphabetic awareness, writing, reading.

Sensory 

**Materials: Finger paint, finger painting paper, and trays.
Rationale: To explore creating artwork through a novel way, using one's own hands and fingers.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas.
**Materials: two types of colored water, large funnels, funnel tube contraption, and a variety of containers. 

Rationale: To observe and experiment with movement of larger amounts of water using tubes, funnels, and paddle wheels. To continue to support the exploration of what happens when the colors are mixed together.
Skills: Sensory input, observation, measurement, familiarity with materials, experimentation, math skills (spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

Science 

**Materials: Ribbons, milkweed, feathers, light materials
Rationale: To experience the impact wind has on various materials on the playground and inside the classroom
Skills: Observation, comparison, try out ideas, prediction, cause and effect.
**Materials: Sticks, twine, neutral colored playdough, tree stumps, pictures of birds and foliage.
Rationale: To begin learning about how birds live and create bird nests. To encourage and support their understanding of how bird nests are made. 

Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas. 

**Materials: Pictures of birds, plastic and stuffed animal birds, basket nests, books about birds (in the Cave).
Rationale: To encourage the exploration, observation, and understanding of various types of birds through dramatic play.
Skills: Observation, role play, communication, classification, comparison, prediction. 


Dramatic Play 

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen furniture, baking ingredient packages (salt, flour, sugar, etc.), mixing bowls, cooking trays.
Rationale: To encourage further exploration and inquiry of baking interest shown in children.
Skills: Role play, symbolic representation, communication, cooperation, social skills.
**Materials: Baby dolls, clothing, strollers, bottles, plates, bibs.
Rationale: To encourage caretaking, baby dolls will be placed close to the kitchen area in order to be fed and cared for.
Skills: Fine motor, role play, symbolic representation, collaboration.



Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Puzzles, new seriation and color stackers, pegs and pegboards, Mr. Potato Head
Rationale: To provide opportunity to practice one-to-one correspondence, as well as seriation.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, one-to-one correspondence, seriation, turn taking, manual dexterity. 


Language and Literacy
**Materials: Books related to the theme of Birds (in the bird cave), about wind and the changing weather, and about ramps.
Rationale: To encourage finding resources and new information in books (birds, wind, and ramps) while facilitating the development of the basic components of language.
Skills: Listening, speaking, reading, phonological awareness, alphabetical awareness, heuristic language.
**Materials: Letter cookie cutters, letter stencils.
Rationale: To begin increasing their knowledge of symbol and representational systems. To foster alphabetical awareness, name recognition, and letter formations.
Skills: fine motor, reading, writing, alphabet awareness, vocabulary expansion.
Blocks 

**Materials: Wooden ramps, various wheels, books about ramps, small trucks and cars.
Rationale: To facilitate awareness of physics, such as speed, weight, direction, acceleration and slope.
Skills: Reasoning, hypothesizing, experimenting, scientific skills, cooperation, spatial concepts, fine motor skills.
**Materials: Multicolored plastic blocks, hollow wood blocks, and foam blocks.
Rationale: To support scientific and mathematical skills of mass, balance, and spatial sense through the construction of additional ramps and building structures.
Skills: Initiative, creative expression, communication, collaboration, fine motor, mathematical and scientific concepts, cause and effect.


Large Motor 

**Materials: Indoors- plastic cars, tools and toolboxes, stairs, donut hole, bean bag board and bean bags; large group movement activities. Outside -ribbons added to fence, dump trucks, wheelbarrows, shovels and scoops, wooden boats.
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physical skills; to encourage the development of cognitive skills, such as cause-and-effect through observation and experimentation with the wind and its effects on various materials, such as ribbon.
Skills: Physical fitness (endurance, strength, flexibility), following directions, observation and comparison, body manipulation.

Large group 

**Materials: Songs led by teacher (gather, name, and topic songs)
Rationale: To build awareness of a specific topic (Birds and Wind) through sharing a common experience; practicing a routine and being part of a community of learners.
Skills: Attention span, attending and orienting, respect for one another, following directions.

Music

**Materials: Piano, drums, and individual xylophones in music corner
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. 

Skills: Mathematical concepts (beats and patterns), imitation, call and answer, communication.

Snacks: 

Tuesday: TBD
Friday: Cooking with Courtney - cheesy biscuits

Fall lesson plan - week of October 26th
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
October 26th-29th
Nora Lead Teaching

Overview: The children have started to form relationships and increasingly shown interest in one another. Specifically, the children are starting to become interested in their own names, as well as names of others in the class and various objects. To encourage this interest, literacy will be intentionally woven into the curriculum areas. Strong wind has been affecting us as the weather continues to change. We will highlight how wind is visible around us, both inside and outside. As the children are displaying their emerging interests in birds, nests, and each other, we will adapt the class environment to continue to stimulate and support these interests in various areas of the classroom.


Expressive Arts 

**Materials: Colored play dough, rolling pins, a variety of molds (such as turtles and houses), and Alphabet cookie cutters.
Rationale: To introduce the components of literacy and to encourage the use of a variety of molds to represent objects and ideas.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, alphabetic awareness, symbolic representation.
**Materials: Dark colored paper and chalk (at the easel). 

Rationale: To provide an opportunity for children to experience novel ways of writing and drawing. To form ideas and concepts.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction. 

**Materials: Colored paper, laminated alphabet letters, various colored bingo stampers, and markers
Rationale: To continue the practice of creating shapes, such as circles, and to encourage early writing skills, such as the imitation of letter formations.
Skills: Fine motor, alphabetic awareness, writing, reading.

Sensory 

**Materials: Finger paint, finger painting paper, and trays.
Rationale: To explore creating artwork through a novel way, using one's own hands and fingers.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas.
**Materials: two types of colored water, large funnels, funnel tube contraption, paddle wheels, and a variety of containers. 

Rationale: To observe and experiment with movement of larger amounts of water using tubes, funnels, and paddle wheels. To continue to support the exploration of what happens when the colors are mixed together.
Skills: Sensory input, observation, measurement, familiarity with materials, experimentation, math skills (spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

Science 

**Materials: Ribbons, milkweed, feathers, light materials
Rationale: To experience the impact wind has on various materials on the playground and inside the classroom
Skills: Observation, comparison, try out ideas, prediction, cause and effect.
**Materials: Sticks, twine, neutral colored playdough, tree stumps, pictures of birds and foliage.
Rationale: To begin learning about how birds live and create bird nests. To encourage and support their understanding of how bird nests are made. 

Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas. 

**Materials: Pictures of birds, plastic and stuffed animal birds, basket nests, books about birds (in the Cave).
Rationale: To encourage the exploration, observation, and understanding of various types of birds through dramatic play.
Skills: Observation, role play, communication, classification, comparison, prediction. 


Dramatic Play 

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen furniture, baking ingredient packages (salt, flour, sugar, etc.), mixing bowls, cooking trays.
Rationale: To encourage further exploration and inquiry of baking interest shown in children.
Skills: Role play, symbolic representation, communication, cooperation, social skills.
**Materials: Baby dolls, clothing, strollers, bottles, plates, bibs.
Rationale: To encourage caretaking, baby dolls will be placed close to the kitchen area in order to be fed and cared for.
Skills: Fine motor, role play, symbolic representation, collaboration.



Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Puzzles, new seriation and color stackers, pegs and pegboards, Mr. Potato Head
Rationale: To provide opportunity to practice one-to-one correspondence, as well as seriation.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, one-to-one correspondence, seriation, turn taking, manual dexterity. 


Language and Literacy
**Materials: Books related to the theme of Birds (in the bird cave), about wind and the changing weather, and about ramps.
Rationale: To encourage finding resources and new information in books (birds, wind, and ramps) while facilitating the development of the basic components of language.
Skills: Listening, speaking, reading, phonological awareness, alphabetical awareness, heuristic language.
**Materials: Letter cookie cutters, letter stencils.
Rationale: To begin increasing their knowledge of symbol and representational systems. To foster alphabetical awareness, name recognition, and letter formations.
Skills: fine motor, reading, writing, alphabet awareness, vocabulary expansion.
Blocks 

**Materials: Wooden ramps, various wheels, books about ramps, small trucks and cars.
Rationale: To facilitate awareness of physics, such as speed, weight, direction, acceleration and slope.
Skills: Reasoning, hypothesizing, experimenting, scientific skills, cooperation, spatial concepts, fine motor skills.
**Materials: Multicolored plastic blocks, hollow wood blocks, and foam blocks.
Rationale: To support scientific and mathematical skills of mass, balance, and spatial sense through the construction of additional ramps and building structures.
Skills: Initiative, creative expression, communication, collaboration, fine motor, mathematical and scientific concepts, cause and effect.


Large Motor 

**Materials: Indoors- plastic cars, tools and toolboxes, stairs, donut hole, bean bag board and bean bags; large group movement activities. Outside -ribbons added to fence, dump trucks, wheelbarrows, shovels and scoops, wooden boats.
Rationale: To provide children opportunities to engage in activities that challenge their physical skills; to encourage the development of cognitive skills, such as cause-and-effect through observation and experimentation with the wind and its effects on various materials, such as ribbon.
Skills: Physical fitness (endurance, strength, flexibility), following directions, observation and comparison, body manipulation.

Large group 

**Materials: Songs led by teacher (gather, name, and topic songs)
Rationale: To build awareness of a specific topic (Birds and Wind) through sharing a common experience; practicing a routine and being part of a community of learners.
Skills: Attention span, attending and orienting, respect for one another, following directions.

Music

**Materials: Piano, drums, and individual xylophones in music corner
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. 

Skills: Mathematical concepts (beats and patterns), imitation, call and answer, communication.

Snacks: 

Monday: Birthday snack
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: TBD

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Lesson Plan- Ross' Class
Oct 25 - 29, 2010
Lead Teaching this week: Heidi

Overview:
As the fall temperatures begin to drop and the children will settle into their small groups, they are continually building new friendships and reinforcing current friendships. The small group themes will be based around the exploration of turtles, storytelling, and counting. As the children focus their attention on more specific topics they will be able to explore at a deeper, more meaningful level. Conversations within the small groups will encourage every child to participate and become part of a team effort working toward daily, weekly, and culminating group goals. Because building relationships in early childhood is so important to the learning process, the small groups will focus on making connections between children and gradually adding materials and activities that will promote social learning as well as learning content about the topic area. With the start of small group comes the inclusion of "Open-snack" to our daily schedule (on T, W, Th). Open-snack gives the children more time during free-play to develop their stories and relationships, as it allows them the choice of when to have snack rather than having everyone transition together. The children will also have opportunities to revisit familiar play themes with their classmates in the gym as well as on the playground.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: Introduce watercolor paints and paper, continue with primary color paint and empty containers to mix their own colors at the easel, natural/"beautiful" materials for collage, markers, crayons, clay (with rolling pins, mallets, wood knives, popsicle sticks, and wood beads)
• Rationale: The art area continues to be popular. Personal collages and clay sculptures are created alongside signs and decoration for dramatic play in the block and kitchen areas. The Internet has been referenced for images to inspire clay sculptures and drawings. The children are using the art area as an opportunity to work cooperatively and build social relationships.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, using resources in the classroom to help build their knowledge of the world

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: Sand, scoops, funnels, measuring cups, graphs/chart of how many scoops fill a container, new items will be hidden to be discovered by touch alone, water added to the sand
• Rationale: The children continue to explore different ways to use tools to move sand around. Measuring cups are used to count amounts of sand needed to fill containers and comparisons are made when the numbers are different among the children. Math concepts are explored alongside social relationship building. The children's sense of touch will be highlighted through games exploring hidden objects. The children will also build their representation and matching skills as they try to figure out what the object is that they are touching while looking at photos of all the objects hidden in the sand. Later in the week we will add water to the sand and give the children new opportunities to explore the way the sand changed.
• Skills: Large-/fine-motor strength, hand-to-eye coordination, math conceptions related to counting/measurement/comparing-contrasting, social skills by working with one another and sharing the objects that are provided, developing the awareness of their senses (specifically the sense of touch)

Science
• Materials: Various seeds, sorting trays, gourds, rocks, stuffed animals, tree branches, magnifying glasses, blank note pads/pencils, leaf sorting magnet game, books about animals such as turtles and animal life cycles
• Rationale: The children have been exploring different properties of seeds as well as playing with the stuffed woodland animals. Connections are being made related to the groups' interdependence on one another for survival. Since both seeds and animals go through life cycles, we will begin to explore the stages of animal and seed life cycles. The Internet, books, magazines, and input from our "turtle" small group will be our resources to learn more about this exciting topic.
• Skills: scientific investigation/inquiry, observing the natural world, learning about life cycles, comparing plants and living creatures, hypothesis creating/testing, recording of observations, community building through shared experiences

Dramatic Play
• Materials: Scuba props (flippers, masks, breathing tubes), Doctor props (stethoscope, gowns, lab coat, doctor bags, and clipboards), fabric/scarves, shoes, purses, house furniture, plates, pretend food, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies
• Rationale: The dramatic play area continues to grow with more children developing story lines and expanding into new themes. The hospital became an ambulance and the sick mermaids returned needing doctors that could swim, so scuba gear was introduced and even more play developed using the new props. The materials will continue to be available and new props will be added as the children expand their stories. New friendships have been forming through the play and cooperation and community spirit is growing.
• Skills: Imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships, factual knowledge related to various themes such as doctor/hospital/ambulance/sea creatures/scuba divers

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Colored wooden inch cubes, Bristle blocks, new puzzles, and shaped blocks for patterning
• Rationale: With the start of the "counting" small group, new materials that are used for counting will be introduced. Building structures with the Bristle blocks continues to be popular. New puzzles related to classroom themes will be added along with the addition of new blocks that will promote patterning skills.
• Skills: Counting, sorting, one-to-one correspondence, part-to-whole relationships, color recognition, patterning, collaborative problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity

Language and Literacy
• Materials: Pens, pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, computer used for word-processing, picture slide shows, and reference resource, mailbox for each child
• Rationale: The children have been busy making signs, writing notes, and researching at the writing center while books continue to be popular as a quiet activity in the "living room". Mailboxes for each child will be designated and encouraged as another purpose for letter writing and enhance community spirit in the classroom. New books related to popular themes in the classroom will be added to the book wall and read aloud before group snack and transition times.
• Skills: pre-/early-literacy skills, letter recognition, fine-motor coordination/endurance, supporting/fostering social skills and relationships

Blocks
• Materials: Large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, cardboard tubes, Peg-People, large fabric, laundry baskets
• Rationale: The block area has been steadily growing with new play themes and increasingly more children joining the play. The structures are moving into the dramatic play area and new props are added as the children expand their ideas. The addition of scuba diver doctors to the ambulance sparked new play directions and new relationships were formed around the play themes. The children are excited to move their stories into new areas of the room and gather more and more children to cooperatively build larger structures and assign more roles to be played.
• Skills: Large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, creativity, social relationships, construction/spatial relation skills, opportunities to practice negotiation/collaboration

Large Motor
• Materials: Scooter cars, "driving lane," uneven ("bumpy") walk, low hurdles, stair climber, throwing games, trampoline, (bikes, rakes, shovels on the playground)
• Rationale: The children are becoming more familiar with the new gym set-up. More risk-taking is happening as new children are given the opportunity to be more adventurous in smaller groups during choice-gym days. Teacher-led activities are focusing on developing specific skills such as strength building and eye-hand coordination with throwing practice and balance and endurance from jumping games on the trampoline. The children are moving and grooving on the playground with new-found speed brought by the bikes and trikes. Sharing skills are developing alongside strength building and physical coordination to pedal the bikes and trikes. The children will be challenged by new activities including a scavenger hunt to accomplish a list of physical challenges such as crossing the monkey bars.
• Skills: Propulsion skills (running, pumping legs to engage scooters), large-motor strength/coordination/endurance, eye-to-foot coordination, spatial skills, body in motion, cardiovascular strength, depth perception, turn taking, social skills, sharing and problem solving

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)
• We will be cooking pancakes this week to give the children actual experience with using measuring cups and why it is important to measure correctly. We will also make a batch without correct measurements to show what happens when you don't follow the directions.
• We will plan to do a fire drill sometime this week.
• Conferences will be continuing this week...please remember to fill out your questionnaire and bring it to the meeting. Also, double-check your time on the conference sign-up sheets!
• Small groups have started...be sure to check the small group updates with your child to learn more about what your child is doing!

Snack
Monday: Cereal and Milk
Tuesday: Pretzels
Wednesday: Pancakes (made by the children!)
Thursday: Rice cakes
Friday: Trail mix
*All snacks served with water and milk, unless otherwise specified*

Please note that we will have gym only once a week., on Mondays. We want to make sure that we take advantage of the outdoors when possible.
Also note that this schedule has small groups' time included. Times may vary to accommodate special projects or activities

Monday
11:45-12:30 teachers meeting, environment preparation
12:30-1:05 explore time and gym (children go in two groups)
1:05-1:20 large group
1:20-1:50 small groups
1:50-2:35 Choice Time (clean up and washing hands)
2:35-2:50 snack
2:50-3:15 get ready and outdoors
3:15-3:30 pick up and good byes
3:30-5:00 teachers clean up and discussion

Wednesday
11:45-12:30 teachers meeting, environment preparation
12:30-1:00 explore time
1:00-1:15 large group
1:15-1:45 small groups
1:45-2:30 Choice Time (clean up and washing hands)
2:30-2:45 snack
2:45-3:15 get ready and outdoors
3:15-3:30 pick up and good byes
3:30-5:00 teachers clean up and discussion-planning meeting

Thursday
11:45-12:30 teachers meeting, environment preparation
12:30-1:15 explore/ cooking activity (longer to allow for baking/cooking)
1:15-1:30 large group
1:30-2:00 small groups
2:00-2:15 all small groups come to the classroom, clean up and wash hands
2:15-2:35 snack
2:35-3:15 get ready and outdoors
3:15-3:30 pick up and good byes
3:30-5:30 teachers clean up and discussion-classroom set up

Overview
We introduced the concept of habitats this week and have been discussing what people and animals need to survive and be happy. As part of this process we are asking the children about their own habitats and hanging pictures of everyone's house on the bulletin board. We will be connecting the idea of habitats and homes throughout the room with different types of animals and the things they need in their habitats. We have added branches to the animal cave to build nests in for the stuffed animals that would live in a tree. We will also be discussing and modifying the classroom's fish tank to reflect the needs of the fish.

It is clear that many of the children are interested in the changing season, often commenting on the falling leaves and temperature outside. A scavenger hunt on the playground will aid children in noticing the details of the changing season. Child sized rakes have been brought out to the playground and used to make many leaf piles. A jumping station has been created on the playground where the children can jump down into a giant leaf pile. The children have already shown their delight at their ability to make the piles and then even more excitement when they get to jump into what they have created.

From cutting vegetables and opening the pumpkin to feeding the birds, the children have become more keenly aware of seeds. The pumpkin seeds they removed from the pumpkin two weeks ago have sprouted and the children are excited to plant them and watch them grow. The children have expressed an interest in the birdseed from the bird watching station. To reflect this interest and take a closer look at the seeds, we will be filling the sensory table with flaxseed and acorns.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Tabletop easels, paint, paper, large tongue depressors, and simple clay tools
-Rationale: The children have completed the classroom wide collage. To introduce a new artistic medium we are introducing paint with wide brushes. We will encourage the children to represent their ideas and talk about the colors, lines, and shapes they create or notice on each other's paper.
-Skills: Social interaction, collaboration, creative risk-taking, fine motor development, symbolic representation, and self-expression

Sensory
-Materials: Flaxseed, acorns, gutters
-Rationale: To foster the children's interest in seeds we will be switching from water and frogs to flaxseed and acorns. Many connections between the children have been forged at the sensory table. The new materials will rekindle excitement and intrigue in this area of the classroom.
-Skills: Social interaction, turn taking, sensory stimulation and pleasure, communication, large and fine motor development, problem solving, and knowledge of the natural environment.

Science
-Materials: Feathers, light table, tweezers, magnifying glasses, pumpkin seeds, potting soil, pots to plant to seeds, two tadpoles, an aquarium with four fish, a bird watching station, and thermometer.
-Rationale: The bird watching station, tadpoles, and fish all allow students to interact with the animals and spark conversations about animal habitats and what happens in the animal world as the seasons change and time passes. The thermometer will be added to the bird watching station to help children visualize the changing temperature and bring an item that has been of great interest in the fish tank to another meaningful setting. Feathers on the light table will bring another aspect of the bird watching station into the classroom. Children will be able to sort, classify, and explore the feathers of different species of birds.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, comparing, sorting, weighing, asking questions, predicting, hypothesizing, interpreting and reasoning about events, knowledge of the natural environment

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, and dress-up clothes. Some new aprons have been added to the dress up clothes. There has also been the addition of pads of paper and pictures of food to use as order pads and menus. A menu making station has been added to the loft. In the animal cave there are stuffed woodland animals with logs, branches, vines and wood pieces.
-Rationale: To encourage social interaction and the expression of children's knowledge of restaurants by taking on familiar roles within the restaurant setting. With the progression of the restaurant, the menu making station will give children the added freedom to decide what type of food their restaurant will serve. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction and exploration of more specific animal homes and habitats.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios, large and fine motor development, and symbolic representation.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Unifix cubes with numbered trays, number puzzles, fall theme lotto, snap together pieces, interlocking puzzles reflecting natural themes such as animals and plants.
-Rationale: We will move from emphasizing matching, color and shape to number concepts and counting.
-Skills: One to one correspondence, counting concepts, number sense, whole/part relationships, and fine motor development.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing implements, paper, post-it notes, envelopes, scissors, and a posting of the upper and lower case alphabet. A well stocked library with books about animals, fall/leaves, seeds, vegetables, school, and families.
-Rationale: The library is placed near the couch for cozy reading time with friends and teachers. Throughout the room there will be many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written word. The children have begun using the writing center for many different activities throughout the room, whether it is sign making for the block center, the children are utilizing the writing center in many different ways. Some of the children have begun making masks with the paper and scissors at the writing center.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, writing/drawing, fine motor control, and using books for reference.

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with wheel sets that fit on the unit blocks as well as wooden cars, with people in them. There are also some road signs and some wooden gas station models. Plush animal toys.
-Rationale: We have decided to add plush animal toys to encourage the concept of habitats to influence the children's constructions. Children learn more about animal shelters and needs as they incorporate animal homes into their cities, cabins, or roads. The road/city building with cars is an interest that the children continually come back to each day, so the city building will continue to be encouraged. Children use creativity and problem solving while developing their awareness of geometry through building. Communal building with hollow blocks encourages cooperation and problem solving.
-Skills: Construction skills, geometry, problem solving, communication, dramatic play, symbolic representation, and large and fine motor.

Large Motor
-Materials: The continued enthusiasm for the shovels and rakes indicates that the children would enjoy the extended use of the playground materials. The playground will be set up with shovels, and buckets, as well as child-sized rakes and wheelbarrows. The gym features a race track with push cars, a wide balance walk way, a bumpy walk, a jumping station from a large pile of mats, a small trampoline, a bean bag toss, and dramatic play areas of a repair shop and a gas station.
-Rationale: Group games bring the children together and introduce the children to following simple game rules and directions. We also use this opportunity to focus on specific motor skills and patterns. The racetrack focuses on propulsion skills and the dramatic play areas facilitate cooperation and social interaction. The rakes and wheelbarrows on the playground are to encourage the children to interact with their environment. The leaves have been falling off the tree, and the children expressed interest in a leaf pile. Working together to create a leaf pile to jump into encourages both social skills and large motor development.
-Skills: Cooperation, communication, risk taking, upper body strength, lower body strength, coordination, depth perception, role playing, symbolic representation, balance, directional awareness, and spatial awareness

Special Interest
-Morning Meeting: Classroom community building continues as well as singing songs and having discussions about seasonal changes. An emphasis on the habitats of animals will be encouraged, as will the role of animals in the transportation of seeds.
-Rationale: The morning meeting emphasizes togetherness and fosters the building of classroom community. We will continue to discuss ongoing play themes and encourage the children to revisit areas they have frequented before, while adding encouragement to explore the new materials in the sensory table or visit the lively restaurant. We will continue to introduce new stories into morning meetings, emphasizing the changing season and the ways in which the changing temperature influences animals and seeds.
-Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities, encourage self-control, to introduce topical conversations and continue to build a sense of community.

Overview
We continue to encourage and support children's exploration of the natural world. Birds, animals, and traveling seeds are just a few of the topics we have been exploring and discussing indoors and outdoors. Children have been observing birds and squirrels at the window with the birdfeeder. We continue to discuss our explorations inside and outside of the classroom, and at home. We have been checking on our tree seeds and now have planted burrs right on the socks that picked them up with. Many children are wondering whether they will sprout. This week, we will talk about seeds that float and seeds that fly! Teachers support children in making thoughtful choices among the activities at choice time, providing many opportunities for meaningful interactions and discussions. We are taking full advantage of what it seems to be our last warm October days and spending as much time outdoors as we can!

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Clay, sticks, utensils to make impressions. Pencils, crayons, markers, natural collage materials, and glue. Table easels with paint cups.
-Rationale: To provide materials for the children to be creative and to express their understandings of the concepts being introduced in the classroom (tadpoles, seeds, animals, gourds). -Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, observation, and fine motor development.

Sensory
-Materials: Birdseed, a pumpkin opened up for scooping and carving.
-Rationale: To provide a different sensory experience (from water), to explore plant science life, and to promote social interactions.
-Skills: Sensory awareness, peer interactions, sharing materials, experimentation, and observation.

Science
-Materials: Bird watching station, light table with feathers and nests, seeds, float and sink tubs, burr planting materials, measuring tape at the seed-blowing table, and tadpoles and fish in aquariums.
-Rationale: To notice different types of birds at the feeder and different colors and patterns of feathers at the light table. Our nature walks have given us more seasonal ideas to explore: what kinds of seeds will sink or float as they travel? And will our burr seeds grow? When we blow on seeds, which ones will fly? We will ask children about how and why seeds travel the way they do. Tadpoles (have they seen one of them start to grow legs?) and fish give children the opportunity to observe living things close up.
-Skills: Observation, exploration, peer interactions, forming questions, and testing our hypotheses.

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies and dress up clothes. We have added restaurant supplies, cookbooks, menus, paper, pencils and food photos. The loft has a reading area next to the large windows and a table for writing. The Animal Cave has stuffed woodland animals, logs, wood blocks.
-Rationale: The dramatic play area is set up to encourage social interactions, symbolic play, literacy, and expression of children's ideas about their experiences. The cave is set up for small group interactions and discussions about woodland animals and their homes.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interactions, social problem-solving, symbolic representation, print awareness.

Math and Manipulatives
Materials: Unifix cubes, number sense puzzle, lego builders, new peg puzzles and matching game. Seed matching game, classroom fall bingo, classroom pictures memory game.
-Rationale: To provide opportunity to practice one-to-one correspondence and numerical sense. Encourage and support social interactions.
-Skills: One to one correspondence, matching, sorting, games with rules, taking turns.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: Books about birds, seeds, and animals in the classroom within science area, cozy couch, and loft area. Cookbooks in the dramatic play area. Our cooking activity will also have a recipe displayed. The loft, dramatic play, bird watching station, and writing table all have pencils and paper.
-Rationale: To encourage talking, writing, print awareness and listening to stories.
-Skills: Self-expression through talking, writing, drawing, awareness of the purpose of print and letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and connecting speech to print and print to speech.

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks, unit blocks and tree blocks. Wheels and street signs have been added to the block area. Our gym setup has similar signage and wheeled cars on a "track."
-Rationale: To provide materials for symbolic play, awareness of geometry and directions, to encourage cooperative play and collaboration.
-Skills: Large motor skills, balance, directional awareness, and social interaction skills.

Large Motor
-Materials: Gym - remains set up as a bumpy road and jumping challenge for walkers and a car track with stop sign, arrows. New additions include a beanbag toss and trampoline added to the footpath. We will head outdoors and participate in a group fitness activity. In the playground we have shovels, buckets, scoops, tricycles, cups and pitchers.
-Rationale: To encourage balance, endurance, and directional awareness. The beanbag toss provides practice throwing, aiming and taking turns. The playground provides opportunities for endurance, propulsion skills, coordination, climbing, arm strength and dramatic play.
-Skills: Endurance, balance, directional awareness, sharing, cooperation, self-regulation, risk-taking, climbing, coordination, jumping and running.

Special Interest
-Materials: Items and/or stories brought from home about weekend explorations.
-Rationale: To encourage discussion, observation and the connection between classroom and home environments.
-Skills: Observation, comparing/contrasting, sorting, describing, self-expression, and peer interactions.
-Large Group
This week we will continue our discussions about animals in fall and the signs they leave. We will also explore how seeds travel in the fall.
-Rationale: To deepen understandings of the concepts we have introduced; to build community and share ideas with one another.
-Skills: Inquiry, observation. To listen to others, discuss experiences and compare ideas.

Reminders
The Lab School will be closed on Thursday, October 21st for Staff Development. Conferences will continue next week.

Ellen, Pat, Linda and Dalia

Looking for Animal Signs...

Nature Walk-looking for animal signs-Mobile.m4v

Catching burrs

Nature Walk- Catching burrs-Mobile.m4v

Monday
11:45-12:30 Teacher Preparation of Environment and Discussion
12:30-12:55 Children's Arrival and Discovery Time
As children arrive at school they are greeted by a teacher and accompanied to the classroom where they put their belongings away and wash their hands. The children are then able to freely explore the front half of the classroom, which includes the art center, sensory table, science center, library, writing center, dramatic play, caves, clay, and manipulatives.
12:55-1:10 Large Group
The whole class comes together to share music, movement, literature, and puppets. We will also discuss any new information pertaining to classroom interests, activities, or projects.
1:10-2:05 Activity Time and Clean Up
Children are free to play in the learning centers throughout the room, engage in specific activities, and interact with peers. Teachers observe, facilitate, and support children's play and development during this time.
2:05-2:20 Gym Time/Large Motor Time
Children participate in both self- and teacher-directed activities that challenge their muscle strength, balance, coordination, and risk taking abilities.
2:20-2:35 Handwashing and Whole Group Snack
Children talk with each other and with teachers while enjoying a small snack. Teachers will take notice of interests, and will also facilitate conversations about current topics/themes and upcoming events.
2:35-3:15 Dress for Outdoor Play and Outdoor Play on the Playground
Children are encouraged to freely explore the playground and participate in group games and activities. The outdoor environment is intentionally set up to incorporate the children's play preferences while providing motor challenges.
3:15-3:30 Pick-up and End of Day Story Reading
Children will read stories and sing songs until parents/families arrive. The children will assemble in the hallway just outside the classroom and will be brought to their cars for departure.
3:30-5:00 Teacher Clean Up and Discussion

Wednesday & Thursday (Small Group Days)
11:45-12:30 Teacher Preparation of Environment and Discussion
12:30-12:55 Children's Arrival and Discovery Time
12:55-1:10 Large Group
1:10-1:30 Small Groups
1:30-2:20 Activity Time, Large Motor Time, Open Snack, and Clean Up
2:20-3:15 Dress for Outdoor Play and Outdoor Play on the Playground
3:15-3:30 Pick-up and End of Day Story Reading
3:30-5:00 Teacher Clean Up and Discussion

Overview: Our nature walk last Thursday was a success! The children enjoyed observing their surroundings and exploring nature as we walked around campus. We will continue further investigations as we progress into our small groups this week. Our cooking projects have inspired children to "bake" all sorts of goodies in the sand table. The children are busy mixing and measuring with the added props. We will continue on with our cooking projects next week as we make popcorn together. Even simple projects bring children together, give them a sense of independence, and foster social relationships as our community strengthens. It is a short week this week, but we will continue to follow and support the children as they decide where these new topics will lead them.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: we have added empty cups for color mixing at the at the easel (we're still using primary color paints); we have added moss to our natural materials for collage; markers, crayons, colored pencils, and scissors continue to be available
•Rationale: by working with primary colors, the children have become interested in color mixing; the "beautiful things" brought in by the children have sparked much interest in unique materials, and activities at the art table continue to foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: continue with play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting; familiar animal and fall shaped cookie cutters will continue to be available as children build awareness of our natural surroundings and changing seasons
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, measuring spoons, scoops, and large and small containers; we have added bowls and spoons for mixing; glass gems, caps, rocks, and other small items are still available to hide in the sand and to use as baking props
•Rationale: the children have been inspired by our cooking projects, and are having fun measuring "salt," "sugar," "flour," and other ingredients to make all sorts of delicious things
•Skills: dramatic play, role play, large and fine motor development, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses
Science
•Materials: sorting trays for seeds and other natural materials (leaves, flowers, acorns, pinecones, and rocks), cockroaches, beetles, mealworms; a bug matching game has been added to the cave along with the leaf-sorting fishing game
•Rationale: to encourage children as they develop foundational knowledge about the natural world, and support them as they begin to make sense of abstract concepts such as seasonal cycles through hands-on activities and experiences
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, sorting, matching
Dramatic Play
•Materials: we will continue adding in a few items for our hospital and/or veterinary clinic as children continue to care for those "injured" in the fires; we will continue to have firefighter hats, housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes available; the caves continue to be set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in hospital/veterinary care, along with their continued interest in firefighting, which allows for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, Mobilos, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials as they demonstrate their understanding of the world, and to support children's interest in construction and play themes as they build various buildings, vehicles, people, and animals
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, and seasonal items such as fall stickers and leaf shapes
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: seasonal books about fall (leaves, apples, pumpkins) continue to be a popular addition to our library collection
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, books about current themes and topics of interest
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--a racetrack (complete with cars, a repair shop with mechanic's tools, and a gas station with gas pumps) and an obstacle course (which includes jumping and climbing stations, hurdles, a bumpy walk, and a wide balance beam)
•Rationale: the dramatic play aspect in the gym encourages cooperation and social interaction while increasing motor development
•Skills: propulsion (pushing with feet), coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, and body awareness
•Materials: playground--rakes, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, large climber, swings, swinging rope
•Rationale: the children have been enjoying using child-sized rakes as a way to interact with their environment
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, and observation
Notes & Reminders
•We will have our first small group meeting on Wednesday.
•Conferences begin this week--please double check your times and bring your questionnaire to the meeting if you haven't already turned it in to me.
•No school this Thursday! Teachers will be in St. Louis for staff development.
Snack
Monday: Apples and graham crackers
Wednesday: Peas and crackers
Thursday: NO SCHOOL
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

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Lesson Plan - Ross' Class
Oct. 18-20, 2010
Lead Teaching this week: Natalie

Overview: Over the past week, many things have been going on in this classroom. We had a birthday (Otto is now 5!), a new baby brother came arrive (Alice's baby brother Miles), and big interests with looking inside pumpkins and gourds. The children have been very active in many areas of the classroom! The dramatic play and block area have been the hot spots with many children revisiting the play of the previous day because the daily docs are still being referred to at large group time. The children remember what they did the day before (helping foster many cognitive skills) by sharing with the class what has been going on in the area and inviting new members to join. This helps children think at a deeper level and try to come up with other ideas that relate to the topic of interest. Again, relationships are building and emerging as the week goes on, and it's fun to see all of the children coming up with new ideas of where or what they could use for their play. Their play has been more intentional and many children are included in the play by taking on a role. We will continue to follow the children's interest and see where they want to go to next or what new topics they come up with that we can support. We want children to gain knowledge of the world, learn from each other, help them think more deeply about what they are doing, and use as many resources as possible to enrich their learning.

Expressive Arts (paint & clay)
• Materials: primary color paints (with the addition of a couple empty cups for children to mix colors together), natural/beautiful things (collected by children and added moss for something new), markers, crayons, clay (popsicle sticks and wood beads)
• Rationale: Again, the art area remains very popular with the making of collages, story books (by taping two sheets of paper together), and sculpting things we see in the classroom. We are using the internet as a resource to look up things the children are interested in drawing or sculpting (e.g. turtles and the Tin Man). When the children came to look at the pumpkin and gourds, the children drew what they saw and then the teachers suggested to bring the drawings to the clay table and use the as a reference for their sculptures. This is a great way to get children to see the details involved in these kinds of projects.
• Skills: creativity, fine-motor skills, artistic expression, scientific investigation and inquiry, color recognition, symbolic representation, critical thinking, social skills (show and share their interests), using technology as a resource as well as books and looking at real objects to build awareness/knowledge of the world

Sensory Table (sand)
• Materials: sand, measuring cups (cups and possibly 1/2 cups), new containers (big and small), pitcher, glass gems, pictures of containers available & numbers to keep track of how many cups it takes to fill that certain container
• Rationale: The sand table has also been a popular area. The children have really enjoyed comparing their number of scoops the needed to fill a container with another child. It's a great way for social interaction and to also incorporate math concepts. The children also have fun using their sense of touch to find the gems that are hidden in there and count how many they find. By doing this repetition of counting over and over again, it reinforces the concepts of quantity, counting, and number recognition.
• Skills: large & fine motor skills, math concepts (1 to 1 correspondence, counting, sorting, comparing/contrasting, problem solving, recognition that things can be measured ), social skills, and developing awareness of their senses (especially touch)

Science (seeds, pumpkin, gourds)
• Materials: seeds (pumpkin, gourds, acorns, pine cones, sun flower seeds, apple), rocks, sorting trays, colored leaf sorting game with paper clips & magnets, thick wood branches, animals (squirrels, deer, moose, raccoons, and other woodland creatures) magnifying glasses, and blank note pads/pencils
• Rationale: By adding hands-on activities (sorting seeds and leaves as well as asking what animals do with the seeds), we hope to engage the children and bring new energy back to the science area. We have been talking about seeds, and feel the children are now ready to do some scientific think and hypothesizing as we explore what happens to seeds in nature.
• Skills: observing the natural world, showing interest and knowledge of the natural world, hypothesis creating/testing, learning about how things grow or what they are used for, comparing/contrasting between 2 things, (how the seeds look similar or different) scientific investigation & inquiry, social interaction by through sharing experiences

Dramatic Play
• Materials: doctor props (stethoscope, gowns, lab coat, doctor bags, and clipboards), fabric/scarves, shoes, purses, bags, house furniture, plates, pretend food, stuffed animals, and baby dolls
• Rationale: There has been a strong interest in playing house and doctor's office. At large group time, we have shared the "daily docs" of what was going on the previous day and found that it has extend the children's play themes/stories. By revisiting the play, it builds/fosters relationships, creates opportunities to problem solve/negotiate, allows for the sharing of materials and ideas, supports cooperative play. By doing all of these things, they have a purpose in their play and we can keep adding more props if they are still interested in the topic of doctor and want to know more about it...eventually working towards learning about all the amazing things our bodies can do!
• Skills: symbolic representation, imaginative & creative play, community building, recalling personal experiences related to visiting the doctors to use as a reference, looking at story books for additional information

Math and Manipulatives (bristle blocks)
• Materials: bristle blocks, mobilos, puzzles, lacing, glass gems, melted marbles, wood inch cubes, number of scoops, counting seeds
• Rationale: This has been a popular table for constructing or building with the bristle blocks. Many children and sat down together and worked together making various structures, vehicles, and animal homes. By continually creating, transforming, and recreating various objects, the children are showing what they know about the world by recalling/utilizing previous knoweldge
• Skills: sorting, one to one correspondence, part to whole relationships, color recognition, symbolic representation, creativity, collaborative problem solving, and critical thinking

Language and Literacy
• Materials: paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, computer (word processing and picture slide shows), pens, pencils, and markers
• Rationale: This is an area where children go when they want to make signs for their play, make a letter for someone, or use it as another place to do artwork. The slide shows also seem to attract many children who love to see themselves in pictures that have been taken over the past month. This helps them remember what they did and may spark a new idea related to play from a previous day (or extend/revisit an existing story). The supplies will be restocked when it looks like something is running low and will continue to support children's writing or making signs for their play.
• Skills: letter recognition, fine motor skills, social interaction, and pre/early literacy skills

Blocks (house, doctor, & vet)
• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, cardboard tubes, peg-people, laundry baskets (used for beds for house or hospitals) and large fabric to drape or cover block structures)
• Rationale: This has been the hot spot of combining the dramatic play area with the block area. Many children played together and had the "daily docs" discussed during large group to keep the playing going the next day. Referring to the daily docs helps the children to expand on what they were doing the day before as well as helps with their cognitive skills and creativity by sharing ideas to learn from one another. By learning from one another can spark new interest or ideas that can be added to their play, to have a purpose, and to gain more knowledge of how the world works. In addition, the children have been creative with playing house by making beds from laundry baskets and including others in their play (adding more roles, such as a baby-sitter).
• Skills: imaginative/creativity, large motor skills, symbolic representation, construction & spatial relation skills, negotiation & collaboration

Large Motor
• Materials: scooter cars, "driving lane," uneven (bumpy) walk, low hurdles, stair climber, bikes
• Rationale: It was a new set up for the children last week and will still have the same set-up this week. The reason for that is because children are now familiar with the set up and can improve on their skills or be creative with what is in their surroundings. It's always good to have repetition to practice and to become familiar or comfortable with trying new things that they have not done before. Also, rakes and wheel barrels have been brought out for children to work together by raking leaves and collecting them in big piles. We have been lucky to have such warm weather in the middle of October that being outside has been a fun time for children! We will also bring out the bikes this week.
• Skills: propulsion skills, large motor (strength, coordination, endurance), eye to foot coordination, body in motion, spatial skills, problem solve, cardiovascular strength, depth perception, turn taking, social skills

Special Interest
• **Reminder** NO SCHOOL this Thursday or Friday (October 21st & 22nd)
• We will be starting small groups this week. Your children will find out there group tomorrow and have their first meeting on Tuesday! We will send out and update later in the week with the different groups and their members.
• Conferences are starting this week...please double check your times and bring your questionnaires to the meeting!

Snack
Monday: Apples and Rice Chex
Tuesday: Dried Apricots and rice crackers
Wednesday: Cereal and milk
Thursday: NO SCHOOL
Friday: NO SCHOOL

Fall lesson plan - week of October 19th
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM
Classroom October 19th-25th Courtney Lead Teaching

Overview: Going into the 5th week of school, the children seem to have settled into the routine of the classroom. We pay close attention to each child's interests in order to incorporate these into our daily curriculum and make their learning meaningful and fun. Therefore, the classroom environment is set to provide a variety of opportunities for the children to develop relationships, learn how to collaborate, and recognize diversity in ideas and their expression. As the children become familiar with one another, we will continue to facilitate social awareness by sharing common areas and beginning to learn each other's names. This week we will provide numerous artistic outlets for the children to express their ideas throughout the day. In addition, we will be promoting body awareness through various art, sensory, and music activities.
Expressive Arts
**Materials: Fall/Primary tempera paint colors, smaller/thinner paintbrushes.
Rationale: To explore a new type of brush to create thin strokes and precise markings on the paper.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas.
**Materials: Brown play dough, rolling pins, and a variety of other tools that will help in their exploration of creating 3D "sculptures".
Rationale: To encourage the children to experience and practice molding and manipulating the play dough. To express their creativity and imagination.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, math skills (proportions).
**Materials: Glue, Q-tips, colored paper, natural materials (leaves, sticks, acorns, pine cones, grass, etc).
Rationale: To use and feel the materials we see and find outside and create artistic expression. To explore the texture of glue and familiarize the children with the purpose and use of glue.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, problem solve, sensory input, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction.
Sensory
**Materials: Water, red and blue food coloring, baster, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To continue supporting the use of the baster for manual dexterity and transferring water. To observe and experiment with movement of water using tubes and funnels. To support the exploration of what happens when the colors are mixed together.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, experimentation, math skills (volume, more, less), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.
**Materials: Various colors of finger paint, trays
Rationale: To allow the children to fulfill their curiosity of using their hands to feel, move, and mix the paint colors.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and prediction
Science
**Materials: Mirrors on walls, flashlights, CDs, light table with color gels.
Rationale: To experiment with reflections, light, and shadows.
Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas.
**Materials: Real turtles, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin discussing the care of the turtles in our classroom, as well as observing their behavior.
Skills: Observation, ideas, reflection.
**Materials: Fall vegetables - pumpkins, gourds, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and any other *vegetables to be brought in from home; magnifying glasses; knife (to be used by teachers), and cutting board.
Rationale: To further explore and investigate the harvested items by cutting them open and seeing the seeds.
Skills: observation, predication, classification, comparison, try out ideas, record.
Dramatic Play
**Materials: Loft "tree house/cave," squirrels and owls, smaller "cave" structures extended from the loft, large branches children will collect in nature, posted questions and books focusing on the squirrels and owls and their habitat in trees.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy areas to foster pretend play and social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about owls and the squirrels that live in the trees. To emphasize the animals' lifestyles and habitat.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.
**Materials: Familiar household kitchen and baking items.
Rationale: To re enact the cooking experiences they have had by pretending to add, stir, and mix ingredients to create "baked goods."
Skills: Role play, communication, symbolic representation, cooperation, turn taking, and social skills.
**Materials: Baby items, multiethnic babies, moving trucks, front loaders, unit blocks, and cars.
Rationale: To support the children's interest in incorporating the blocks to build spaces for the babies while using the trucks to move and deliver the materials.
Skills: Turn taking, social skills, try out ideas, role play, social interactions, communication, symbolic representation, cooperation, scientific and mathematical concepts
Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Mr. Potato Heads, seriation and color stackers, and puzzles
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation, body awareness, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, turn taking, cooperation, manual dexterity.
Language and Literacy
**Materials: Alphabet signs, signs, questions, recipe cards (for cooking activity), story-lines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to owls, animals, and the change of seasons (hibernation, leaves, cold weather etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Communication, referencing, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.
Blocks
**Materials: Square and rectangle multicolored blocks, hollow blocks, foam blocks, questions, and photos of children building.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, homes for the animals, or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, fine motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.
Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - race car tracks, uneven surfaces, donut hole, stairs. Outside -rakes for raking large pile of leaves (to jump in), wooden wagons, trucks and diggers, hard hats, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote cooperation, social interactions, trial and error, and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility) Dramatic Play (acting out the jobs of the construction workers they have been observing for the past week).
Large group
**Materials: Name songs, turtle songs, books, upper arm movement activities.
Rationale: To follow a routine, help children learn each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.
Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
**Materials: Piano, drums, tambourines, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: Turn taking, fine motor development, large motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Tuesday: Cucumber slices and crackers

Fall lesson plan - week of October 18th
Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
October 18th-25th
Courtney Lead Teaching

Overview: Going into the 5th week of school, the children seem to have settled into the routine of the classroom. We pay close attention to each child's interests in order to incorporate these into our daily curriculum and make their learning meaningful and fun. Therefore, the classroom environment is set to provide a variety of opportunities for the children to develop relationships, learn how to collaborate, and recognize diversity in ideas and their expression. As the children become familiar with one another, we will continue to facilitate social awareness by sharing common areas and beginning to learn each other's names. This week we will provide numerous artistic outlets for the children to express their ideas throughout the day. In addition, we will be promoting body awareness through various art, sensory, and music activities.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Fall/Primary tempera paint colors, smaller/thinner paintbrushes.
Rationale: To explore a new type of brush to create thin strokes and precise markings on the paper.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas.
**Materials: Brown play dough, rolling pins, and a variety of other tools that will help in their exploration of creating 3D "sculptures".
Rationale: To encourage the children to experience and practice molding and manipulating the play dough. To express their creativity and imagination.
Skills: Sensory input, fine motor, creative expression, math skills (proportions).
**Materials: Glue, Q-tips, colored paper, natural materials (leaves, sticks, acorns, pine cones, grass, etc).
Rationale: To use and feel the materials we see and find outside and create artistic expression. To explore the texture of glue and familiarize the children with the purpose and use of glue.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, problem solve, sensory input, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction.
Sensory
**Materials: Water, red and blue food coloring, baster, funnel tube contraption, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To continue supporting the use of the baster for manual dexterity and transferring water. To observe and experiment with movement of water using tubes and funnels. To continue to support the exploration of what happens when the colors are mixed together.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, experimentation, math skills (spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.
**Materials: Various colors of finger paint, trays
Rationale: To allow the children to fulfill their curiosity of using their hands to feel, move, and mix the paint colors.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and prediction
Science
**Materials: Mirrors on walls, flashlights, CDs, light table with color gels.
Rationale: To experiment with reflections, light, and shadows.
Skills: Observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas.
**Materials: Real turtles, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin discussing the care of the turtles in our classroom, as well as observing their behavior.
Skills: Observation, ideas, reflection.
**Materials: Fall vegetables - pumpkins, gourds, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and any other *vegetables to be brought in from home; magnifying glasses; knife (to be used by teachers), and cutting board.
Rationale: To further explore and investigate the harvested items by cutting them open and seeing the seeds.
Skills: observation, predication, classification, comparison, try out ideas, record.
Dramatic Play
**Materials: Loft "tree house/cave," squirrels and owls, smaller "cave" structures extended from the loft, large branches children will collect in nature, posted questions and books focusing on the squirrels and owls and their habitat in trees.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy areas to foster pretend play and social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about owls and the squirrels that live in the trees. To emphasize the animals' lifestyles and habitat.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.
**Materials: Familiar household kitchen and baking items.
Rationale: To re enact the cooking experiences they have had by pretending to add, stir, and mix ingredients to create "baked goods."
Skills: Role play, communication, symbolic representation, cooperation, turn taking, and social skills.
**<strong>Materials: Baby items, multiethnic babies, moving trucks, front loaders, unit blocks, and cars.
Rationale: To support the children's interest in incorporating the blocks to build spaces for the babies while using the trucks to move and deliver the materials.
Skills: Turn taking, social skills, try out ideas, role play, social interactions, communication, symbolic representation, cooperation, scientific and mathematical concepts
Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Mr. Potato Heads, seriation and color stackers, and puzzles
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation, body awareness, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: Fine motor control, visual and spatial discrimination, turn taking, cooperation, manual dexterity.
Language and Literacy
**Materials: Alphabet signs, signs, questions, recipe cards (for cooking activity), story-lines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to owls, animals, and the change of seasons (hibernation, leaves, cold weather etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Communication, referencing, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.
Blocks
**Materials: Square and rectangle multicolored blocks, hollow blocks, foam blocks, questions, and photos of children building.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, homes for the animals, or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, fine motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.
Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - race car tracks, uneven surfaces, donut hole, stairs. Outside -rakes for raking large pile of leaves (to jump in), wooden wagons, trucks and diggers, hard hats, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote cooperation, social interactions, trial and error, and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility) Dramatic Play (acting out the jobs of the construction workers they have been observing for the past week).
Large group
**Materials: Name songs, turtle songs, books, upper arm movement activities.
Rationale: To follow a routine, help children learn each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.
Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
**Materials: Piano, drums, tambourines, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: Turn taking, fine motor development, large motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Monday- Cucumber slices and crackers Wednesday - (cooking in class) Salsa and corn chips

Overview:
Now that the children are settled into the classroom and are familiar with each other and the materials we have seen some wonderful developments in their dramatic play and block building. Many children have built roads and buildings using blocks, others have built elaborate skate-parks. We also have a restaurant with a very friendly waitstaff!

In addition to supporting emerging play themes the teachers are also continuing to make the curriculum come alive for the children through collaborative projects such as a fall inspired group collage, and by baking pumpkin muffins from a pumpkin the children cleaned and baked themselves.

The children agreed that it would be a good idea to plant the pumpkin seeds, which fueled a new direction in the study of the life cycles of plants, sprouting and planting seeds. Some of the children have noticed after playing outside that they have seeds stuck to their clothes. We will use this to delve even further into our study of seeds by examining how seeds travel and why it would be necessary for them to travel.

The busy squirrels around the school have caught the attention of many of the children. The children are curious about their behavior and enjoy making their own interpretations of what the squirrels are up to. This curiosity and interest is now being carried on to birds with the addition of a bird watching station to the classroom. As the weather gets colder we will frame our questions and conversations with children around what animals do to prepare for, and live outside when it is cold.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Clay, glue, paper, natural collage materials (both from school and collected by the children), large tongue depressors, and clay tools
-Rationale: To provide a way for children to express their understanding about the changing seasons and the natural world by creating a large fall inspired collage. The clay exploration will be extended by adding tools that will encourage marking and shaping the clay in new ways.
-Skills: Social interaction, collaboration, creative risk-taking, fine motor development, symbolic representation, and self-expression

Sensory
-Materials: Water, toy frogs, several rocks, foliage, turtles, chutes, and gutters
-Rationale: The children have been making important connections at the water table. These connections have been both social and academic. We added gutters and chutes available for the children to use, because many of them have been expressing interest in creating water parks. The chutes and gutters will allow the children to learn about new properties of water as well as extending their symbolic play.
-Skills: Symbolic representation, social interaction, turn taking, sensory stimulation and pleasure, communication, large and fine motor development, role play, and knowledge of the natural environment.

Science
-Materials: Vegetables, tweezers for collecting seeds, magnifying glasses, balancing scales, seed sorting by size and variety, four baggies hung at the science table containing pumpkin seeds and damp paper towels. Two tadpoles, an aquarium with four fish and a bird watching station.
-Rationale: To extend the children's conceptualization of seeds, plants, sprouting, and the ensuing cycle of life. The bird watching station is one of the areas where the children can begin to make connections with their surrounding environment. The children are also encouraged to systematically record their observations on the charts or clipboards.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, weighing, asking questions, hypothesizing, interpreting and reasoning about events, knowledge of the natural environment

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, and dress-up clothes. Some new aprons have been added to the dress up clothes. There has also been the addition of pads of paper and pictures of food to use as order pads and menus. In the animal cave there are stuffed woodland animals with logs and wood pieces.
-Rationale: To encourage social interaction and the expression of children's knowledge of family life by taking on familiar roles. With the addition of the restaurant materials the children will be encouraged to explore their knowledge of roles outside of the home. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios, and fine motor development,

Math and Manipulatives:
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, color/shape lotto, fall theme lotto, inset puzzles emphasizing color/shape, interlocking puzzles reflecting natural themes such as animals, plants, fruits and vegetables.
-Rationale: We are starting with sorting and classifying by shape and color not only to emphasize recognition and labeling, but also to lay a foundation for later mathematical concept development. This center we left the same as last week as the children are still actively engaging with all of the materials.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, one to one correspondence and whole/part relationships, and fine motor development.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing implements, paper, envelopes, and a posting of the upper and lower case alphabet. A well stocked library with books about animals, fall/leaves, seed, vegetables, school and families. In the loft there are books about how animals prepare for winter with paper and pencils for recording what the children notice about the animals they see from the windows.
-Rationale: The library is placed near the couch for cozy reading time with new friends and teachers. Throughout the room there will be many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written word. The children have begun using the writing center for many different activities throughout the room, whether it is sign making for the block center, or creating order tablets for the dramatic play, the children are utilizing the writing center in many different ways.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, writing/drawing, fine motor control, and using books for reference.

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with wheel sets that fit on the unit blocks as well as wooden cars with people in them. There are also some road signs and some wooden gas station models.
-Rationale: The road/city building with cars is an interest that the children continually come back to each day. Children use creativity and problem solving while developing their awareness of geometry through building. Communal building with hollow blocks encourages cooperation.
-Skills: Construction skills, geometry, problem solving, communication, dramatic play, symbolic representation, and fine motor.

Large Motor
-Materials: The playground will be set up with shovels, and buckets, as well as child-sized rakes and wheelbarrows. The gym features a race track with push cars, a wide balance walk way, a bumpy walk, a jumping station from a large pile of mats, and dramatic play areas of a repair shop and a gas station.
-Rationale: Group games bring the children together and introduce the children to following simple game rules and directions. We also use this opportunity to focus on specific motor skills and patterns. The racetrack focuses on propulsion skills and the dramatic play areas facilitate cooperation and social interaction. The rakes and wheelbarrows on the playground are to encourage the children to interact with their environment. The leaves have been falling off the tree, and the children expressed interest in a leaf pile. Working together to create a leaf pile to jump in encourages both social skills and large motor development.
-Skills: Cooperation, communication, risk taking, upper body strength, lower body strength, coordination, depth perception, role playing, symbolic representation, balance, directional awareness, and spatial awareness

Special Interest
-Morning Meeting: Classroom community building continues as well as singing songs and having discussions about seasonal changes. We will also be having discussions about animals as well as learning some new songs.
-Rationale: The morning meeting emphasizes togetherness and fosters the building of classroom community. We will continue to discuss ongoing play themes and encourage the children to revisit areas they have frequented before, while adding encouragement to try the new bird watching station or the new tools in clay. We will introduce stories into morning meetings, including one about seeds and another about animal habitats.
-Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities, encourage self-control, to introduce topical conversations and continue to build a sense of community.

click here to watch the children listening to music and moving their bodies pretending to be animals...
music and movement- 1-Mobile.m4v

music and movement-2-Mobile.m4v

Overview: The children are settling nicely into our classroom routine and are making special connections with their classmates. We have noticed friendships forming, and we will continue to foster these friendships as our sense of classroom community strengthens. The children enjoyed making strawberry banana smoothies last week. They were very excited about using "real" knives (pumpkin carvers) as they participated in cutting up the bananas and strawberries all by themselves. It was a wonderful way for children to increase their feelings of independence and confidence. Cooking projects are also wonderful community builders--preparing and eating food together helps to create a bond with one another. We will continue with our cooking experiences this week by hosting Ellie's mom (Christine), who will be coming in to make muffins with the children for Ellie's birthday. This week we will also be going on a nature walk so children will be able to explore and observe our changing seasons. We have added materials in our science center, along with books in our library to help build awareness of our surroundings. Next week we will take the children out in small groups for more focused investigations. The children's play themes continue to evolve--as children and pets have become "injured" in the fire, they have become interested in caring for others at their hospital and veterinary clinics. To support these themes, we have added Bristle Blocks in the manipulative area so children can explore with other open-ended materials. Through all these themes and activities we hope to incite excitement and stimulate children's thinking as we investigate topics for our small groups next week.

Expressive Arts
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: the children are continuing to bring in their "beautiful things" for collage, which has been a wonderful outlet for their creative expression; activities at the art table help to increase fine motor skills and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, artistic expression, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: continue with play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting; familiar animal and fall shaped cookie cutters have been added to build awareness of our natural surroundings and changing seasons
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, measuring spoons, scoops, and large and small containers; we have added glass gems, caps, rocks, and other small items to hide in the sand
•Rationale: to encourage the practice of pouring and filling, counting, and comparing; to allow children to explore with their senses as they touch items with different textures and work together to find objects in the sand and identify them
•Skills: hand-eye coordination, large and fine motor development, volume and spatial relations, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, predicting, turn taking, fostering social relationships, developing an awareness of senses
Science
•Materials: sorting trays for natural materials brought in by the children (leaves, flowers, acorns, pinecones, and rocks), cockroaches, beetles, mealworms; a leaf-sorting fishing game has been added to the cave
•Rationale: to encourage children as they develop foundational knowledge about the natural world, and support them as they begin to make sense of abstract concepts such as seasonal cycles through hands-on activities and experiences
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, sorting, matching
Dramatic Play
•Materials: we will begin adding in items for our hospital and/or veterinary clinic as children begin to care for those "injured" in the fires; we will continue to have firefighter hats, fire "hoses," housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes available; the caves continue to be set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in hospital/veterinary care, along with their continued interest in firefighting, which allows for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation, creating imaginary scenarios
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Bristle Blocks, Mobilos, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials allowing them to develop more complex skills, and to support children's interest in construction and play themes as they build various buildings, vehicles, people, and animals
•Skills: construction, symbolic representation, patterning, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, and tape; seasonal items (fall stickers, leaf shapes) have also been added
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: seasonal books about fall (leaves, apples, pumpkins) have been added to the collection in our library
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, steering wheels, books about current themes and topics of interest
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, creating imaginary scenarios, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--we have a new set up with a racetrack (complete with cars, a repair shop with mechanic's tools , and a gas station with gas pumps) and an obstacle course (which includes jumping and climbing stations, hurdles, a bumpy walk, and a wide balance beam)
•Rationale: the dramatic play aspect in the gym encourages cooperation and social interaction while increasing motor development
•Skills: propulsion (pushing with feet), coordination, spatial awareness, directional awareness, jumping and landing, turn-taking, balance, agility, and body awareness
•Materials: playground--rakes, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, large climber, swings, swinging rope
•Rationale: to encourage children to interact with their environment, and work together as they rake, dig, haul, run, swing, and climb
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, and observation
Special Interest
•Large Group Meeting--student teachers Lindsay and Amy will lead activities this week to extend and deepen children's understanding of the current topics in our classroom
•Cooking Project--Ellie's mom will be coming in on Wednesday to help us prepare a special snack for Ellie's birthday; student teacher, Amy, will assist in leading this project to encourage working together and to foster the building of classroom community
•Nature Walk--we will be going on a nature walk on Thursday to build awareness of nature and our immediate environment, and to share experiences together
Snack
Monday: Apples and rice cakes
Wednesday: Ellie's Birthday Treat!
Thursday: Carrot slices and raisins
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Lesson Plan- Ross' Class


Oct 11 - 15, 2010


Team Teaching

Overview: The energy continues to rise (along with the temperatures outside!) as the children continue to form new friends as well as revisit popular play themes around the room. It is through this continual re-visitation that allows children to expand on their play themes and begin to make sense of their world. With this repetition comes opportunity to explore a topic of interest on a deeper, more invested level. The play has grows more complex everyday, with the addition of new materials and new playmates. We feel this is strongly related to our revisiting of what was played the day before and bring our "Daily Docs" to large group. The children have shared stories from the previous day and we have opened up the conversations by asking, "What are some of your ideas of what else we can do with that play? What could we do/add?" The children's faces light up and the conversations get rolling! The children are thinking a lot about their play and have become much more intentional about where they would like to start and where they'll go next. We will continue these conversations as well as begin investigating topic ideas for potential small groups, as we feel the children are ready to dive into more focused areas/topics to explore!

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay, play-dough)


• Materials: continue with primary color paint at the easel, add more natural/"beautiful" materials for collage (collected/sorted by the children), markers, crayons, clay (with rolling pins, mallets, wood knives, popsicle sticks, and wood beads)
• Rationale: The art area has been very popular. We are observing many forms of creativity, both with the collage making at the art table and with sculpting at the clay table. The subject of nature has been the theme in our classroom so the children have been sculpting trees, turtles, or things of interest related to the natural world. Last week, we used the Internet to find a picture of a turtle for a child to refer back to during the process of making one with the clay. We are also asking the children to draw pictures of what they want to make to help with mental planning and intentionality with the material. It is just starting to emerge, and is a great way for children to pay attention to the details of what is all included as well as build awareness skills.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, using resources in the classroom to help build their knowledge of the world

Sensory (sand table)


• Materials: Sand, scoops, funnels, and new containers/pitchers for measuring and pouring, graphs/chart of how many scoops fill a container, things to hide in there (glass gems, corks, or wooden cubes)
• Rationale: Many children showed strong interest in playing with the sand; scooping and filling containers, creating mountains and "volcanoes," and playing games with one another. To focus on new "games" of guessing/counting, graphs will be added - allowing the children to compare the number of scoops they need to fill a container with other children's findings. We will record the results and have the children "double-check" each other's work - all while facilitating conversations between the children and discussing the concepts of less/more. Also, the hiding/finding of objects game has become quite popular. By using their sense of touch, the children can learn the different textures of the objects. For example, closing their eyes and guessing which object they have found will increase their awareness of different textures and distinguishing objects by the texture or shape that they feel with their hands. (We will have pictures posted by the table of all the objects hidden in the sand as a reference).
• Skills: Large-/fine-motor strength, hand-to-eye coordination, math conceptions related to counting/measurement/comparing-contrasting, social skills by working with one another and sharing the objects that are provided, developing the awareness of their senses (specifically the sense of touch)

Science


• Materials: Various colored leaves, dried flowers, acorns, rocks, seedpods, pinecones, sorting trays, posterboard-graph for leaf colors, other items found in the natural world around the school (from our nature walk) 

• Rationale: The nature walk will offer first-hand opportunities for observation and experiences that contribute to class discussions. The investigation and utilization of the found materials will be the next step. Recording observations through data collection, comparing and contrasting, and artistic expression will be encouraged. 


• Skills: scientific investigation/inquiry, observing the natural world, learning about the seasonal changes taking place, hypothesis creating/testing, recording of observations, community building through shared experiences


Dramatic Play


• Materials: Fabric/scarves (i.e. for dressing up, drapes/covers for block structures, spread flat for rugs/blankets/the ocean, etc.), shoes, purses, house furniture, plates, pretend food, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies


• Rationale: Every day, the dramatic play area sees many visitors, and the play has only grown more complex over the past week. There has been a strong interest in sharks and mermaids, with holding tanks and oceans being creating nearly every day. Recently the mermaids became quite sick so a doctor's office was added to the tank. We will continue to bring in supporting materials, as well as encourage the children to venture to the art table to create/bring back any signs or decorations. This play has be a driving force in all the new friendships forming in the room!
• Skills: Imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships, factual knowledge related to various sea creatures (i.e. looking up information in reference books in the area) 


Math and Manipulatives


• Materials: Mobilos, colored wooden inch cubes, Bristle blocks, new puzzles, and large lacing beads, chart for data recording 

• Rationale: The Mobilos have sparked new interest in the center; therefore we have added colored wooden inch cubes and Bristle blocks to reinforce the part-to-whole relationships, creative building/construction, and as additional support to encourage social relationships among the children. A teacher expanded on one of the children's interest in creating long connections of Mobilos by suggesting that the long structure be used to measure the height of each person in the room. There was excitement from many to record the heights of many people in the room. We will build on this interest by creating a chart to record the number of Mobilos needed to measure individuals and objects in the room. 

• Skills: Counting, sorting, measuring, one-to-one correspondence, part-to-whole relationships, color recognition, seriation, patterning, collaborative problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity 


Language and Literacy


• Materials: Pens, pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, computer used for word-processing and picture slide shows (as well as the internet for reference material)


• Rationale: The literacy center has seen lots of traffic, with many children stopping by to write notes and draw pictures for their dramatic. The have also stopped by to see the new slide shows that include pictures of themselves and their classmates in action around the room. It is a great community builder and has helped bring in new children to existing play themes. We will continue to keep the supplies stocked and invite children to use the area to support their play.
• Skills: pre-/early-literacy skills, letter recognition, fine-motor coordination/endurance, supporting/fostering social skills and relationships

Blocks


• Materials: Large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, cardboard tubes, Peg-People, large fabric (for draping/adding to block structures)


• Rationale: The blocks continue to be a hot spot in the room and the creativity is percolating! With the inclusion of the "Daily Docs" during large group, many children have revisited the current theme of shark and mermaid houses/tanks, involving more children every day. The repetition of the stories allows the children to expand on their ideas and fosters many areas of cognitive development. With the newly introduced doctor/dentist office for the sick mermaids, we will bring in materials as needed, as well as begin looking at sea creature habitats in books as well as online to inspire new ideas while also looking at what various sea creatures actually need to survive. 


• Skills: Large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, creativity, social relationships, construction/spatial relation skills, opportunities to practice negotiation/collaboration

Large Motor


• Materials: Scooter cars, "driving lane," uneven ("bumpy") walk, low hurdles, stair climber
• Rationale: The gym has received and overhaul and the new set-up is in place! A "driving lane" (rectangular track, really) has been added with the scooter cars to challenge the children's lower and upper body strength/endurance. For those that aren't driving, a service station will be available for those interested in fixing broken "cars." A "bumpy" walk will also be in the middle of the track, challenging the children's balance. The teachers will continue to lead directed activities, however I have a feeling the gym will become a favorite spot for many! 
We have also brought out the buckets and shovels to the playground. LOTS of digging and "fossil excavations" taking place!
• Skills: Propulsion skills (running, pumping legs to engage scooters), large-motor strength/coordination/endurance, eye-to-foot coordination, spatial skills, body in motion, cardiovascular strength, depth perception, turn taking, social skills

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)


• Some children/families have expressed interest with coming into the room and joining us for large group: some to read a favorite book from home, some just to sit with the group and sing songs. I want any and all families to feel like they can be a part of our group, and sharing something at large group (or offering to read stories at the end of the day) are great ways to do it. Please check in with Ross and a time to join the group can be arranged!
• Conferences will be starting next week...please remember to fill out your questionnaire and bring it to the meeting. Also, double-check your time on the conference sign-up sheets!
• Remember: there is NO SCHOOL next week - Oct. 21 (Th) and 22 (Fri)

Snack 

Monday: Apples and yogurt
Tuesday: Carrots and raisins


Wednesday: Soynut-butter and honey sandwiches (made by the children!)
Thursday: Popcorn

Friday: Trail mix

*All snacks served with water and milk, unless otherwise specified*

Overview
We are busy exploring the outdoors and discussing what we see, find and notice. The children continue to work on forming connections with each other and we already have a feeling of community. The children notice if someone is missing and are pretty good at remembering each others' names.
Exploration and inquiry fill our classroom corners and the children are deeply engaged in observing, noticing and discussing their observations and sharing what they know. Our large groups will continue to engage the whole classroom in conversations related to meaningful topics. The teachers continue to support the children into making thoughtful choices during "choice time." All the teachers prepare for discussions and interactions in the different areas of the classroom and provide the children with plenty of opportunities for focused interactions. We will continue to take full advantage of the weather and spend as much time as possible exploring the outdoors. We complement our outdoors explorations' with indoor set-ups and activities. Although our classroom looks pretty similar to last week, we have made interesting small changes to different areas. We have removed materials that weren't used and added materials in areas we thought the children could use some provocations. Our main addition is our "Bird Watching" station by our outdoors bird feeder. We are hoping to spark children's thinking by allowing them to notice birds and squirrels up close.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Clay and animals to make tracks and leave impressions, pencils and crayons, natural collage materials
-Rationale: To provide materials for children to express creatively and note their observations about classroom experiences (tadpoles, squash, animal tracks)
- Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, observation, fine motor development.

Sensory
-Materials: Water, frogs, turtles, rocks, sponges, and foliage.
-Rationale: To provide a soothing sensory experience, promote social interactions and opportunities for symbolic play.
-Skills: Sensory awareness, peer initiation, sharing materials, experimentation, pond vocabulary

Science
-Materials: The outdoors! We will take 2 nature walks, focusing the children's attention on fall plants and animals surrounding the Lab School.
Inside, the science table holds squash and a variety of gourds, balancing scales, a weighing scale, measuring tape, 2 aquariums with fish and tadpoles, planted seeds in the window, and an assortment of natural found materials such as seeds, pinecones, rocks, leaves and acorns on the light table.
We have also set up a bird watching station by the window close to the writing area, which holds the bird feeder. We have pictures of the different animals that might visit our birds feeder, paper, pencils, board to keep track of these animals.
-Rationale: To continue to scaffold the children's understandings about the natural world and the changes taking place during the fall. The children will build on previous experiences with seeds, leaves and vegetables by asking questions and investigating interest areas in the classroom, and extending their observations to include animals as well as plants. We want to give the children the opportunity to notice the birds living in our surroundings and see if they can track their movements.
-Skills: Observation, communicating ideas, hypothesizing, and testing ideas through activities including sorting, weighing, asking questions, comparing and contrasting.

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, and dress-up clothes. In the animal cave there are stuffed woodland animals, natural pieces of wood, and logs
-Rationale: To encourage social interactions and the expression of children's knowledge of family life by taking on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interactions and discussions related to the animals found in the cave.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Measuring tape and a single balance will be introduced to measure the length and weight of the gourds bought at the farmers' market. Panel to keep track of our observations of the bird feeder and our tracking of animals visiting it.
Colored shape sorter/stacker, matching games, color and shape lotto, seed matching game, leaves for matching according to colors and shapes, and interlocking puzzles reflecting natural themes such as animals, plants, fruits and vegetables.
-Rationale: This week we will introduce the concept of measuring length and weight. We will also encourage the children to compare and use terms such as heavier/lighter, longer/shorter.
The new bird watching station will provide children with opportunities to compare quantities and kinds of animals that visit our bird feeder. We continue to provide the children with plenty of opportunities to classify by shape and color. Sorting and classifying are foundational skills that will support and allow children's development of more complex skills.
-Skills: Measurement of weight and length, comparison, reasoning, color and shape recognition, matching, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, fine motor development

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, envelopes, and a posting of the upper and lower case alphabet. Pictures of students with their names printed next to them will be available for students to use at the writing center. A well stocked library with books about animals, vegetables, school and families. The cozy book area and writing materials will remain in the loft. Children will also receive a small booklet for recording their measurements of their gourds.
-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. To provide opportunities for writing children's own names and those of their classmates.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control connecting print to speech and speech to print.

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with farm animals and small fabric squares.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, symbolic play, to develop awareness of geometry, construction and allow for opportunities for social interactions and collaboration.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, collaboration.

Large Motor
-Materials: Gym - Mats for obstacle course (bumpy, smooth, different heights), climbing and jumping stations, low set bars for stepping, jumping, or hopping over. Driving track includes cars for scooting around the track, stop and go areas; mechanic's area with toolboxes and tools; a gas station with 3 "gas pumps."
Playground - large climber, shovels, buckets, bikes, wagons, scooters, swings, and swinging rope.
-Rationale: The gym will be set up as an obstacle course. Children will have an opportunity to go through the course: on foot involves a bumpy road (balance, perception), running (endurance), climbing (endurance), and jumping areas (balance and perception). The car track will allow children to practice using their legs to propel their cars safely around the track. The children will also have opportunities to work at the mechanic's stand or gas station to foster their dramatic-play. This setup will allow the children to work on their gross-motor skills and confidence.
-Skills: Risk-taking, climbing, coordination, depth perception, balance, jumping, and landing, running. Playground skills include digging, balance, hauling, running, swinging, and climbing.

Special Interest:
Large Group: This week we will read a book about different animal tracks, including footprints and animal tracks in the city. We will take two nature walks. One nature walk will be in big white socks to see what types of seeds will stick to our socks. The next nature walk will be to look for animal tracks in the dirt and try to identify them.
-Rationale: To extend and deepen children's understanding of the topics discussed, to build awareness of nature and our immediate environment, and to share ideas and experiences with one another.
-Skills: Inquiry, exploration, observation. To share, listen, and discuss experiences and knowledge. Matching, one-to-one correspondence, and grouping.

Please remember that fall conferences are coming up! Don't forget to e mail Dalia your conference forms.

Thank you and we will see you around!

Ellen, Linda, Pat, and Dalia

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM Classroom
Week of October 12th
Ayuko Lead Teaching
Overview: As children settle into the routine of the classroom, we continue to support them through the transitions and help them become aware of themselves and each other through positive interactions and problem solving. We will continue to explore what is happening outside, focusing on the changing foliage and on the behavior of animals in our environment. We will encourage and spur social interactions between children, as they learn how to share a common space and materials.
Expressive Arts
**Materials: Glue, Q-tips, colored paper, natural materials (leaves, sticks, acorns, pine cones, grass, etc).
Rationale: To use and feel the materials we see and find outside and create artistic expression. To explore the texture of glue and familiarize the children with the purpose and use of glue.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, problem solve, sensory input, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction.
**Materials: Fall tempera paint colors, paper, various sized brushes.
Rationale: To experiment making various strokes and shapes using a variety of brushes.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas, comparison.

Sensory
**Materials: Water, blue food coloring, basters, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To continue to promote experimentation with cause and effect with the basters. To explore what happens when blue color is added to the clear water.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

**Materials: Scented playdough, cookie cutters, rolling pins, timer, oven, and "baking ingredients" (i.e. salt and oregano)
Rationale: To encourage the children to experience and practice adding, molding, stirring, and mixing ingredients to create baked goods. This will eventually lead up to a cooking activity at the play dough table where the children will participate in the making of pumpkin muffins.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, math skills (counting, measurement), fine motor

**Materials: Mini rain sticks/shakers.
Rationale: To promote experimentation with sound and how to produce sound. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and effect game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: Mirrors on walls, flashlights, light table with color gels.
Rationale: To experiment with reflections, light, and shadows.
Skills: observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas.
**Materials: Introduction of real turtles, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin implementing the idea of hosting a real turtle in our class: what kind of care does it entail? How do we make its habitat?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.
**Materials: Fall vegetables and fruit - pumpkins, gourds, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and any other vegetables brought in; magnifying glasses; knife (to be used by teachers) and cutting board.
Rationale: To further explore and investigate the harvested items by cutting them open and seeing the seeds.
Skills: observation, predication, classification, comparison, try out ideas, record.

Dramatic Play
**Materials: Loft "bear cave," squirrels, and other woodland animals (bears, rabbits, wolves), materials the children will collect in nature, various animal fur, posted questions and books focusing on the squirrels and other woodland animals.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about woodland animals native to Minnesota, emphasizing the animals' lifestyles to the changes in season.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen, baby items, multiethnic babies, various dress-up clothes, and moving trucks, diggers, unit blocks, and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching game, seriation and color stackers, natural material sorting activity, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, facial recognition, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: visual discrimination, turn taking, fine motor control.

Language and Literacy
**Materials: Signs, questions, storylines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to fall (hibernation, leaves, etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Listening, speaking, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.

Blocks
**Materials: Square and rectangle unit blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.

Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - race car tracks, uneven surfaces, donut hole, stairs. Outside - Rocking boat, rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, wooden wagon, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote social interaction and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility).

Large group
**Materials: Name songs, turtle songs, books, fingerplay.
Rationale: To begin a routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.

Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
**Materials: Piano, drums, tone blocks, and shakers.
Rationale: to promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snack
Tuesday: Bananas and graham crackers
Friday: Apples and pretzles

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
Week of October 11th
Ayuko Lead Teaching
Overview: As children settle into the routine of the classroom, we continue to support them through the transitions and help them become aware of themselves and each other through positive interactions and problem solving. We will continue to explore what is happening outside, focusing on the changing foliage and on the behavior of animals in our environment. We will encourage and spur social interactions between children, as they learn how to share a common space and materials.
Expressive Arts
**Materials: Glue, Q-tips, colored paper, natural materials (leaves, sticks, acorns, pine cones, grass, etc).
Rationale: To use and feel the materials we see and find outside and create artistic expression. To explore the texture of glue and familiarize the children with the purpose and use of glue.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, problem solve, sensory input, risk taking, observation, comparison, prediction.
**Materials: Fall tempera paint colors, paper, various sized brushes.
Rationale: To experiment making various strokes and shapes using a variety of brushes.
Skills: Fine motor, self-expression, risk taking, try out new ideas, comparison.

Sensory
**Materials: Water, yellow and blue food coloring, basters, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore what happens when the yellow and blue water are mixed together. To continue supporting the use of the baster for manual dexterity and transferring water.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

**Materials: Scented playdough, cookie cutters, rolling pins, timer, oven, and "baking ingredients" (i.e. salt and oregano)
Rationale: To encourage the children to experience and practice adding, molding, stirring, and mixing ingredients to create baked goods. This will eventually lead up to a cooking activity at the play dough table where the children will participate in the making of pumpkin muffins.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, math skills (counting, measurement), fine motor

**Materials: Mini rain sticks/shakers.
Rationale: To promote experimentation with sound and how to produce sound. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and effect game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: Mirrors on walls, flashlights, light table with color gels.
Rationale: To experiment with reflections, light, and shadows.
Skills: observation, cause and effect, prediction, comparison, try out ideas.
**Materials: Introduction of real turtles, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin implementing the idea of hosting a real turtle in our class: what kind of care does it entail? How do we make its habitat?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.
**Materials: Fall vegetables and fruit - pumpkins, gourds, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, and any other vegetables brought in; magnifying glasses; knife (to be used by teachers) and cutting board.
Rationale: To further explore and investigate the harvested items by cutting them open and seeing the seeds.
Skills: observation, predication, classification, comparison, try out ideas, record.

Dramatic Play
**Materials: Loft "bear cave," squirrels, and other woodland animals (bears, rabbits, wolves), materials the children will collect in nature, various animal fur, posted questions and books focusing on the squirrels and other woodland animals.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about woodland animals native to Minnesota, emphasizing the animals' lifestyles to the changes in season.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen, baby items, multiethnic babies, various dress-up clothes, and moving trucks, diggers, unit blocks, and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching game, seriation and color stackers, natural material sorting activity, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, facial recognition, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: visual discrimination, turn taking, fine motor control.

Language and Literacy
**Materials: Signs, questions, storylines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to fall (hibernation, leaves, etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Listening, speaking, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.

Blocks
**Materials: Square and rectangle unit blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.

Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - race car tracks, uneven surfaces, donut hole, stairs. Outside - Rocking boat, rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, wooden wagon, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote social interaction and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility).

Large group
**Materials: Name songs, turtle songs, books, fingerplay.
Rationale: To begin a routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.

Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
**Materials: Piano, drums, tone blocks, and shakers.
Rationale: to promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Monday - Bananas & graham crackers
Wednesday - Apples & pretzels
Thursday - Class cooking, pumpkin muffins

Click the link bellow to watch a video clip of a group of children playing BINGO
Different groups of children played bingo with Dalia. Once it seemed that most of them understood the basic principles, Dalia steps out and lets them play with minimal support.
Please pay attention to how the children help each other, making sure that the game is fair!

Bingo-Mobile.m4v

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The daily documentations is a new initiative in place at the Lab School this year to keep the families connected to the day-to-day action taking place in the room, as well as strengthen the home-to-school connection by sparking conversations between parents and their children. My goal is to add these each day: posting new daily docs to the weekly heading. Take time to look at these with your child and have a conversation about what's happening. Just because they're not in the pictures doesn't mean they weren't a part of the play at one point nor does it mean they weren't watching from afar. These conversations may be the catalyst to new play ideas, new friendships, or possibly a new confidence within your child to join the existing play of fellow classmates (by giving him/her the background of the story(ies) taking place around the room).

*This schedule does not include Small Groups, which will start during week 4 or 5 of this session.

11:45-12:30 Teacher Preparation of Environment and Discussion
12:30-12:55 Children's Arrival and Discovery Time
As children arrive at school they are greeted by a teacher and accompanied to the classroom where they put their belongings away and wash their hands. The children are then able to freely explore the front half of the classroom, which includes the art center, sensory table, science center, library, writing center, dramatic play, caves, clay, and manipulatives.
12:55-1:10 Large Group
The whole class comes together to share music, movement, literature, and puppets. We will also discuss any new information pertaining to classroom interests, activities, or projects.
1:10-2:05 Activity Time and Clean Up
Children are free to play in the learning centers throughout the room, engage in specific activities, and interact with peers. Teachers observe, facilitate, and support children's play and development during this time.
2:05-2:20 Gym Time/Large Motor Time
Children participate in both self- and teacher-directed activities that challenge their muscle strength, balance, coordination, and risk taking abilities.
2:20-2:40 Handwashing and Whole Group Snack
Children talk with each other and with teachers while enjoying a small snack. Teachers will take notice of interests, and will also facilitate conversations about current topics/themes and upcoming events.
2:40-3:15 Dress for Outdoor Play and Outdoor Play on the Playground
Children are encouraged to freely explore the playground and participate in group games and activities. The outdoor environment is intentionally set up to incorporate the children's play preferences while providing motor challenges.
3:15-3:30 Pick-up and End of Day Story Reading
Children will assemble in the hallway just outside the classroom to read stories and sing songs until parents/families arrive. Children will be brought to their cars for departure.
3:30-5:00 Teacher Clean Up and Discussion

Overview: Many of the children have been busy putting out fires, and working together to build buildings (that catch on fire), fire trucks, airplanes (that carry water to put out the fires!), and rocket ships. In order to expand on these interests we have added firefighter hats and hoses to our dramatic play area, and books on firefighting and space to our hollow block area. The children have been looking at the books to get ideas of what to build, and have been making connections that have shown through in their dramatic play schemes. Teachers will continue to facilitate conversations, extend and support play themes, and record the children's ideas. Mobilos have been added to the math and manipulative area to support the children's interest in construction and knowledge of part-whole relationships as they build various buildings and vehicles. The children have also been excited about bringing in their beautiful things, which we have been sorting and adding to our art and science areas. It has been fascinating to see the creativity and inventiveness of the children, and how well they are developing a sense of community by working and collaborating together in all the areas throughout the classroom

Expressive Arts
•Materials: primary colors (blue, red, yellow) at the easel, natural materials for collage, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to produce an outlet for creative expression, increase fine motor skills, and foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers
•Skills: creativity, fine motor development, symbolic representation, color recognition
•Materials: play dough and a variety of tools for shaping, molding, rolling, and cutting
•Rationale: to promote sensory awareness and social interaction while increasing fine motor skills
•Skills: sensory input, symbolic representation, observation, sharing materials, and fine motor development (strength, coordination)
Sensory
•Materials: sand with measuring cups, scoops, and large and small containers
•Rationale: to encourage the practice of pouring and filling, counting, comparing, and cooperatively working together
•Skills: hand-eye coordination, large and fine motor development, volume and spatial relations, counting, measuring, comparing-contrasting, predicting, turn taking, and fostering social relationships.
Science
•Materials: cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, light table with natural materials (leaves, sticks, pinecones, acorns, seedpods), clipboards with pencils
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry
Dramatic Play
•Materials: firefighter hats, fire "hoses," housekeeping materials (furniture, dishes, food), and dress-up fabric and shoes; the caves are set as bedrooms with "beds," baby dolls, and baby-care items
•Rationale: to follow the children's interest in firefighting and allow for the expression of inventive ideas
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, turn taking, social problem solving, symbolic representation
Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: Mobilos, Montessori pegboard, lacing beads, puzzles
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials allowing them to develop more complex skills, and to support children's interest in construction as they build various buildings and vehicles
•Skills: construction, knowledge of part-whole relationships, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development
Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and to give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings; teachers will help children record and revisit play themes and story lines that happen in different centers throughout the classroom
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling
•Materials: the library has newly added books about firefighting and space, along with other familiar books
•Rationale: to support pre-literacy skills, to familiarize children with new books, and to allow for quiet time in the classroom
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, community building
Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, unit blocks, books about firefighting and space
•Rationale: to foster newly developing dramatic play themes, to support children's creative and problem solving skills, to develop mathematical skills/awareness of geometry, and to allow for opportunities for social interaction as children collaborate and build together
•Skills: large motor development, dramatic play, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical
Large Motor
•Materials: gym--slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, rocking boat, A-frame jumping station
•Rationale: a simple set-up continues in the gym to build confidence and increase gross motor skills
•Skills: Risk taking, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, depth perception, balance, jumping and landing
•Materials: playground--shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; as well as introducing whole group games such as "Mr. Fox"
•Rationale: to support basic motor skills, and to promote social interaction and role play as children dig, haul, run, pedal, and play games together
•Skills: upper and lower body development, physical fitness, coordination, perceptual motor (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness), turn taking, observation, and games with rules
Special Interest
Large Group Meeting--student teachers Lindsay and Amy will lead activities during this time together, emphasizing togetherness and fostering the building of classroom community
Snack
Monday: Sliced cucumbers and pretzels
Wednesday: Strawberry banana smoothies
Thursday: Apples and graham crackers
**All snacks are served with milk and water unless otherwise noted

Lesson Plan- Ross' Class

Oct 4 - 8, 2010

Ross Lead Teaching

Overview: It has been an amazing first two weeks of school! The children have quickly settled into the routines of the day, and it appears that they have learned each others' just as rapidly! We sang several names songs during large group last week to help with this, and it truly helped establish our feeling of community in the classroom. The teachers have observed many children independently seeking out new playmates, using each other's names to get his/her attention. The teachers will continue to support these interactions, as well as help facilitate the adding of new classmates into the exciting dramatic play story lines (i.e. a few of them revolving around a French-Fry Shoppe/restaurant, the making of shark houses, and several parties/gatherings in the home-living area). Also with the children's growing comfort in regards to the daily schedule as well as with one another, we will be diving into the investigation of a few content areas. We will be exploring/observing the changes taking place in nature at the science area, examining the limitless creative potential that comes with clay, as well as learning more about the lives/needs of various sea creatures - because of the high popularity of shark-house-building taking place in the block area. The student teachers will be spearheading these explorations and using cues from the children to help them decide where the topic will go next.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay, play-dough)

• Materials: continue with primary color paint at the easel, add more natural/"beautiful" materials for collage (collected/sorted by the children), markers, crayons, clay
(with rolling pins, mallets, wood knives, and twigs/popsicle sticks)
• Rationale: the art area has quickly become a favorite for many children, seeing many visitors within the fist two weeks. To continue fostering creativity and artistic expression as well as bring personal connection to the materials on the art shelves, we are asking the children to find beautiful materials to support the artistic endevours
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills


Sensory (water, sand, birdseed, etc.)

• Materials: sand - with scoops, paddlewheels, funnels, and new containers/pitchers for measuring and pouring
• Rationale: many children showed strong interest in playing with the sand; scooping and filling containers, creating mountains and "volcanoes," and playing games with one another. To support the interest with the sand as well as foster the social relationships between the children, we will add new containers and various sized scoops. In doing so, we will encourage the children to work together filling the containers and ask them to hypothesize how many scoops it will take to fill each container. We will record the results and have the children "double-check" each others' work - all while facilitating conversations between the children.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor strength, hand-to-eye coordination, math conceptions related to counting/measurement/comparing-contrasting, fostering new/existing social relationships


Science

• Materials: multi-colored leaves, dried flowers, acorns, rocks, seedpods, pinecones, cockroaches, beetles, mealworms

• Rationale: many changes are taking place outside, and the children are having many discussions about it. We asking the children to bring in "signs of autumn" and adding them to our science area as a catalyst for this investigation. We will also continue to observe our "bugs," learning about what they eat and how to take care of them. 

• Skills: scientific investigation/inquiry, observing the natural world, learning about the seasonal changes taking place, hypothesis creating/testing skills 


Dramatic Play

• Materials: house furniture (e.g. stove, fridge, sink, and cupboard), plates, pretend food, shoes, fabric, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies

• Rationale: the house was another extremely popular spot last week. Dinners, tea parties, birthday parties, and sleep-overs were just a few of the storylines being carried out. We will continue to observe the children's play and add props as needed to help enrich their stories, as well as facilitate the inclusion of additional children by helping the children create new characters for one another.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships 


Math and Manipulatives

• Materials: Mobilos, multi-colored animals, seriated Montessori pegboard, new puzzles, and large lacing beads

• Rationale: we are adding Mobilos - a larger scale building set that allows children to snap different shaped pieces together - to support part-to-whole relationships while rekindling the interesting in the center. The Mobilos will also be a great support the growing social relationships, as the children can work together to create various structures/sculptures. 
We will also invite the children to participate in fun teacher-facilitated games at the table to support the learning of content knowledge (i.e. counting, ordering/grouping, concepts related to same/different).
• Skills: part-to-whole relationships, color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting, opportunities for collaborative problem solving


Language and Literacy

• Materials: pens, pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, stickers, staplers, tape, computer used for word-processing

• Rationale: many letters, cards, and notes were written by thc children and shared with teachers as well as fellow classmates and family members.
• Skills: pre-/early-literacy skills, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling, fine-motor coordination/endurance (as children hand muscles grow stronger with holding writing utensils)


Blocks

• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, cardboard tubes, Peg-People

• Rationale: the blocks have played vital roles in several of the play themes taking place in the back of the room: they've become walls for the French-Fry Shoppe, dens/houses for sharks, tow trucks, and super-hero cars just to name a few! The children have been eager to create/build every day! We have also added Peg-People - small, individual wood dowels with the children's pictures on them. The children have really enjoyed seeing themselves in the block area and incorporating themselves into unit-block structures. The Peg-People create great opportunities to build new/foster existing social relationships. 

• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play


Large Motor

• Materials: slide, a frame climber and padded donut (jumping station), monkey bars, climbing wall, wooden rocking boats

• Rationale: we have had a blast in the gym so far. We have played many teacher-led games: Hide-and-Seek, Follow the Leader, and Sleeping Children have been the favorites. We will continue to visit the gym, however will autumn in full swing (and the temperatures slowly dropping), we will be spending as much time outside on the playground as possible. This week, we will bring out some shovels and buckets for the children to play with, however we will continue to keep the bikes in the closet. We want to help the children see the vast natural beautiful of the playground.
• Skills: large-motor strength/coordination/endurance, eye-to-hand and eye-to-foot coordination, body in motion (i.e. jumping and sliding), cardiovascular strength, depth perception, turn taking, social skills

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)

• PAC meeting Monday night, 7-8.30p. If you can, please join us for the meeting. Your voice matters!


Snack
Monday: Rice chex and raisins

Tuesday: Sliced cucumber and pretzels

Wednesday: Apples and popcorn
Thursday: Yogurt and graham crackers

Friday: Trail mix
*All snacks served with water and milk, unless otherwise specified*

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM Classroom
Week of October 5th
Ayuko Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are slowly learning the routines of the classroom and are increasingly comfortable separating from their parents in the morning. We will continue to focus on building relationships among children and teachers by getting to know each others' names and finding a common thread through all forms of play. There will be few activities that incorporate the children's photos and names to encourage interaction among them and help us create a sense of community in the classroom. The play areas continue to be arranged to promote these goals and encourage the development of positive relationships with classmates and teachers.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Scissors and crayons.
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping.
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

**Materials: Wooden paint brushes, paper, and fall paint colors.
Rationale: To explore new paint colors that resemble and reflect what we see outside.
Skills: Fine motor grip, hand-eye coordination, observation, comparison, self-expression, and promote social interaction.

**Materials: Scented play dough, cookie cutters, timer, oven, and natural materials (for toppings).
Rationale: To continue to encourage social interactions and creative expression and support the children's interest in baking. To promote the children's understanding of time and waiting.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, math skills (counting, measurement of time), fine motor

Sensory
**Materials: Basters and a variety of containers
Rationale: To promote experimentation with cause and effect and how the children can use the basters in the water.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), cause and effect, and fine motor.

**Materials: Four noise sticks.
Rationale: To promote experimentation with sound and how to produce sound. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and effect game with teachers and peers.
Skills: Physical coordination, observation, and sensory input.

Science
Materials: Visuals of frogs and turtles eating habits and lifestyle. Variety of foliage and plastic bugs, camouflaging frogs, and turtles.
Rationale: To observe and investigate the items in the terrarium using magnifying glasses. To begin thinking about what frogs and turtles eat and where they live. To provoke the idea of hosting a real turtle or frog in our class: what kind of care does it entail?
Skills: Observation, prediction, comparison, classification.

**Materials: Light table, leaves, sticks, milkweed, acorns, pumpkins, grass, rocks, etc; magnifying glasses.
Rationale: To experience, compare, and observe what we find outside at this time of year through awareness and exploration.
Skills: Observation, comparison, ideas, try out, record.

Dramatic Play
**Materials: Loft "bear cave", bears and other woodland animals (rabbits and squirrels), posted questions and books focusing on woodland animals.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.

**Materials: Animal smocks, a variety of "furry" fabrics, and scarves.
Rationale: To encourage creative expression and pretend play in the "bear cave." To explore and discuss different textures of fabric.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and role play.

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen, baby items, multiethnic babies, various dress-up clothes, and dump trucks and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching games, seriation and color stackers, tong sorting activity, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, facial recognition, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: visual discrimination, turn taking, fine motor control.

Language and Literacy
**Materials: Signs, questions, storylines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to fall (hibernation, leaves, etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Listening, speaking, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.

Blocks
**Materials: Hollow and cardboard blocks and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.

Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - Climbing equipments, stairs, slide, and rocking boat. Outside - Natural materials such as grass, plants, and trees, wooden house, picnic table, slide, rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as jumping, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote social interaction and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility).

Large group
Materials: name songs, fall songs, books, fingerplay.
Rationale: To begin a routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.

Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
**Materials: Piano, drums, and shakers.
Rationale: to promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Tuesday: Pretzels and Milk
Friday: Apples and Graham crackers

Weekly Plan-Dalia's Class
October 4th-8th
Dalia Lead Teaching

Overview
The children have fully adapted to our classroom routines. We've had time to get to know our classmates and student teachers. Children seem happy, comfortable and safe at school. It is wonderful to see how children build new relationships based on previous experiences, mutual interests and teachers' support. This week we will continue to pay attention and support these new connections. The teachers continue to work with and support small groups of children throughout the day. This allow us to really understand how new friendships work, notice what children are interested in, appreciate the children's unique personalities and later discuss how to better plan our classroom curriculum. Children continue to be encouraged to make thoughtful choices after large group and take full advantage before moving on to a different activity.

The teachers will continue to draw the children's attention to our seasonal changes and encourage them to share these verbally and symbolically. Most of the materials in the classroom will remain this week, with just a few additions and replacements in the science and manipulatives areas.

The idea of CHANGE has been already brought up by the children in relation to our new classroom pets (tow bullfrog tadpoles) and we will continue to support them into generalizing this idea and apply it to other topics in and outside of the classroom, slowly guiding them into understanding and noticing Life Cycles all around us.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Clay, colored pencils, markers, crayons, scissors, glue, natural collage materials. "Provocations" such as vegetables, tadpoles and fish are used to inspire children's art.
-Rationale: To provide materials to inspire children's creative expression. Our emphasis is to use natural fall materials since we have started discussing seasonal changes and noticing what we can find outdoors this time of the year
-Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, symbolic representation, fine motor development

Sensory
-Materials: Water, cups, pitchers, bottles, funnels, and frogs, foliage and rocks.
-Rationale: The water table is a popular space to share with each other, especially at the beginning of the day. The soothing and familiar experience provides children with opportunities not only to enjoy the sensory input, but also opportunities for symbolic play and practice social skills such as turn taking and sharing and promotes social interactions.
-Skills: Experimentation, sensory stimulation and pleasure, beginning to understand the concept of conservation, provide opportunities for symbolic play, practice discussing and problem solving with classmates, opportunities to discuss and share knowledge about the natural world, taking turns and sharing materials.

Science
-Materials: Vegetables, knives for cutting vegetables, balancing scale for weighting and comparing weights, tweezers for seed removal and sorting, containers for sorting by size. Aquarium with four fish, aquarium with two tadpoles. Our natural environment: trees, leaves, grass, animals
-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity of the world around us. Use our observations to spark conversations and discussions and encourage the children to share what they know, listen to their classmates' ideas and wonder about things they don't understand. Continue to draw children's attention to seasonal changes.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, weighing, comparing, asking questions, hypothesizing, interpreting and reasoning about events

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, and dress-up clothes. In the animal cave there are stuffed woodland animals, natural pieces of wood, and logs
-Rationale: To encourage social interactions and the expression of children's knowledge of family life by taking on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, matching games, color and shape lotto, seed matching game, leaves for matching according to colors and shapes, and new interlocking puzzles reflecting natural themes such as animals, plants, fruits and vegetables
-Rationale: We continue to focus on sorting and classifying by shape and color. Sorting and classifying are foundational skills that will support and allow children's development of more complex skills.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, fine motor development

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, envelopes, and a posting of the upper and lower case alphabet. A well stocked library with books about animals, vegetables, school and families.
-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. Our official library is placed by the big couch close to the writing area. We have also created an additional cozy reading area on top of the loft.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with farm animals and small fabric squares; people and furniture.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, symbolic play, to develop awareness of geometry and allow for opportunities for social interactions.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, cooperation

Large Motor
-Materials: Slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, rocking boat, A-frame jumping station. The playground will offer shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons.
-Rationale: A simple set-up in the gym is inviting and allows us to assess gross motor abilities and confidence.
-Skills: Risk taking, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, depth perception, balance, jumping and landing. On the playground there are opportunities for digging, hauling, pedaling, running.

Special Interest
- Large Group: Topical conversations, continue to build awareness of our classroom community, enjoy sharing with others,
- -Rationale: To support children's ability to discuss and share with others; to encourage self-control, to introduce topical conversations. Continue to build a sense of community.
- Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities

Overview
The children are becoming more and more comfortable with the classroom routines and are clearly enjoying their school experience. We have noticed friendships forming already and the soup making experience contributed greatly to building a sense of classroom community. Through this activity the children became more aware of each other, not only for the contributions they made to the soup, but also through the process of preparing, cooking, and eating the vegetables. Thank you for helping make the project such a success!

We will continue using vegetables as a way to facilitate learning about color as well as to build awareness of plant life cycles. An exploration and inquiry into seeds will be emphasized in the science area as many of the children discovered and collected seeds from inside their vegetables as they were cutting them.

To introduce another way to learn about life cycles and seasonal changes, we will be investigating the leaves of the trees near our school. Many children have been talking about recent trips to apple orchards with their families so we will build on these experiences with discussions about how some trees grow apples and by visiting and picking crab apples from a tree near the school.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Clay, natural collage materials, glue and paper.
-Rationale: To provide another way for the children to express their understanding of the natural world and seasonal change, they will be invited to select collage materials from the art cart that they associate with fall. These items will be added to the classroom array for creative use with glue and paper.
-Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development, symbolic representation

Sensory
-Materials: Water, frogs, foliage, rocks
-Rationale: Many social connections have been made at the water table and with the addition of dramatic play props role-play can be incorporated into these small group interactions. As the children play with the frogs the teachers will help the children make connections to the tadpoles (they finally arrived in our science center!) and build awareness of the frog life cycle.
-Skills: Experimentation, sensory stimulation and pleasure, role play, communication, knowledge of the natural world.

Science
-Materials: Vegetables, child-friendly knives for cutting, tweezers for collecting seeds, magnifying glasses, balancing scales, seed sorting by size and variety. Two tadpoles, and an aquarium with four fish. We have also created a seek-and-find game that brings the children's attention to natural elements on the playground: trees, plants going to seed, garden etc.
-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity of the world around us. Use our observations to spark conversations and discussions and encourage the children to share what they know, listen to their classmates' ideas and wonder about things they don't understand.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, weighing, asking questions, hypothesizing, interpreting and reasoning about events

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, and dress-up clothes. In the animal cave there are stuffed woodland animals with logs and wood pieces.
-Rationale: To encourage social interaction and the expression of children's knowledge of family life by taking on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, color/shape lotto, fall theme lotto, inset puzzles emphasizing color/shape, interlocking puzzles reflecting natural themes such as animals, plants, fruits and vegetables
-Rationale: We are starting with sorting and classifying by shape and color not only to emphasize recognition and labeling, but also to lay a foundation for later mathematical concept development.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, one to one correspondence and whole/part relationships, fine motor development

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing implements, paper, envelopes, and a posting of the upper and lower case alphabet. A well stocked library with books about animals, fall/leaves, seed, vegetables, school and families. In the loft there are books about how animals prepare for winter with paper and pencils for recording what the children notice about the animals they see from the windows.
-Rationale: The library is placed near the couch for cozy reading time with new friends and teachers. Throughout the room there will be many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written word.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, writing/drawing, fine motor control, using books for reference

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with farm animals and small fabric squares.
-Rationale: Children use creativity and problem solving while developing their awareness of geometry through building. Communal building with hollow blocks encourages cooperation.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving

Large Motor
-Materials: Slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, rocking boat, A-frame jumping station, and an open area for group games. The playground will be set up with shovels, and buckets.
-Rationale: Group games bring the children together and introduce the children to following simple game rules and directions. We also use this opportunity to focus on specific motor skills and patterns. A simple set-up in the gym is inviting and allows us to assess gross motor abilities and confidence.
-Skills: Risk taking, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, depth perception, balance, jumping and landing.

Special Interest
-Morning Meeting: Classroom community building continues as well as singing songs and having discussions about seasonal changes.
-Rationale: The morning meeting emphasizes togetherness and fosters the building of classroom community. We also discuss ongoing play themes and encourage the children to revisit topics from the previous day. This emphasizes making thoughtful decisions about what they will do after leaving the meeting.
-Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities, encourage self-control, to introduce topical conversations and continue to build a sense of community.

Snack
Monday - Apple crisp & milk
Tuesday- Cucumber slices & pretzels
Wednesday - Rice chex & raisins
Thursday - Apples & crackers
Friday- Yogurt & graham crackers

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
Week of October 4th
Ayuko Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are slowly learning the routines of the classroom and are increasingly comfortable separating from their parents in the morning. We will continue to focus on building relationships among children and teachers by getting to know each others' names and finding a common thread through all forms of play. There will be few activities that incorporate the children's photos and names to encourage interaction among them and help us create a sense of community in the classroom. The play areas continue to be arranged to promote these goals and encourage the development of positive relationships with classmates and teachers.

Expressive Arts
*Materials: Scissors and crayons.
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping.
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

*Materials: Natural materials (such as leaves, sticks, milkweed, acorns, etc.) from home and collected from our Nature Walk field trip, glue, colored paper - will incorporate later in the week.
Rationale: To observe, feel, and experience natural fall materials for the purpose of creating artwork. To explore the texture of glue and familiarize the children with the purpose and use of glue.
Skills: Fine motor skills, sensory input, observation, comparison, self-expression.

*Materials: Wooden paint brushes, paper, and fall paint colors.
Rationale: To explore new paint colors that resemble and reflect what we see outside.
Skills: Fine motor grip, hand-eye coordination, observation, comparison, self-expression, and promote social interaction.

*Materials: Scented play dough, cookie cutters, timer, oven, and natural materials (for toppings).
Rationale: To continue to encourage social interactions and creative expression and support the children's interest in baking. To promote the children's understanding of time and waiting.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, math skills (counting, measurement of time), fine motor

Sensory
*Materials: Blue water, basters, and a variety of containers
Rationale: To promote experimentation with cause and effect and how the children can use the basters in the water. To explore what happens when colored water is added to clear water.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

*Materials: Four noise sticks.
Rationale: To promote experimentation with sound and how to produce sound. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and effect game with teachers and peers.
Skills: Physical coordination, observation, and sensory input.

Science
Materials: Visuals of frogs and turtles eating habits and lifestyle. Variety of foliage and plastic bugs, camouflaging frogs, and turtles.
Rationale: To observe and investigate the items in the terrarium using magnifying glasses. To begin thinking about what frogs and turtles eat and where they live. To provoke the idea of hosting a real turtle or frog in our class: what kind of care does it entail?
Skills: Observation, prediction, comparison, classification.

*Materials: Light table, leaves, sticks, milkweed, acorns, pumpkins, grass, rocks, etc. (From Nature Walk and from home); magnifying glasses.
Rationale: To experience, compare, and observe what we find outside at this time of year through awareness and exploration.
Skills: Observation, comparison, ideas, try out, record.

Dramatic Play
*Materials: Loft "bear cave", bears and other woodland animals (rabbits and squirrels), posted questions and books focusing on woodland animals.
Rationale: To provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support their development in language, literacy, and promote emergent reading such as dictating a story from the pictures.
Skills: Role play, creative expression, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary expansion on the subject matter.

*Materials: Animal smocks, a variety of "furry" fabrics, and scarves.
Rationale: To encourage creative expression and pretend play in the "bear cave." To explore and discuss different textures of fabric.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and role play.

*Materials: Familiar household kitchen, baby items, multiethnic babies, various dress-up clothes, and dump trucks and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
*Materials: Face matching games, seriation and color stackers, tong sorting activity, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, facial recognition, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness.
Skills: visual discrimination, turn taking, fine motor control.

Language and Literacy
*Materials: Signs, questions, storylines, and related books posted in various curriculum areas and a variety of books on the book shelf. Books relating to fall (hibernation, leaves, etc).
Rationale: To support their development in beginning role play, experience the basic components of language systems, and support understanding the changes of the season.
Skills: Listening, speaking, phonological awareness, observation, vocabulary expansion.

Blocks
*Materials: Hollow and cardboard blocks and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings or roads for the vehicles located nearby.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts.

Large Motor
*Materials: Indoors - Climbing equipments, stairs, slide, and rocking boat. Outside - Natural materials such as grass, plants, and trees, wooden house, picnic table, slide, rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, and tools for digging and molding sand.
Rationale: To support basic skills such as jumping, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development and promote social interaction and role play.
Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and agility).

Large group
Materials: Name songs, fall songs, books, fingerplay.
Rationale: To begin a routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a beginning sense of group, community, and collaboration.
Skills: fine motor development, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.

Music - Music will be apparent throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation.
Materials: Piano, drums, and shakers.
Rationale: to promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Monday: Pretzels and milk.
Wednesday: Sliced cucumbers and milk.
Thursday: Apples and graham crackers.

Dear Families,

I can't help but wonder and marvel at the children's unique capabilities and abilities to connect with each other, to be naturally willing to learn, to quickly get used to classroom routines. I notice this year after year, with different groups of children and LOVE my job! The children seem comfortable and acclimated; they are eager to share about themselves as well as take in all that teachers and classmates have to give. There are joyful and enthusiastic learners and it is a pleasure to be able to support them and guide their growth.

We started the year with familiar and highly appealing materials, to draw children's attention from the beginning. We were also aware of the fact that we wanted children to feel interested yet not overwhelmed and so we tried to find the perfect balance for them. A somewhat different approach to "Free Play" is being implemented this year in our classroom. Like I mentioned briefly in previous e-mail, we are calling this part of the day with a slightly different name "Choice Time." The reason for this change is that we would like to encourage the children to make thoughtful choices and reduce the amount of wandering and "eye shopping." This doesn't mean that children will not be allowed to make their own choices. What it means is, that right after large group, one of the teachers will let the children know what their options are to start their day. These activities will be assisted by the teachers (who will be prepared with good questions and thoughtful conversation starters). Once the children feel that they are done, they will let the teacher know that they are ready to try a different activity. Before moving on, children will be asked to take a moment to make another choice. We are striving to strengthen children's ability to focus and stretch their thinking to the maximum.

We've had two focused activities outdoors with two small groups of children and we are hoping to repeat this with a few other interested groups. During this activity children were encouraged to observe and represent, talk about, share and discuss the seasonal changes and what they noticed outdoors.

We are paying special attention and to get to know each child and their unique interests, favorite activities, strengths and challenges. We are paying close attention to what their passions are in order to incorporate these into our daily curriculum and make their learning meaningful and enjoyable. Offering the children the opportunity to influence our curriculum communicates our respect for them, who they are and what they are interested in knowing more about. It also gives the children a feeling of ownership in the classroom. One of our main goals is for the children to have a positive experience at school and foster their joy for learning.

Even though the children seem quite excited to be at school we know that they work hard to find their place in the classroom and make connections with the teachers and other classmates. Sometimes these connections happen quickly and others it takes a little time. The teachers' role is to facilitate and encourage these interactions. We are doing so slowly and respectfully, following the children's lead and readiness. Please make sure you are aware of the hard work they put into their school days!!

You will receive an e-mail from me each time I update our classroom website, letting you know which section has new information. This will keep you informed of the classroom activities, happenings, small groups, field trips, etc. The lesson plans posted, are the teacher's intentions for the week; sometimes children perceive or take the activities and materials presented to different places and we try to be in tune with these perceptions and make adaptations in our classroom in order to be true to the children and to the concepts that are being presented.

We have folders for each child and all additional information and artwork will be placed in these. *Please take a moment to empty your children's folders during drop-off and/or pick-up. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me; we can set a time to talk over the phone or a time to meet before or after class if necessary.

Reminders and Announcements

Parent Advisory Committee Meeting
The first meeting of our Parent Advisory Committee will be this Monday, October 4th, from 7-8:30. ALL parents are welcomed and encouraged to attend; the parents work in order to support the school in many different ways. Please come and get involved in your children's school. Classroom Parents are especially encouraged, since they will become the link between the Advisory Committee and our Classroom Community.

Parent Involvement
Parents are a major component of our program; their involvement makes it richer and meaningful. I value, and ask for your involvement in any way possible. There are many ways for you to contribute. Some parents like to spend the afternoon in the classroom and play; it is very attractive to have parents take part in helping with different centers in the classroom (reading books, modeling with clay, creating at the art table, building with blocks, etc). It is also fun to have parents come to school and share their hobbies with the children...some parents may want to have cooking activity or share another special project you are interested in! Please let us know how you would like to participate. I will post a sign-up sheet by the end of the week.

*Families with young siblings...are encouraged to read the Parent Handbook. We want to give opportunities to all families to get involved in our classroom everyday happenings. It is not always our recommendation to include younger siblings when parents are volunteering in the classroom. This takes away from your preschool child's experience and his/her enjoyment of having you share his/her day. Also, remember that we have a classroom full of materials appropriate for preschool age children and not younger children. Sometimes younger siblings are a distraction to the classroom and we ask you that you respect and honor all the children by making sure that this doesn't happen.

Family Photo Board
Almost everybody has sent a family picture. If you haven't done so yet, please send me these A.S.A.P We would like start creating our Classroom Family Photo Board. Also don't forget to send a photo of your child engaged in a summer activity outdoors. I will ask you for a few more of these during the year to support our overall classroom theme this year "Life Cycles." We will discuss about different cycles in our lives; some of these cycles are the ones that we are involved in as families. For example, visiting family during the holidays, go swimming during the summer, sledding during winter, planting in the spring, etc. As we continue to talk about this topic, these pictures will support our discussions and make them more meaningful.

Birthdays
Please contact me when your child's birthday is approaching and if you are interested in bringing or preparing a special snack. The State of Minnesota requires that all snacks be either store bought or prepared at school. You are welcomed to come to school on that day and prepare a snack here. We have a peanut free environment. We are also very concerned with children's nutrition and our snack choices and will have some ideas for you regarding healthy birthday snacks. Please approach and consult with me before you bring something for these special days.

Holiday Celebrations
Generally, our school does not hold any holiday parties. We acknowledge family traditions and celebrations and invite you to share these with us. For Halloween, we ask you to NOT HAVE CHILDREN DRESSED UP when they come to school. We understand that this is a special children's holiday in America and will have some appropriate special stories and colorful materials for the children to use; but there will be no big party and/or dressing up. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

Extra Clothes/Ready for the Weather
Thank you for bringing extra clothes for your children. The Lab School has some extra clothes, but it is always best if each child has a bag with labeled extra clothes in case we need to change. If for some reason your child wears any school clothes home, please remember to return these as soon as possible. I also want to remind you that as days get colder please remember to send you children dressed in layers and appropriately for the weather. Long sleeve shirts or hoodies are always helpful (if it is warm, we can always take these off). Make sure you label all of your children's clothing; some times, they don't remember which one is theirs and with all the sweaters and jackets together it is helpful and faster for the teachers if these are labeled.

Toys from Home
Security items, such as stuffed animals, blankets might be helpful for children who are getting used to new routines, people and places. We encourage you to explain to the children that toys and other items may get lost during the afternoons and it is best if they keep these at home or inside their backpacks. I believe that if your child needs something from home in order to feel more comfortable at school, it is OK for him/her to bring it.

Bringing toys from home has proven difficult for the children who bring them and for their classmates in the classroom. If your child really wants to show something to their classmates it is best to take a picture of it and bring it to school. I don't usually have a show and tell during large group...it becomes too long for some children to participate in what we have planed and wait for the show and tell. I do give children opportunities to talk and share their adventures but I try to limit the sharing of items and try to make sure these are related to our topics at hand.

We have an absolute NO WEAPONS POLICY at school. Please do not let your children bring these kinds of items to school. Thank you for your cooperation.

Fall Conferences
Almost all parents have signed for fall conferences. I will send home an e-mail with questions to help me prepare for this conference. Once you receive these questions, I ask you to send me your comments so that our conference is productive and we make the most of our time. During these early conferences, we will discuss your child's adjustment to school and establish some initial goals for this year. Our conferences are held at school in the kitchen lounge. I plan for 30-40 minutes with the children's parents. The conferences are for parents only.

I always appreciate parents' feedback and comments during the year. Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions, suggestions and/or concerns that may come up. I look forward to seeing you around!

Warmly,
Dalia

7:45 - 8:30 Teacher preparation of environment and discussion

8:30 - 8:55 Children's Arrival/Discovery Time
Teachers walk children into school and help them start the day. Children
choose activities in the front of the room: art, sensory table, playdough or clay, science center, library, writing center, puzzles, games, building sets, blocks, or the "caves."

8:55 - 9:10 Morning Meeting/Large Group Time
The whole class comes together to share music, movement, puppets and literature as well as new information relating to class activities, interests and projects.

9:10 - 9:25 Gym (Mondays and Fridays)
Large motor skill development is facilitated by teachers through encouragement and engagement in motor challenges and games.

9:25 - 10:15 Activity Time
Children and teachers play together in learning centers throughout the classroom. Teachers observe, facilitate and support children's play and interactions.

10:15 - 10:25 Clean up, bathroom, and handwashing

10:25 - 10:45 Whole group snack and dress for outdoor play
10:45 -11:15 Outdoor play on the playground
The teachers intentionally set up the outdoor environment and plan activities that incorporate the children's play preferences while providing motor challenges. Specific large motor skills are addressed through group games.

11:15 -11:30 Pick-up time/End of day story reading
Teachers wait with children and read stories until parents arrive. Children are brought to their cars for departure.

11:30 -1:00 Teacher clean up and discussion

When small groups begin, they will meet from 9:10 to 9:30 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.