October 2011 Archives

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Weekly Lesson Plan for Ross' Class
Week of: Oct. 31 - Nov. 4, 2011
Lead teaching this week: Team Teaching

Overview
Over the past week children have been very busy both inside and outside the classroom. We continued with our color-mixing experience and will begin to move from creating various shades to creating different colors. Small groups seemed to be a hit with the children, and will continue this week. As small groups progress each group with begin to narrow its focus as the interests of the group becomes clearer. Outside children have been enjoying raking leaves as well as playing throughout the playground. The "Leaf Extravaganza" last Friday was a lot of fun and we hope it sparks some new play ideas out there! The playground has also been the site for interactions between the children in both classrooms, with old friendships being maintained and new ones forming.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: primary color paint at the easel, glue bottles filled with blue and red paint at the art table, egg cartons for paint mixing, various natural and "beautiful" materials for collage, markers, crayons, clay (with supportive tools: mallets and wood knives), pumpkin.
• Rationale: The children have been very active at both the art and clay tables. At the art table, children have become extremely interested in recreating the various shades of blue they see around them. We also brought red paint to the table last week and invited the children to mix the two colors. We will continue exploring various hues of purple and "really think about" the amount of blue or red used and how affects the color of purple they create. As the children's understanding of mix the two colors grows, we will reintroduce the black and white paint; inviting them to recreate various shades of purple they see around them. At the clay table, the children used the clay to remake the story "5 little pumpkins". The children rolled the clay into balls in their hands or on the table and used the clay knives to make the lines on the pumpkin. They were also very interested in covering the pumpkin on the table in clay to create a mold. To assist them in creating pumpkin and other various molds, we will bring in different objects that allow them to wrap the clay around.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, persistence, imagination and invention.

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: moldable sand, scoops/shovels, buckets, sand molds, sticks, shells, rocks and photos of sandcastles
• Rationale: The children have continued to explore the moldable sand. The pictures have provided a stimulus for new castle ideas. This week we will add photos of children's creations as well as have the teachers model some simple forms. If any parents need a quick "beach vacation" feel free to stop by and help us build! Children also remain interested in burying materials and a popular clean up activity is searching the sand for hidden rocks and shells.
• Skills: large-/fine moor strength, eye-to-hand coordination, scientific investigation, observational skills, planning skills, creativity, imagination and invention

Science
• Materials: various critters (tiger salamander, hissing cockroaches, mealworms), magnifying glass, clipboards, feeding charts, seed growth box
• Rationale: The animals continue to be a source of investigation for the children. Manipulation of various food sources has continued to be an interest. As part of our Growth and Change unit, we will be looking at a seed growth box. This see-through container will allow children to watch as seeds sprout and grow both up and down. Teachers will continue promoting curiosity through the examination of seeds during snack and other activities.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships, caretaking skills

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Montessori stacking pegs and color gradation blocks, (new) puzzles, multi-colored pegs (with pegboard), sorting/counting animals, sorting trays
• Rationale: In the previous week the children engaged in many exciting projects at the math table, including cooking and beading projects. To help bring to the focus back to math, as well as expand on our exploration of various shades of color, we will add Montessori color gradation blocks. This will allow the children to recognize that each color has various shades, as well as allow them to order colors from lightest to darkest. By adding a variety of color activities to this table the children are provided with more opportunities to become recognizing different hues of the same color.
• Skills: color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classification, matching, opportunities for collaborative problem solving.

Language and Literacy
• Materials: pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, picture labels of all the children, books
• Rationale: Children continue to visit the writing center on a daily basis. Last week, the children were very excited to make thank you notes and pictures for "Jeff the painter," who has nearly single-handedly painted the entire Lab School over the last few weeks. To continue to expand the children's writing skills we will be adding additional writing utensils and various types of paper. We will also have some children create an alphabet chart for their classmates to reference as some studies have shown that children's print in the environment can serve as a strong motivator to encourage others to practice writing.
• Skills: pre-/early -literacy skills, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling, fine-motor coordination/endurance (as children's hand muscles grow strong with holding writing utensils)

Dramatic Play
• Materials: doctor props (stethoscope, lab coats, scrubs, etc), house furniture (e.g. stove, fridge, sink, and cupboard), plates, pretend food, shoes, fabric, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies
• Rationale: Dramatic play remains popular and self-guided for many children. Dress up clothes and fabrics are popular attractions for many children. To continue to capitalize on this interest, teachers will encourage the use of props in play - to possibly enhance and extend current themes.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, reflection/interpretation, social systems understanding (understanding the world), fostering social relationships

Blocks
• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, peg people, wood houses, photos of different block structures
• Rationale: Play in this area continues to involve building different types of houses (people houses, dog houses, and robot houses). The children have built their houses with the large hollow blocks and have used the multi-shaped unit blocks as "support" inside the larger blocks. To uphold this experience we will continue posting photos of the children with the structures they have built. These photos will continue to inspire the children to make similar or unique block structures.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play

Large Motor
• In the gym: A new gym arrangement was introduced late last week. The new equipment served as a motivator for many students. A new feature includes a runway/hopping lane with geometric shapes on the ground. Children have enjoyed jumping down the lane and the teachers hope to create new games along with the children to encourage the development of this skill. As part of gym the teachers are continuing to work with children on turn taking and negotiating for limited materials/space. Children seem to be growing in these areas and have been heard asking for turns.
• On the playground: The children continue to be excited about outdoor time. They continue to play chase and have begun to use the various materials as part of their play themes. Trikes, shovels, and buckets will remain out again this week. We have added some dishes to the sand area and this has lead to an increase in dramatic play among several of the children.
• Skills: Large motor skills, motor coordination physical health and well-being by participating in a variety of physical activities, social competence and relationships

Special Interest/Announcements
• Last week, Kathy -a professor for the dance department on campus- stopped in and did some fun activities with our class during large group. On Monday, her undergraduate students will be joining us to lead the same fun activities. Be sure to ask your child about the dancers that came to large group and the fun things they did!
• A reminder about "Choice Gym" on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings: as your child enters the room on those mornings, they will get to choose whether they would like to go to the gym or stay in the room by placing their picture in the corresponding section. The teachers will be there to help them remember, as well.
• Thanks to everyone that came to the "Leaf Extravaganza." The collective raking made quick work and helped the creation of one gigantic pile of leaves and several other smaller piles around the playground. We anticipate lots more fun to be had with these piles later this week!
• The Oleanna Book Sale is coming! On Thursday and Friday of next week (Nov. 17-18), the gym will be filled with tons of great books at discounted prices! It's a great time to stop in and pick new additions for your child's library, as well as pick up a few titles to give as gifts during the holiday season. Plan to stop in during school hours or sticking around after pick-up and take a look at all the great books!

Snack
Monday - Salad
Tuesday - Oranges & pretzels
Wednesday - Apple chips & graham crackers
Thursday - Trail mix
Friday- Guacamole & corn chips (made with Kari)
* All snacks served with milk and water, unless otherwise noted *

Students from the U of M School of Dance teaching new creative movements.

Dancing like trees blowing in the wind...

Parents and siblings came to help us rake all the playground leaves into a huge pile.

Then we jumped in!

Lesson Plan

3AM 10/31-11/4

Jamie Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are comfortable in our daily routines, and continue to engage in increasingly complex interactions with their peers and teachers. We will continue intentional dismissal and our small groups to encourage friendships and participation in specific learning areas. We had a fire drill last week and want to build off the awareness of the event by integrating firefighting materials into the dramatic play area of the classroom. Several children have also recently been to the doctor for checkups and we want to build on that emerging play theme by creating a hospital in the classroom where the children can care for babies or each other. The children are familiarizing themselves with the materials and areas in the classroom, and we want to strive towards reinventing and refining areas to keep interests, creativity, and ideas fresh.
Expressive Arts 

**Materials: Red, yellow, green and brown paint, white paper, and small and large brushes. 

Rationale: To continue emphasizing fall nature colors while using the art easel to mix colors and explore design elements. The children continue to experiment with brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making. 

Skills: Fine motor skills, creative thinking and expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, and observation
**Materials: Scissors, Cutting Sheets, Stickers, Markers, Crayons
Rationale: The children have expressed an interest in cutting objects such as string and construction paper. Cutting sheets will be provided for the children to learn how to manipulate and handle scissors. The sheets will be intentionally divided into sections to encourage the children to be mindful of where they are cutting and decorating.
Skills: Fine motor skills, one to one correspondence, turn taking, collaboration, hand-eye coordination, and creative expression
Sensory 

**Materials: Water, bubbles, hand mixers, containers, funnels, scoops, basters
Rationale: To explore how water is affected when you add another element like soap. The children can use their motor skills to whisk or shake objects long enough to make bubbles. The children can experiment with the amount of soap in relation to the amount of bubbles.
Skills: Observation, fine and large motor skills, muscular endurance, scientific thinking, and problem solving
**Materials: Colored play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, and wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven
Rationale: To explore different colored play dough and how it mixes together. To create patterns, designs, or collages using the different colors of dough. To promote ideas of baking, cooking, and eating a larger variety of foods with the different colors and the visuals.
Skills: Symbolic representation, fine motor skills, sensory exploration, observation, creative expression and imagination, social skills (i.e. turn taking and collaboration)
**Materials: Mini rain sticks/shakers 

Rationale: To continue to promote experimentation with producing and creating sound using object manipulation. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and error game with teachers and peers.

Skills: Observation, trial and error, and sensory input
Science 

**Materials: Magnet sticks, letter boards, horseshoe magnets, materials that repel or attract to the magnets
Rationale: To explore magnetic properties and explore how some magnets repel or attract to one another. To encourage mathematical and logical thinking skills by using exploration, reflection, and, interpretation. To encourage children to use their communication skills to hypothesize and share their ideas about magnetic concepts.
Skills: Observation, scientific and higher level thinking, curiosity, reasoning, and problem solving
Dramatic Play

**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears, questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.

Rationale: To continue to provide a cozy area to foster an animal story line for dramatic play. To continue to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support literacy and language development, and to promote emergent reading skills such as acting out a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes. To continue to build off the children's emerging interest in bears' habitats, feeding habits, and physical characteristics.

Skills: Role play, creative expression and thinking, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary
**Materials: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets, food, high-chairs), bandages, doctor outfits, syringes, reflex hammers, medicine bottles, x-rays, and stethoscopes
Rationale: Create a hospital to continue to promote an interest in care-taking skills when babies are sick or hurt. Provide doctor outfits for the children to act out scenarios and take on realistic dramatic play roles. To support pretend play and encourage children to use their imagination and invention skills to create abstract scenarios and situations. 

Skills: Communication, social skills, role-playing, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Various dress-up clothes, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks, hose, fire hats, fire fighter outfits, truck wheels, steering wheels, and spray bottles
Rationale: To continue to support and encourage pretend and symbolic play about firefighter scenarios. To foster social interaction and cooperative play among peers by sharing the materials. To support the children's interest in fire fighters and fire trucks that has developed because of the fire drill last week.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role-playing, symbolic representation, and social skills.
Math and Manipulatives

**Materials: Fine motor manipulatives such as block stacks, animal stackers, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness. To promote an emerging awareness for patterns, relationships, and geometry.
Skills: hand-eye coordination, turn taking, fine motor control and skills, language and literacy, classification, shape and color identification
**Materials: A variety of books relating to emerging and current play themes including doctors, firefighters, fall, animals, and school.
Rationale: To continue to support the children's interest in reading. To develop listening skills and to make predictions and personal connections with the stories. To provide a quiet and relaxing alternative yet beneficial learning option during free play. 

Skills: Listening, receptive abilities, speaking, phonological awareness, recognition, language and literacy development
Blocks

**Materials: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, and pictures of children building with blocks.

Rationale: To continue to support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building projects. To be incorporated into building homes for the babies, houses for animals, and roads, cars, and garages for the fire trucks.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creativity, mathematical and scientific concepts, fine motor.
Large Motor

**Materials: Indoors - A Frame with balance beam, running and jumping zone, slide, monkey bars with swings, donut hole for climbing, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, teeter-totters, balls, basketball hoop, bull dozers, trikes, and tools for digging and molding sand. 

Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development. To promote skills such as throwing, catching, or bouncing. To promote social skills such as turn taking, cooperation, and collaboration.

Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, propulsion skills, flexibility, and agility).
Large group

**Materials: Name songs, themed songs, books, fingerplay. 

Rationale: To continue to build a classroom routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a sense of group, community, and collaborative learning. 

Skills: Fine motor development and skills, attention span, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.


Music - Music will be evident throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation in all large and small group activities. 

**Materials: CD player with CD's (Please feel free to lend us any of your child's favorite CDs to use in the classroom) piano keyboards, drums, tambourines, bells, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote the exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments and use collaborative play to create music.

Skills: Turn-taking, fine motor development, collaboration, hearing development of patterns, sounds, and beats.
Snacks
:
Monday: Milk and cereal
Wednesday:Oranges and Saltines
Thursday: Alphabet soup

Lesson Plan

2AM 10/31-11/4

Jamie Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are comfortable in our daily routines, and continue to engage in increasingly complex interactions with their peers and teachers. We will continue observe these connections and suggest ways to encourage friendships and participation in specific learning areas. The children have been challenging themselves to go down the fire pole in our playground and beginning to show interest in being fire fighters. To build off the awareness, we will integrate firefighting materials into the dramatic play area of the classroom. Some children have also recently been to the doctor for checkups. We want to build on that emerging play theme by creating a hospital in the classroom where the children can care for babies or each other. The children are familiarizing themselves with the materials and areas in the classroom, and we want to strive towards reinventing and refining areas to keep interests, creativity, and ideas fresh.

Expressive Arts 

**Materials: Red, yellow, green and brown paint, white paper, and small and large brushes. 

Rationale: To continue emphasizing fall nature colors while using the art easel to mix colors and explore design elements. The children continue to experiment with brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making. 

Skills: Fine motor skills, creative thinking and expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, and observation
**Materials: Leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel, feathers and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors of the fall season. The children will continue decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification
Sensory 

**Materials: Water, bubbles, hand mixers, containers, funnels, scoops, basters
Rationale: To explore how water is affected when you add another element like soap. The children can use their motor skills to whisk or shake objects long enough to make bubbles. The children can experiment with the amount of soap in relation to the amount of bubbles.
Skills: Observation, fine and large motor skills, muscular endurance, scientific thinking, and problem solving
**Materials: Colored play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, and wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven
Rationale: To explore different colored play dough and how it mixes together. To create patterns, designs, or collages using the different colors of dough. To promote ideas of baking, cooking, and eating a larger variety of foods with the different colors and the visuals.
Skills: Symbolic representation, fine motor skills, sensory exploration, observation, creative expression and imagination, social skills (i.e. turn taking and collaboration)
**Materials: Mini rain sticks/shakers 

Rationale: To continue to promote experimentation with producing and creating sound using object manipulation. To challenge children's thinking while creating a satisfying trial and error game with teachers and peers.

Skills: Observation, trial and error, and sensory input
Science 

**Materials: Magnet sticks, letter boards, horseshoe magnets, materials that repel or attract to the magnets
Rationale: To explore magnetic properties and explore how some magnets repel or attract to one another. To encourage mathematical and logical thinking skills by using exploration, reflection, and, interpretation. To encourage children to use their communication skills to hypothesize and share their ideas about magnetic concepts.
Skills: Observation, scientific and higher level thinking, curiosity, reasoning, and problem solving
Dramatic Play

**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears, questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.

Rationale: To continue to provide a cozy area to foster an animal story line for dramatic play. To continue to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support literacy and language development, and to promote emergent reading skills such as acting out a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes. To continue to build off the children's emerging interest in bears' habitats, feeding habits, and physical characteristics.

Skills: Role play, creative expression and thinking, sensory input, cooperation, turn taking, and communication, symbolic representation, and social skills; listening, speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary
**Materials: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets, food, high-chairs), bandages, doctor outfits, syringes, reflex hammers, medicine bottles, x-rays, and stethoscopes
Rationale: Create a hospital to continue to promote an interest in care-taking skills when babies are sick or hurt. Provide doctor outfits for the children to act out scenarios and take on realistic dramatic play roles. To support pretend play and encourage children to use their imagination and invention skills to create abstract scenarios and situations. 

Skills: Communication, social skills, role-playing, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Various dress-up clothes, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks, hose, fire hats, fire fighter outfits, truck wheels, steering wheels, and spray bottles
Rationale: To continue to support and encourage pretend and symbolic play about firefighter scenarios. To foster social interaction and cooperative play among peers by sharing the materials. To support the children's interest in fire fighters and fire trucks that has developed over the course of a couple of weeks.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role-playing, symbolic representation, and social skills.
Math and Manipulatives

**Materials: Fine motor manipulatives such as block stacks, animal stackers, and puzzles.
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation, and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness. To promote an emerging awareness for patterns, relationships, and geometry.
Skills: hand-eye coordination, turn taking, fine motor control and skills, language and literacy, classification, shape and color identification
**Materials: A variety of books relating to emerging and current play themes including doctors, firefighters, fall, animals, and school.
Rationale: To continue to support the children's interest in reading. To develop listening skills and to make predictions and personal connections with the stories. To provide a quiet and relaxing alternative yet beneficial learning option during free play. 

Skills: Listening, receptive abilities, speaking, phonological awareness, recognition, language and literacy development
Blocks

**Materials: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, and pictures of children building with blocks.

Rationale: To continue to support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building projects. To be incorporated into building homes for the babies, houses for animals, and roads, cars, and garages for the fire trucks.
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creativity, mathematical and scientific concepts, fine motor.
Large Motor

**Materials: Indoors - A Frame with balance beam, running and jumping zone, slide, monkey bars with swings, donut hole for climbing, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, teeter-totters, balls, basketball hoop, bull dozers, trikes, and tools for digging and molding sand. 

Rationale: To support basic skills such as walking, climbing, balance, coordination, and upper and lower body development. To promote skills such as throwing, catching, or bouncing. To promote social skills such as turn taking, cooperation, and collaboration.

Skills: Perceptual Motor Skills (spatial, temporal, directional, and body awareness) and physical fitness (cardio vascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, propulsion skills, flexibility, and agility).
Large group

**Materials: Name songs, themed songs, books, fingerplay. 

Rationale: To continue to build a classroom routine, familiarize the children with each other's names, and promote a sense of group, community, and collaborative learning. 

Skills: Fine motor development and skills, attention span, hand eye coordination, listening, speaking, patience, taking turns, communication, and social skills.


Music - Music will be evident throughout the day to support transitions and encourage participation in all large and small group activities. 

**Materials: CD player with CD's (Please feel free to lend us any of your child's favorite CDs to use in the classroom) piano keyboards, drums, tambourines, bells, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote the exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments and use collaborative play to create music.

Skills: Turn-taking, fine motor development, collaboration, hearing development of patterns, sounds, and beats.
Snacks

Tuesday: Oranges and saltines
Friday: Pretzels and Milk

-Fiza

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Overview
The children were excited to see the large pumpkin in the science center and many talked about pumpkins they have at home. All agreed that we should open up our classroom pumpkin this week. In addition to the pumpkin carving, we are introducing balancing scales for the children to use to further explore the crabapples, regular apples, and apples that are beginning to dry up. The mobile that began as a place for the leaves children brought from their homes, has transformed into a place to hang other items the children thought belonged there such as painted leaves, crabapples and sticks. After the children took a closer look at tree bark by making rubbings and clay impressions, they added their work to a tall cylinder that is becoming another collaborative project. The vet supplies we added to the cave last week inspired more in-depth play surrounding pet/animal care. In addition, the children have been interested in talking about what happens when they go to the doctor, and what doctors do to help people stay healthy. The week ahead will be a great opportunity to continue working on the collaborative projects and to develop these dominant play themes and topics of interest.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Tree materials (leaves, seeds, twigs, pine cones, bark etc.) to use for independent and collaborative art. Green, red, and yellow tempera paint, markers, colored pencils, and construction paper.
-Rationale: We have a variety of materials available so the children can express their creativity and represent ideas related to our topics of study.
-Skills: self-expression, fine motor strength and control, collaborations, creative risk-taking

Sensory
-Materials: Dried and fresh leaves, twigs, seeds, potato mashers, baskets and other containers in a variety of sizes.
-Rationale: Leaves in the sensory table provide a concrete way for the children to take in new information. They gain new knowledge about the physical properties of the leaves as they crush, crunch, pile, squeeze and pour them.
-Skills: hands-on exploration, observation, familiarity with physical properties, fluency with familiar objects, self-expression, motor control, formulating ideas

Science
-Materials: Matching activity that incorporates tree, their leaves and seeds. Planted seeds from oak, maple, and apple trees. Apples with balancing scales. A wide variety of natural materials gathered from nearby areas. Decomposing leaves and apples.
-Rationale: The children will continue to observe their experiments with the planted seeds and decomposing items. They can participate in a matching activity that incorporates the observations they have made about specific varieties of trees.
-Skills: Scientific thinking (observing, questioning, and investigation), reflection and interpretation, identification, comparison, fine-motor, hypothesizing, reasoning about events, measuring, prediction.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Seed patterning at light table, puzzles, matching leaf shapes, Amy's class bingo, symbol matching.
-Rationale: We are building on the children's ability to match by providing samples of patterns for them to match. As they begin to see the patterns we will encourage them to extend the patterns as well as create their own.
-Skills: matching, grouping, counting, recognizing and creating patterns, fine motor control, one-to-one correspondence, synthesizing parts and wholes, problem-solving, games with rules

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, and envelopes continue to be available, now under the loft as well as in the front of the classroom. Our library has a wide variety of books about animals, fall, and families. The loft will hold a variety of books related to trees, leaves, seeds, and apples. 

-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. Integrate our topics of trees, apples and community into literacy activities and encourage symbolic representation. Foster imagination as the children incorporate writing and drawing into their dramatic play.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control, awareness of print, familiarity with books, comprehension, fine-motor control, writing, symbolic representation

Blocks
-Materials: The cave near the unit blocks has woodland animals, logs, and "tree cookies" to use as inspiration for habitat creation. The hollow blocks are available with other open-ended materials such as clothes, scarves, and wooden cars.
-Rationale: By using the children's interest in animals as a provocation for building homes we hope to encourage their construction skills.
-Skills: self-expression, large motor strength and control, fine motor strength and control, communication, cooperation, spatial skills, problem solving

Dramatic Play
-Materials: The veterinary supplies have been moved to the back of the classroom and include bandages, x-rays, medicine bottles, and dress up clothes. There are stuffed animal patients as well as animal costumes to promote additional role-play.
-Rationale: Animal care has been a popular theme in the children's play each morning. We moved these materials to the back of the classroom so they can have more space and materials available to support the development of their play.
-Skills: self-expression, communication, cooperation, problem-solving, symbolic representation, role-play, memory, generalization

Large Motor
-Materials: Monkey bars with swing, slide, donut, A-frame with balance beam
-Rationale: To support upper and lower body coordination, strength and balance. To provide opportunities for classifying and identifying shapes and colors. To support social skills, turn taking, and collaboration.
-Skills: Running, dynamic and static balance, spatial awareness, core strength, turn-taking, climbing, visual-depth perception, jumping, sliding, coordination

Snack
Monday - Cucumber slices & Saltines
Tuesday - Oranges & pretzels
Wednesday - Granola bars & milk
Thursday - Apple chips & graham crackers
Friday- Pumpkin cooking project

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Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, wooden doll houses, furniture, peg people, wooden cars, and different colored fabric.

•Rationale: to support children's creativity 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. To continue the already rich social and creative play surrounding building with hollow blocks, by allowing children to reflect and build upon previous block experiences. Fabric is added to add another dimension to the child's creative play, allowing for different building experiences, such as creating a roof or a tent.
•Skills: large motor development, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking, counting blocks (one-to-one correspondence).

Sensory

•Materials: wet sand, shovels, molds, and buckets

•Rationale: to cooperatively work together while exploring a familiar sensory experience, to emphasize concepts of size, shape, and texture. Children will continue to experience the different medium of the damp sand and mold with the sand. The children will also be able experiment with building their sculptures upwards. 
Images of sand-castles are added to the area to help encourage divergent building techniques.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, knowledge of conservation, scientific exploration, cooperative play, social relationships building, sharing materials, math concepts related to volume and geometry.

Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: pegs and pegboards, puzzles, shape boards, interlocking cubes, sorting animals, matching color games.

•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials where they can develop more complex skills and collaborate to support each other's learning, to encourage beginning mathematical concepts, such as counting, sorting, and patterning. More complex puzzles, such as floor puzzles are added to this area to challenge students' problem solving skills as well as foster socialization with the other children. As a continuation to the concept of color, children will have the opportunity to match colors to an object of that same color. In addition, lacing beads activity continues in this area with a greater focus on patterning and color sorting.
•Skills: color recognition, shape recognition, number recognition, seriating (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), matching, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development, patterning skills.



Expressive Arts

•Materials: two primary colors (red and blue) mixing in white and black at the easel, natural materials for collage, clay, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors

•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers, and engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art. We will highlight two colors (red and blue) and the children can mix their own shades by adding white and black into the paint containers, creating new shades of colors to paint with. The children will also continue to explore different continuum of two primary colors (lighter to darker) along with the secondary color that will be observed when these colors mix.

•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition, comparison between shades.

Science

•Materials:1. cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, salamander, feeding chart, bean seeds.
2. Light tables with tracing paper and leaves
3. eye droppers, different water colors,
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature, to begin understanding the needs of other living things. To begin using different tools to observe, investigate and record. We will begin to trace our bodies this week and compare our heights. Adding water droppers of different colors to the light tables will give the children the opportunity to explore mixing and blending of different colors in water, and extend the paint mixing from previous weeks. In the science area, we will also begin to grow bean seeds and measure their growth.

•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, outdoor/indoor connection.

Language and Literacy

•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and pictures of children in our classroom

•Rationale: to involve children in writing and the social activity of note and letter writing. To give the children the opportunity to create their own stories and writings.

•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition

•Materials: the library has books that are reflective of our continuing curricula such as trees, colors, and the growth and development of our bodies

•Rationale: to encourage reading time with friends and teachers, encourage exploration of fiction and nonfiction texts, introduce books as a source of information

•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, and community building

Large Motor

Gym

Materials: Monkey bars with swing, Slide, Donut, A framed with balance beam, Jumping and Running station.
Rationale: To support upper and lower body coordination, strength and balance. To provide opportunities for classifying and identifying shapes and colors. To support social skills, turn taking, and collaboration.
Skills:
Running and jumping zone: jumping from one space to another, spatial relationship
Monkey bar with swings: core strength, balance, turn-taking
Slide with donut: climbing, visual-depth perception, jumping, sliding, balancing, motor coordination
A frame with balance beam: climbing, balance, motor coordination
Snack:
Monday - Oranges & pretzels
Wednesday - Salad & milk
Thursday - Pumpkin muffins

Special Announcements:

• Kylie begins lead-teaching.

• We will be making a healthy and nutritious salad as our snack one day and discuss the importance of eating healthy to help our bodies grow.

Overview

This week our focus will shift toward community, while still maintaining our applications for trees and apples. We will be adding a post office following on the children's interest in sending letters to and receiving them from Dalia while she was away. We will also extend our exploration of color to making patterns with the various colorful materials in the classroom. We will start exploring the concept of patterning, Small groups are on their way and we will continue to meet and learn daily.

Expressive Arts

-Materials: Red, yellow, and green paint, rollers and white paper. Colored construction paper, colored pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, tape, staplers, and hole punchers.
-Rationale: To engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art: color. To provide materials to inspire children's creative expression.
-Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development.

Science

-Materials: Leaves and other fall items collected in the playground and our walks, including the crabapples we picked from the trees behind our school. Magnifying glasses and baskets/containers for independent sorting. Poster representations of local trees, their leaves, and seeds for comparison. A variety of apples from our field trip. Collected special "treasures" brought by the children (i.e. pinecones, acorn seeds, leaf from a tree close by our homes, etc). The bird watching station set up for the children to view and chart the different types of birds that come to the feeder. A balance scale for children to weigh items in comparison (i.e. how many crabapples to an apple).

-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity about the world around them. To encourage symbolic representation. To promote children's observation of changes in nature, comparison, and identification abilities. To encourage literacy and a variety of recording abilities.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, symbolic representation, identification, comparison, fine-motor, hypothesizing, reasoning about events, measuring, prediction.

Math and Manipulatives

-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, inset puzzles emphasizing people and animals, interlocking puzzles reflecting fruits, vegetables and gardens. Unifix cubes with graph charts and patterning cards. A variety of seeds with corresponding patterning cards on the light table.
-Rationale: Our focus this week is moving toward patterning and graphing. Children will extend their knowledge of graphing after we graphed our apple preference results in large group last week. They will have the opportunity to make graphs on their own using Unifix cubes. We will also introduce patterning with our dye-cut apples in large group. The children will then have the opportunity to match Unifix cubes to patterning cards. They will continue developing measuring and ordering skills as they compare shapes and sizes of different apples.
-Skills: Patterning, graphing, sorting, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, ordering, fine motor development, creative expression, measurement, prediction.

Language and Literacy

-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, and envelopes continue to be available, now in multiple locations in the classroom (one under the loft and another one at our new "post office"). The post office includes envelopes, postal stamps and a mailbox for sending letters. Our library has a wide variety of books about animals, fall, and families. The loft will hold a variety of books related to trees, leaves, seeds, and apples. 

-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. Integrate our topics of trees, apples and community into literacy activities and encourage symbolic representation. Foster imagination in the children as they pretend to write letters, and stamp and mail them.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control.
Blocks
-Materials: Logs, sticks, cross-sections tree trunk discs, and small wooden pieces. Hollow blocks and unit blocks, small wooden cars, wooden trains.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, develop awareness of geometry and allow for opportunities for sharing, turn taking, and social interactions. To support our exploration of trees inside the classroom, and encourage children to incorporate tree elements into their dramatic play.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, cooperation.

Dramatic Play

-Materials: Kitchen with dishes and dress up clothes. The top of the loft will continue its transformation into a tree/forest as Jenny's small group works on building the trunk of a "tree." Real apples, crabapples, and baskets are available in the dramatic play area in order for the children to be able to act out their apple orchard experiences. Animal costumes of birds and bears have been added to enhance the forest theme. The animal cave will be transformed into a hibernation cave, with sticks, logs, natural fabrics and woodland animal toys for the children to create habitats for different kinds of animals. 

-Rationale: To encourage social interactions. To continue to foster an interest in trees, especially apple trees, and the changes taking place outdoors. To continue to encourage children's expression of family life by taking/playing on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction, and discussions about forest animals, habitats and hibernation.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios, and taking on various roles.

Large Motor
Gym

The gym has been updated to include the monkey bars with swings, slide with the donut, and an A-frame with balance beam. The new set-up will support upper and lower body coordination, strength and balance, provide opportunities for classifying and identifying shapes and colors, and also support social skills, turn taking, and collaboration.
-Skills: Running and jumping zone: jumping from one space to another, spatial relationship
Monkey bar with swings: core strength, balance, turn-taking
Slide with donut: climbing, visual-depth perception, jumping, sliding, balancing, motor coordination
A frame with balance beam: climbing, balance, motor coordination
Playground
-Materials: Leaf rakes, shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their large muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors, and to notice and investigate the changes taking place.

-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Special Interest 

Large Group
On Monday, we will welcome Dalia back. We will then read the book A Letter to Amy in order to introduce our new post office. On Wednesday, we will compare weights of various items using the balance scale from the science center. On Thursday, we will introduce patterning using dye-cut apples, and have the children practice predicting which color comes next.

Cooking/Baking volunteers needed for Thursdays! Please contact us if you are interested!
Picture day is coming up... Wednesday, November 9th!

Thank you,
Kristi

Large Group

Writing

Large Group

Science

Large Group

Gym

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Weekly Lesson Plan for Ross' Class
Week of: October 24, 2011
Lead teaching this week: Kari

Overview: As we get farther into the semester, the children continue to become more at ease with one another and have been forming many new friendships. Last week, the children experimented with creating various shades of blue by trying to recreate the blue that they see around them. The children's understanding of how to match different shades of blue grows stronger every day - deciding how much blue/white/black to add to "make it match perfectly." This week we are also getting ready to start our small groups. Small groups will give the children a chance to meet on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to explore one of three topics (insects, music and movement, and bodies) with more intention and focus with help from their small group teacher.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: primary color paint at the easel, glue bottles filled with blue, black, white, and red paint at the art table, egg cartons for paint mixing, blue yarn and other blue materials, various natural and "beautiful" materials for collage, markers, crayons, clay (with supportive tools: mallets and wood knives)
• Rationale: At the art table, children have become extremely interested in recreating the various shades of blue they see around them. They enjoyed watching the blue change different shades when they experimented with the white and black paint. To help extend color progression and build awareness on how secondary colors are made, we will introduce red paint later this week, and let the children experiment with making different shades of purple and make a chart of how colors progress from light to dark.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: damp sand, scoops/shovels, buckets, magnifying glass, whisk brooms, paintbrushes, trowels, sand molds, sticks, shells, photos of sandcastles
• Rationale: The children have continued to use the moldable sand to make detailed castles, using the shells, sticks, and rocks as decoration. They have also created games by using the sand to bury and dig up the building materials. To extend their interest in burying and digging we will continue the conversations about playing "Can you find it?" games, and adding supportive digging tools: hand brooms, trowels, and rakes.
• Skills: large-/fine moor strength, eye-to-hand coordination, scientific investigation, observational skills, planning skills, creativity, imagination and invention, reflection and interpretation (ability to think about events and experiences and apply this knowledge to new situations)

Science
• Materials: Assortment of various critters (tiger salamander, hissing cockroaches, mealworms), magnifying glass, clipboards, feeding charts
• Rationale: The children are interested and curious about the seeds inside different fruits and vegetables. To build awareness and expand on their interest we invite the children to look for seeds around their homes. While cooking dinner or pulling the plants out of the gardens, highlight the "discovery" of various seeds. Eventually, we may ask the children to bring in one fruit or vegetable (pumpkins, squash, apples, etc.) so we can cut it open to examine the seeds different sizes and shapes. This activity will allow the children to think about and guess whether there are seeds inside the item that they brought to school. We will give you plenty of notice before we have the children bring in their fruit/vegetable to explore.
• Skills: scientific thinking (observing, questioning, and investigation), reflection and interpretation, patterns and relationships, fostering social relationships

Dramatic Play
• Materials: doctor props (stethoscope, lab coats, scrubs, etc), house furniture (e.g. stove, fridge, sink, and cupboard), plates, pretend food, shoes, fabric, stuffed animals, baby-dolls, and care supplies
• Rationale: The dramatic play area continues to be used daily with the children frequently thinking up new story lines. Doctor play seems to be a recurring theme in our classroom. Later in the week we will add doctor props: including stethoscopes, lab coats, scrubs, and much more. By inserting these props and discussing how they are used in at doctor's office, children can gain a better understanding of how these props are used in a medical setting and take their play to new levels.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, reflection/interpretation, social systems understanding (understanding the world), fostering social relationships

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Montessori stacking pegs, (new) puzzles, multi-colored pegs (with pegboard), sorting/counting animals, sorting trays
• Rationale: Children have been very active sorting and counting the animals by color and size. To expand on sorting and counting we will provide the children with more opportunities to practice their abilities by adding new activities to the math and manipulatives table. We will add color matching games and Montessori color swatches, which will allow the children to identify and sort different shades of color, supporting our new focus on the gradation of color.
• Skills: color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classification, matching, opportunities for collaborative problem solving.

Language and Literacy
• Materials: pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, picture labels of all the children, books
• Rationale: The reading area has increasingly become very popular. To help connect literacy to the other areas of the room, we will be adding some new books that will relate to the different centers, such as books on tiger salamanders, hissing cockroaches, trees, the doctor's office and hospitals, and one about our growing and changing body. The books will be available for children to read throughout the day.
• Skills: pre-/early -literacy skills, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling, fine-motor coordination/endurance (as children's hand muscles grow strong with holding writing utensils)

Blocks
• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, peg people, wood houses, photos of different block structures
• Rationale: Play in this area has continued with the children building different types of houses and simple machines. To continue to foster this experience we will continue posting photos of the children and some of the structures they have built. The photos will allow children to remember where they left off and will inspire others to build structures of their own.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play

Large Motor
• Materials: Gym- scooter boards, cushioned blocks and semicircle, gym equipment (monkey bars, slide, jumping station)
•In the gym: The children have really enjoyed the new set up in the gym and have become confident using each piece of equipment. To add more of a challenge we will raise the balance beam connecting to the slide up one rung and will introduce a new obstacle course game, where children will practice different physical skills, such as jumping, hopping, climbing, and crawling. We will also continue to use the scooter boards so that the children are able to pull each other back and forth on the gym floor, promoting additional core strengthening and stability skills, as well as creating great cooperative/relationship-building opportunities. It should be noted that the gym will potentially move to a new set up mid week. We will let the children know later in the week if it will be changing.
• On the playground: All of the children really enjoy going outside and have been active on the bikes, swings, and using the shovels to dig in the sand. This week we will continue to bring out the bikes, shovels, and rakes so that the children who are still getting use to riding the bikes or using the shovels and rakes will have the opportunity to keep practicing. Also, on Friday we will have a "LEAF EXTRAVAGANZA!" Weather permitting, we invite any and all parents to join us on the playground to rake the remaining leaves into a giant puzzle. Details listed below!
• Skills: Large motor skills, physical health and well-being by participating in a variety of physical activities, social competence and relationships

Special Interest/Announcements
• With a very busy (and short) week, we will have our fire drill this week. A note will be outside the classroom.
• Small groups start this week on Tuesday! We're excited to jump into these topics and learn more! An email will be coming Tuesday informing you about which group your child is in as well as the other group members.
• LEAF EXTRAVAGANZA! on Friday starting at 10.45a on the playground...we'll meet you on the playground and don't forget to bring your rake!

Snack
Monday: Apples and pretzels
Tuesday: Birthday snack (making popsicles with Zachary and his mom!)
Wednesday: Rice cakes
Thursday: Animal Crackers
Friday: Chips and guacamole (made with Kari!)
* All snacks served with milk and water, unless otherwise noted *

Overview
Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been busy exploring apples and leaves. The apples led to a focus on seeds and we looked at (and planted) different kinds of tree seeds as well. The children have now started to show an interest in pumpkins, so we will be moving away from apples and introducing pumpkins into the classroom. In addition, we will start exploring another part of trees (the bark) and the different animals that use the trees. Sorting and matching experiences will be provided using tree materials that will highlight the presence of different kinds of trees.

Expressive Arts
Materials: Bark and crayons for making "rubbings" of the bark patterns. Tree materials (leaves, seeds, twigs, pine cones etc.) to use with clay by making impressions and/or three-dimensional sculptures. Dried leaf crumbles, seeds, sticks, and plastic "jewels" on light table to use for creative design in small clear trays. Green, red, and yellow tempera paint to inspire mixing and layering color similar to the colors they see in the natural materials they have been studying.
Rationale: As the children are learning more about leaves in the science area, it will be important for them to have the opportunity to explore the materials in different ways in order to become more familiar with them, to formulate ideas, and to express what they've observed. As we introduce pumpkins into the science area, providing paint that can be mixed to create orange may serve as an inspiration for them to express their ideas about pumpkins.
Skills: self-expression, fine motor strength and control, formulating ideas

Sensory
Materials: Dried and fresh leaves, twigs, seeds, potato mashers, baskets and other containers in a variety of sizes, and plastic woodland animals (squirrels, birds, chipmunks, etc.) in the sensory table.
Rationale: The children really enjoyed the leaf crushing activity a couple weeks ago, so we're introducing it again in the sensory area where they will have more space. We will also be adding other materials to the leaves in order to create a sort of "forest floor" for them to explore.
Skills: hands-on exploration, observation, familiarity with physical properties, familiarity with familiar objects, self-expression, motor control, formulating ideas

Science
Materials: A variety of bark samples; close-up pictures of bark on trees; pine and cedar branches; potted seeds; decomposing apples and leaves; pumpkins and gourds; labeled jars of different seeds, trays and sheets with visual cues for sorting them; baskets for sorting leaves; close-up pictures of tree branches with leaves and seeds
Rationale: The children have been exploring with leaves, so we will now move into examining them more deeply in terms of their different shapes and the significance of this variety. We will also begin to explore the connection between different seeds and leaves by sorting and matching these items. The children will continue to observe their planted seeds and decomposing items that they began last week, and we will introduce pumpkins to the area in response to an interest that we've observed among the children.

Math and Manipulatives
Materials: Matching game of children's pictures with their symbols to match with a large copy of their symbols; leaf matching with leaf outlines and laminated leaves; Amy's class bingo matching game; seed counting and patterning sheets and corresponding seeds; puzzles that highlight animals, pumpkins, and trees
Rationale: We are highlighting the children's symbols to provide practice with matching, memory, and sorting skills. The leaf matching activity will provide practice with matching and will tie into the science idea of the significance of different leaf shapes. The children have had some practice with exploring the seeds, so now we will start to incorporate them into math activities such as counting them and making them into patterns.
Skills: matching, grouping, counting, recognizing and creating patterns, fine motor control, one-to-one correspondence, synthesizing parts and wholes, problem-solving, games with rules

Language and Literacy
Materials: Class mobile of children's pictures and leaves from home; construction paper; paper with one or two lines on the top or bottom; markers and colored pencils; scissors; tape; staplers; hole punchers; books about pumpkins; books about trees and what they're used for
Rationale: We will create a class mobile of leaves from home labeled with the child's picture and name. This will be hung over by the writing center to provide inspiration for things to draw/people to draw for. Since we have been labeling and writing children's names on their papers so far, having paper with a couple lines on it may serve as a provocation for the children to try to label or write their name on their own creations. We will keep the scissors, tape, staplers, and hole punchers to assist in the creation of props for dramatic play, and our book supply will correlate with the topics that we're exploring in other areas to provide another way to search for information and explore ideas.
Skills: awareness of print, familiarity with books, comprehension, fine-motor control, writing, symbolic representation

Blocks
Materials: We will keep the logs and large pieces of bark by the hollow blocks and the small wood slices by the unit blocks.
Rationale: The children build with blocks everyday, so as we start to include bark in our discussions of trees, the availability of these materials by the block area will provide an opportunity for the children to work through and express their ideas. In addition, since block building is often a group activity, the tree materials will serve as a common area of knowledge for the children, thus providing a possible means for more mutually interesting and cooperative play.
Skills: self-expression, large motor strength and control, fine motor strength and control, communication, cooperation, spatial skills, problem solving

Dramatic Play
Materials: In the loft there are animal inspired fabrics and dress up clothes; forest stuffed-animals (squirrels, birds, bears, etc.); kitchen materials. The pet/vet cave will include doctor kits, pet checklists, wraps, pet care supplies.
Rationale: The children have shown an interest in pretending to be animals, so by adding more materials to support this, they will be better able to expand on their ideas. It will also tie into our discussions about the different things that trees are used for: by animals for shelter and food. The children have been caring for sick pets by using the wraps and bandages. The addition of new props will enhance their ability to extend the play and develop their roles as veterinarians.
Skills: self-expression, communication, cooperation, problem-solving, symbolic representation, role-play, memory, generalization

Large Motor
Materials: Slide, wall climber, jumping station, balance beam, monkey bars, circle seat, mats for climbing, and open area for games (e.g. tossing soft balls, "Over, Under, or Through" game) in the gym; shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, tricycles, rakes, and wagons outside
Rationale: Having a wide variety of equipment in the gym will allow the children to practice many different skills and develop many different games or activities. We will utilize the open space to practice playing large motor games. The pieces of equipment outside reflect the observed interests of the children outdoors, particularly raking and collecting leaves using wheelbarrows, wagons, and buckets to make large piles in which to jump.
Skills: dynamic and static balance, propulsion and receptive skills, large motor strength, locomotion, endurance

Lesson Plan
2AM 10.25-10.28
Rasamee Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are now comfortable with our daily routines. As they continue to develop friendships, we will support these interactions through small groups and intentional dismissal, where we will divide the children into specific areas in the classroom during free play. With the recent cold weather, we have emphasized that it is important to stay warm, especially when playing outside. We will provide winter accessories, such as hats and mittens for the children to practice self-help skills.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Red, yellow, green and brown paint, white paper, and brushes.
Rationale: To continue exploring fall colors in nature. To continue to explore color mixing and design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Leaves, branch sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel, feathers and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors of the fall season. The children will continue decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

Sensory
**Materials: Water, food coloring, basters, trays, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore, compare, and mix colors. To enhance creativity in another form of media.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

**Materials: Play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, and wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven, mixing ingredients such as salt and corn meal, recipe charts. (Feel free to send in an email to Ayuko about what your child likes to make and/or eat)
Rationale: To enhance children's imaginary play. To promote ideas of baking and eating. To imitate steps of the real baking process by adding salt and cornmeal.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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 error game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, magnifying glasses, crab apples, other fruits and vegetables brought in by children and families, and a pumpkin and squash cut in half.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a squash and pumpkin. To promote ideas of baking with pumpkin and squash.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears and questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
Rationale: Continue to provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line. To continue to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support literacy and language development and to promote emergent reading skills such as dictating a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes.
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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, Gerber baby food, spoons, high chairs, bandages and stethoscopes.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play. To apply care-taking skills when babies are sick or hurt.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: Continue to promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks, hose, fire hats, fire fighter outfits
Rationale: To continue to support and encourage pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To support the children's interest in fire fighters and fire trucks that has developed during free play on the playground.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Fine motor manipulatives such as zippers and peg boards, hats and mittens
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness. To practice self-help skills, especially when it's getting colder outside
Skills: hand-eye coordination, turn taking, fine motor control, self-help skills
Language and Literacy

**Materials: A variety of books relating to fall, animals, and self-help skills
Rationale: To support the children's interest in reading,. To develop listening skills and to make predictions and connections with the stories.
Skills: Listening, receptive abilities, self-help, speaking, phonological awareness, recognition, fine motor

Blocks
**Materials: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To continue to support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, roads and garages for the fire trucks and houses for the fire fighters
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts, fine motor.

Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - A Frame ladder, balance beam, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, bull dozers, trikes, 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, self help 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, tambourines, bells, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks
TBD

Lesson Plan
3AM 10.24-10.27
Rasamee Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are now comfortable with our daily routines. As they continue to develop friendships, we will support these interactions through small groups and intentional dismissal, where we will divide the children into specific areas in the classroom during free play. With the recent cold weather, we have emphasized that it is important to stay warm, especially when playing outside. We will provide winter accessories, such as hats and mittens for the children to practice self-help skills.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Red, yellow, green and brown paint, white paper, and brushes.
Rationale: To continue exploring fall colors in nature. To continue to explore color mixing and design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Leaves, branch sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel, feathers and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors of the fall season. The children will continue decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

Sensory
**Materials: Water, food coloring, basters, trays, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore, compare, and mix colors. To enhance creativity in another form of media.
Skills: Observation, familiarity with materials, math skills (volume and spatial relations), comparison, prediction, and fine motor.

**Materials: Play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, and wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven, mixing ingredients such as salt and corn meal, recipe charts. (Feel free to send in an email to Ayuko about what your child likes to make and/or eat)
Rationale: To enhance children's imaginary play. To promote ideas of baking and eating. To imitate steps of the real baking process by adding salt and cornmeal.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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 error game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, magnifying glasses, crab apples, other fruits and vegetables brought in by children and families, and a pumpkin and squash cut in half.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a squash and pumpkin. To promote ideas of baking with pumpkin and squash.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears and questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
Rationale: Continue to provide a space/cozy area to foster an animal story line. To continue to promote pretend and symbolic play and support social interaction among students and teachers. To support literacy and language development and to promote emergent reading skills such as dictating a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes.
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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, Gerber baby food, spoons, high chairs, bandages and stethoscopes.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play. To apply care-taking skills when babies are sick or hurt.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: Continue to promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks, hose, fire hats, fire fighter outfits
Rationale: To continue to support and encourage pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To support the children's interest in fire fighters and fire trucks that has developed during free play on the playground.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Fine motor manipulatives such as zippers and peg boards, hats and mittens
Rationale: To promote fine motor development, shape and color differentiation and hand-eye coordination for spatial awareness. To practice self-help skills, especially when it's getting colder outside
Skills: hand-eye coordination, turn taking, fine motor control, self-help skills
Language and Literacy

**Materials: A variety of books relating to fall, animals, and self-help skills
Rationale: To support the children's interest in reading,. To develop listening skills and to make predictions and connections with the stories.
Skills: Listening, receptive abilities, self-help, speaking, phonological awareness, recognition, fine motor

Blocks
**Materials: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, and pictures of children building with blocks.
Rationale: To continue to support mathematical skills, social interaction, and collaborative building. To be incorporated into buildings, homes for the babies, roads and garages for the fire trucks and houses for the fire fighters
Skills: Communication, collaboration, large motor, expressive creation, mathematical and scientific concepts, fine motor.

Large Motor
**Materials: Indoors - A Frame ladder, balance beam, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, bull dozers, trikes, 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, self help 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, tambourines, bells, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks
TBD

Overview
After what felt like a very short week, we are looking forward to the new very exciting week coming up. We will continue to explore apples and trees. Nature outside is changing and thanks to our bird watching station we are able to notice these changes from the inside and record them. We will continue our exploration of color and extend it to the colors we see outside and in the apples inside the classroom.
This week we will start small groups. This first week we will bring children's awareness to the topics of Trees, Hands-on Art and Music and Movement.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Red, yellow, and green paint, thick brushes and white paper. Colored construction paper, colored pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, tape, staplers, and hole punchers.
-Rationale: To engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art: color. To provide materials to inspire children's creative expression.
-Skills: Exploration and in-depth investigation of color. Self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development.

Science
-Materials: Tree photos from our playground, places that are close by our school, and from children and teacher's homes. Leaves and other fall items collected in the playground and our walks, including the crabapples we picked from the trees behind our school. Magnifying glasses and baskets/containers for independent sorting. Poster representations of local trees, their leaves, and seeds for comparison. A variety of apples from our field trip. Collected special "treasures" brought by the children (special pinecones, acorn seeds, leaf from a tree close by our homes, etc). A bird watching station set up for the children to view and chart the different types of birds that come to the feeder. Now that we have added our own hand-made bird feeders created on Wednesday we are hoping for more birds' sights. Picture representations along with the printed names of birds native to the area have been added along with clipboards and colored pencils.
-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity about the world around them. To encourage symbolic representation. To promote children's observation of changes in nature, comparison, and identification abilities. To encourage literacy and a variety of recording abilities.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, symbolic representation, identification, comparison, fine motor, hypothesizing, reasoning about events.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, inset puzzles emphasizing people and animals, interlocking puzzles reflecting people and baby animals. Colors and Shape-Match Me game. Laminated leaves on the light table, and a variety of apples. The game "Hi-Ho cherry-o" will be added as well.
-Rationale: Our focus this week continues to be matching and sorting (trees and apples). Children will have the opportunity to build on their matching skills as they examine leaves on the light table and match them to the ones we find outside. They will also have the opportunity to compare the leaves to a descriptive poster to find out which leaves belong to which tree. They will continue developing measuring and ordering skills as they compare shapes and sizes of different apples. We continue to draw children's attention to different kinds of shapes.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, sorting, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, ordering, fine motor development, creative expression, measurement.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials; paper, and envelopes continue to be available, now in multiple locations in the classroom (one under the loft and another one right by the "Bird Watching Station"). Our library has a wide variety of books about animals, fall, and families. The loft will hold a variety of books related to trees, leaves, seeds, and apples.
-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. Integrate our topic about trees into literacy activities and encourage symbolic representation.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control.

Blocks
-Materials: Logs, sticks, cross-sections tree trunk discs, and small wooden pieces. Hollow blocks and unit blocks, small wooden cars, wooden trains.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, develop awareness of geometry and allow for opportunities for sharing, turn taking, and social interactions. To support our exploration of trees inside the classroom, and encourage children to incorporate tree elements into their dramatic play.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, cooperation.

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes and dress up clothes. The top of the loft will continue its transformation into a tree/forest. Real apples, crabapples, and baskets are available in the dramatic play area in order for the children to be able to act out their apple orchard experiences. Animal costumes of birds and bears will also be added to enhance the forest theme. The animal cave continues to host puppies, kittens, pet dishes, and leashes.
-Rationale: To encourage social interactions. To continue to foster an interest in trees, especially apple trees, and the changes taking place outdoors. To continue to encourage children's expression and of family life by taking/playing on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction, discussions about taking care of animals and conversations about taking care of pets.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios and taking on various roles.

Large Motor
Gym
The focus remains on balance. In the gym a balance beam was added for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down as well as cross the top (with teacher assistance, of course). Lastly, we will add scooter boards to encourage core-strength and balance as children ride independently or cooperatively (being towed by a peer).
Playground
Materials: Leaf rakes, shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.
-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Special Interest
Large Group
On Monday, we will introduce and discuss small groups. We will reveal the different topics (Music, art, and trees) that will be explored during the coming weeks and the members in each group. On Wednesday we will continue to investigate apples. During snack we will have a taste testing of different apples; this activity will be introduced during large group. On Thursday, we will graph our findings and analyze them.

Volunteer Opportunities: starting next Thursday, November 3rd, we will be welcoming volunteers to come and coke/bake in the classroom. This activity should take about 20-30 minutes (starting at 12:30)! If we need to bake or cook, it should take no more than an hour... we plan on eating this for snack. If you think you'd like to facilitate something different, please contact us, we can always prepare it on Wednesday and eat it for snack on Thursday!

Thank you,

Kate

Overview: As we continue to focus on our overarching topic about growth and change, we will specifically look at how growth and change affect human bodies, colors, as well as living trees in our environment. For example, the children will observe closely the changes in their heartbeat as well as other physiological changes that might occur after engaging in a fast paced activity. In addition, this week, a few new materials will be added to the different learning areas for children's exploration. Musical instruments and other songs will also be added during our large group time. As we probe more deeply into the idea of growth and change, the teachers will provide different activities to scaffold and extend children's learning and understanding of this topic.

Dramatic Play
•Materials: 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, diapers, apples

•Rationale: to allow for the expression of family life and to encourage social interaction while playing with familiar props. Diapers have been added to extend children's interest in care-giving and exploring the needs of others. The familiar items continue to facilitate discovery related to the materials. To allow children to extend their experiences cooking with apples through imaginative play
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, wooden doll houses, furniture, peg people, wooden cars, pictures of previous building projects

•Rationale: to support children's creativity 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. To continue the already rich social and creative play surrounding building with hollow blocks, by allowing children to reflect and build upon previous block experiences. To support concepts of measuring and comparison. All this week, the children will still continue with "How many blocks tall are you?" activity. After collecting all the data, the children and teachers will graph their findings on height similarities and differences. In addition, children's previous experiences in building different structures will be printed out and make visible in the area to inspire and enrich children's future exploration.
•Skills: large motor development, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking, counting blocks (one-to-one correspondence).

Sensory

•Materials: wet sand, shovels, molds, and buckets

•Rationale: to cooperatively work together while exploring a familiar sensory experience, to emphasize concepts of size, shape, and texture. Children will continue to experience the different medium of the damp sand and mold with the sand. The children will also be able experiment with building their sculptures upwards. 

•Skills: large and fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, knowledge of conservation, scientific exploration, cooperative play, social relationships building, sharing materials, math concepts related to volume and geometry.

Math and Manipulatives

•Materials: pegs and pegboards, puzzles, shape boards, seriation pegs, interlocking cubes, sorting animals

•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials where they can develop more complex skills and collaborate to support each other's learning, to encourage beginning mathematical concepts, such as counting, sorting, and patterning. More complex puzzles are added to this area to challenge students' problem solving skill. As a continuation to the question of the day activity, children will start graphing the different eye color that can be found in the classroom. In addition, lacing beads activity will also be introduced in this area for children to practice their fine motor skills
•Skills: color recognition, shape recognition, number recognition, seriating (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), matching, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development.



Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)

•Materials: one primary color (red) mixing in white and black at the easel, natural materials for collage, clay, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors

•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers, and engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art. We will highlight one color (red) and the children can mix their own shades by adding white and black into the paint containers, creating new shades of colors to paint with. The children will also continue to explore different continuum of one primary color (lighter to darker)

•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition, comparison between shades.

Science
•Materials:1. cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, salamander, feeding chart
2. light tables with different translucent materials; tracing paper, leaves
3. leaves, branches, acorns, magnifying glasses

•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature, to begin understanding the needs of other living things, to become aware of what materials come from trees and trees' different lifecycles. To begin using different tools to observe, investigate and record. A "Different Parts of Our Body" memory game activity will emphasize the differences and similarities between individuals.

•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, outdoor/indoor connection.

Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and pictures of children in our classroom

•Rationale: to involve children in writing and the social activity of note and letter writing. To give the children the opportunity to create their own stories and writings. Children are still exploring this area.

•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition

•Materials: the library has books that are reflective of our continuing curricula such as trees, colors, and the growth and development of our bodies

•Rationale: to encourage reading time with friends and teachers, encourage exploration of fiction and nonfiction texts, introduce books as a source of information

•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, and community building

Large Motor

Gym

*Materials: Balance beam/A-frame/Slide, Jumping station, Monkey bars

*Rational: to provide experience with balance. Balance beam for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide is placed in the gym. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down, hang and swing on. 

*Skills: jumping and landing, balancing, upper-body strength, lower body strength

Playground

Materials: Shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.

-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.

-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Snack:
Monday: 
Wednesday: Thursday:

Special Announcements:

• Fiza begins lead-teaching.

• We are collecting leaves from home for our light table activity! Please bring in any type of leaves that can be found at home to share with peers and teachers.

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Cooking

Large Group

Blocks

Large Group

Art

Adding to our personal books

Science

Math and Manipulatives

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WEEKLY LESSON PLAN FOR ROSS' CLASS
Week of: Oct 17-21, 2011
Lead Teaching This Week: Team teaching

Overview: The "true" fall weather has arrived and we all are working hard at keeping warm outside! This week we will be constructing our tree and "growing up" charts. These charts, with their timeline-like features, will hopefully allow the children to see gradual transitions in a more concrete way. Thank you for keeping up on the homework, the photos bring a personal note to our explorations. This week is a short week and we hope to make the most of it before the long weekend!
Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: primary color paint at the easel, glue bottles filled with blue, black, and white paint at the art table, egg cartons for paint mixing, various natural and "beautiful" materials for collage, markers, crayons, clay (with supportive tools: mallets and wood knives)
• Rationale: At the easel, children are have been exploring primary color paint and show an interest in mixing the paint to make other colors. To help capitalize on their interest, we will start to focus on variations of a single color by adding different amounts of white or black paint to show how a color can change from a light hue or dark hue based on the amount of white or black paint that is added.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: damp sand, scoops/shovels, buckets, sand molds, sticks, shells, photos of sandcastles
• Rationale: We switched out the sand from the soft 'sugar' sand to a wetter, more moldable play-sand. The children noticed the changes right away and were hooked. They used the new sand to make castles using different sized containers. To help encourage their creativity and expand on their interest in sand castles, we will add props including sticks, shells, and rocks as well as display photos of sandcastle to provide inspiration and spark imagination.
• Skills: large-/fine moor strength, eye-to-hand coordination, observational skills, planning skills, creativity, imagination and invention

Science
• Materials: various critters (tiger salamander, hissing cockroaches, mealworms), magnifying glass, clipboards, feeding charts
• Rationale: The children have continued to observe the various animals in the classroom and have started to feed them tomatoes, apple peels, and other types food. We talked about what types of food the animals might like and whether they would eat the same food that the children do. As the animals ate the food many children noticed the seeds inside and were curious about them. To promote their curiosity we will start to look more closely at the seeds inside pumpkins, apples, and other types of fruit and vegetables and start to discuss their purpose.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships

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 dramatic play area continues to be used daily. Because much of the play focuses on the kitchen area we will be integrating some of the experiences they've had in the classroom into this area, including adding pretend apples. By inserting these props children can recall the various cooking projects they've experienced with apples as well as creating a link the fall season.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Montessori stacking pegs, (new) puzzles, multi-colored pegs (with pegboard), sorting/counting animals, sorting trays
• Rationale: Children have been very active sorting and counting the animals. They have mastered sorting by color and by adult vs. baby. The children enjoy identifying the animals and picking out their favorites as they are sorting them.
• Skills: color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classification, matching, opportunities for collaborative problem solving.

Language and Literacy
• Materials: pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, picture labels of all the children, books
• Rationale: Children have begun to become more intentional in their writing this week with some children taking additional time and care to construct letters and notes to their peers. In addition to the writing area, the reading couch has been very popular. We will be adding some new books to the reading area that will continue to expand on our theme of "Growth and Change." Books, as always are available for children to read throughout the day.
• Skills: pre-/early -literacy skills, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling, fine-motor coordination/endurance (as children's hand muscles grow strong with holding writing utensils)

Blocks
• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, peg people, wood houses
• Rationale: Play in this area has continued to expand and is starting to include many children in the building process. To continue to foster this experience we will be posting photos of the children and some of the structures they have built. The photos, we hope, will lend themselves to inspiration as well as recall - picking up where they may have left off the day before.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play

Large Motor
• In the gym: The children have really been enjoying the new gym set-up. Over the course of the week, we've observed many of the children jumping and landing with more confidence from the "diving board" (as some of called it). The children are also fostering the balancing skills as the cross the balance beam to get to the "high slide," as well as while they see how many children they can get to stand on the "wobbly block." The open floor has also lent itself to great full-body activities such as "Mat Push," encouraging a group to push with all their might to slide a large folded mat from one side of the gym to another. We'll continue these activities as well as add scooter boards this week - promoting additional core strengthening and stability skills, as well as creating great cooperative/relationship-building opportunities
• On the playground: Nearly all the leaves have fallen and scattered across the playground. The children have enjoyed making large piles to jump in, as well as used them around the playground for various props to add to their play. And even though the temperatures are dropping, we are still going to be outside for as much as we can: riding the trikes, digging in the sand, and simply exploring the beautiful colors of autumn. Be sure to send the appropriate layers (including hats and gloves on those chilly/windy days) so we can keep everyone warm out there!

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)
• We will have a fire drill this week. A note will be posted outside our door the day of.
• Conferences start this week...double check your time on the schedule and please bring/email me a copy of your completed questionnaire as it will help guide our discussion about your child. Also, please be sure to arrange childcare for our meeting time. I look forward to meeting with all of you!
• Creativity Night is almost here. Bring the family and have some fun! Tuesday Oct. 18th from 6-7.30p. We will be offering bead stringing/mobile making in our room. To build awareness, we will be lowering the large stick "mobile" above the math table on Monday, and invite the children to make some "improvements."
• NO SCHOOL THURSDAY AND FRIDAY THIS WEEK! - STAFF DEVELOPMENT: Thursday Oct. 20 and Friday Oct 21

Snack
Monday - Apples
Tuesday - Pancakes (made by the children with Rachel)
Wednesday - Rice cakes
Thursday - No School
Friday- No School
* All snacks served with milk and water unless otherwise noted *

2AM Weekly Lesson Plan
10.18
Katie Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are becoming increasingly comfortable with our daily classroom routine. They are beginning to notice one another and develop relationships. We will continue to support these social interactions as they get to know each other while sharing a common space. The children are continuing to explore the Fall season through its colors, falling leaves, and harvest vegetables. Using all of the vegetables families are bringing in to share, we will help children make connections between these foods and cooking through various baking and cooking projects.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Red, yellow, and green paint, white paper, and brushes.
Rationale: To continue exploring fall colors in nature. More leaf visuals will continue to be attached to the art easel to promote inspiration. To explore color mixing and design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors. The children found a branch on the playground that we brought into the classroom. Throughout the week, the children will be decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

Sensory
**Materials: Water, yellow and red food coloring, basters, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore what happens when the yellow and red 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: Play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven, mixing ingredients like Salt and Oregano.
Rationale:To enhance children's imaginary play. To promote ideas of baking and eating. To imitate steps of the real baking process by adding salt and herbs.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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 error game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: turtles, feeding, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To continue to investigate the turtles and begin supporting the children to hold them. Questioning - are the shell hard or soft? Why is the shell hard? What does it do?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.

**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Ears of corn of various colors, Magnifying glasses, Crab apples, A halved squash, tomato, and crab apple, other fruits and vegetables brought in by children and families, and a Pumpkin with the top cut open.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a tomato, crab apple, and squash, and pumpkin. To investigate similarities and differences of each vegetable.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears and questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
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 literacy and language development and to promote emergent reading skills such as dictating a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes.
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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, baby food jars, spoons, and high chairs.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time.
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, and street signs, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To support the children's interest in fire trucks that has developed during free play on the playground.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching game, natural material sorting activity, puzzles, fine motor manipulatives such as zippers, and peg boards
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 continue 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: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, 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 - A Frame ladder, balance beam, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, trikes, 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, 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, tone blocks, tambourines, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Tuesday - Apples and Saltines

2AM Weekly Lesson Plan
10.18
Katie Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are becoming increasingly comfortable with our daily classroom routine. They are beginning to notice one another and develop relationships. We will continue to support these social interactions as they get to know each other while sharing a common space. The children are continuing to explore the Fall season through its colors, falling leaves, and harvest vegetables. Using all of the vegetables families are bringing in to share, we will help children make connections between these foods and cooking through various baking and cooking projects.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Red, yellow, and green paint, white paper, and brushes.
Rationale: To continue exploring fall colors in nature. More leaf visuals will continue to be attached to the art easel to promote inspiration. To explore color mixing and design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors. The children found a branch on the playground that we brought into the classroom. Throughout the week, the children will be decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

Sensory
**Materials: Water, yellow and red food coloring, basters, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore what happens when the yellow and red 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: Play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven, mixing ingredients like Salt and Oregano.
Rationale:To enhance children's imaginary play. To promote ideas of baking and eating. To imitate steps of the real baking process by adding salt and herbs.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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 error game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: turtles, feeding, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To continue to investigate the turtles and begin supporting the children to hold them. Questioning - are the shell hard or soft? Why is the shell hard? What does it do?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.

**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Ears of corn of various colors, Magnifying glasses, Crab apples, A halved squash, tomato, and crab apple, other fruits and vegetables brought in by children and families, and a Pumpkin with the top cut open.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a tomato, crab apple, and squash, and pumpkin. To investigate similarities and differences of each vegetable.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears and questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
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 literacy and language development and to promote emergent reading skills such as dictating a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes.
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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, baby food jars, spoons, and high chairs.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time.
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, and street signs, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To support the children's interest in fire trucks that has developed during free play on the playground.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching game, natural material sorting activity, puzzles, fine motor manipulatives such as zippers, and peg boards
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 continue 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: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, 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 - A Frame ladder, balance beam, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, trikes, 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, 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, tone blocks, tambourines, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Tuesday - Apples and Saltines

3AM Weekly Lesson Plan
10.17-10.19
Katie Lead Teaching

Overview: The children are becoming increasingly comfortable with our daily classroom routine. They are beginning to notice one another and develop relationships. We will continue to support these social interactions as they get to know each other while sharing a common space. The children are continuing to explore the Fall season through its colors, falling leaves, and harvest vegetables. Using all of the vegetables families are bringing in to share, we will help children make connections between these foods and cooking through various baking and cooking projects.

Expressive Arts
**Materials: Red, yellow, and green paint, white paper, and brushes.
Rationale: To continue exploring fall colors in nature. More leaf visuals will continue to be attached to the art easel to promote inspiration. To explore color mixing and design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Branches, leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, tinsel and glue
Rationale: To continue to explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors. The children found a branch on the playground that we brought into the classroom. Throughout the week, the children will be decorating the branch using materials inspired by the fall colors that we have been using in the classroom.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

Sensory
**Materials: Water, yellow and red food coloring, basters, ice cube trays, and a variety of containers.
Rationale: To explore what happens when the yellow and red 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: Play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, pretend oven, mixing ingredients like Salt and Oregano.
Rationale:To enhance children's imaginary play. To promote ideas of baking and eating. To imitate steps of the real baking process by adding salt and herbs.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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 error game with teachers and peers.
Skills: observation, trial and error, and sensory input.

Science
**Materials: turtles, feeding, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To continue to investigate the turtles and begin supporting the children to hold them. Questioning - are the shell hard or soft? Why is the shell hard? What does it do?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.

**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Ears of corn of various colors, Magnifying glasses, Crab apples, A halved squash, tomato, and crab apple, other fruits and vegetables brought in by children and families, and a Pumpkin with the top cut open.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a tomato, crab apple, and squash, and pumpkin. To investigate similarities and differences of each vegetable.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, Reasoning, and Problem Solving

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted images of bears and questions about bears, and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
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 literacy and language development and to promote emergent reading skills such as dictating a story from pictures. To create an opportunity to learn about bears, emphasizing a bear's need to adapt its lifestyle according to the season changes.
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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, baby food jars, spoons, and high chairs.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative play, empathy, and turn taking

**Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time.
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, and street signs, hollow blocks, ramps, fire trucks and cars.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To support the children's interest in fire trucks that has developed during free play on the playground.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, and social skills.

Math and Manipulatives
**Materials: Face matching game, natural material sorting activity, puzzles, fine motor manipulatives such as zippers, and peg boards
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 continue 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: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, 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 - A Frame ladder, balance beam, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - rakes for raking leaves, wheel barrows, trikes, 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, 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, tone blocks, tambourines, and shakers.
Rationale: To promote exploration of sound, volume, rhythm and social interaction. To introduce the children to new instruments.
Skills: turn taking, fine motor development, and mathematical concepts such as beats and patterns.

Snacks:
Monday - Rice Cakes and Milk
Wednesday - Apples and Saltines

Overview:
This week we will provide activities related to apples and trees that are extensions of the children's ideas and questions about these topics. For example, comparing tastes, exploring seeds, and observing decomposition. We have also introduced some new dramatic play props to support the pet care and veterinarian role play that we have observed.

Expressive Arts:
-Materials: Red, white and yellow paint with leaf shaped paper. Additional materials such as markers, crayons, colored pencils etc. are available for the children for their creative self- expression.
-Rationale: We will encourage the children to try mixing in yellow with the red and white paint to further experiment with color mixing and color matching.
-Skills: self-expression, fine motor control, try out new ideas

Sensory:
-Materials: Dry and soft leaves with a variety of tools.
-Rationale: Hands-on exploration will allow the children to take a close look at the properties of fresh and dry leaves.
-Skills: communication, observation, knowledge of physical properties, hands-on exploration, familiarity with objects, making comparisons

Science:
-Materials: Natural materials related to trees, such as bark, leaves and seeds. Leaves in various stages of decomposition. Apples that were brought in by the children, decomposing apple cores, apple seeds and the crab apples that were picked by the children last week. Magnifying glasses, photographs of trees and apples, a chart to record apple tasting preferences, pencils, clip boards, and different baskets for sorting. We are also introducing a bird watching station at the window.
-Rationale: These items represent the learning that is taking place within the classroom. Many of the materials were collected by the children. The personal connection they feel makes them intrinsically motivated to examine them further. The bird watching station will build their awareness of animals that live near the school.
-Skills: observation, prediction, communication, sorting, grouping, thought provoking questions, comparing, reasoning, expressing ideas

Math and Manipulatives:
-Materials: Symbol matching game, Amy's class bingo matching game, shape matching game.
-Rationale: By bringing in the symbol matching game and Amy's class bingo game, the children can connect with each other and relate to one another by learning each other's names and symbols. All of these games also enhance matching and grouping skills.
-Skills: matching, grouping, color and shape recognition, one to one correspondence, games with rules

Language and Literacy:
-Materials: Colored construction paper, markers, scissors, hole puncher, stapler, tape, colored pencils, puzzle making sheets, and long strips of construction paper, along with a variety of books in our classroom library.
-Rationale: Adding the puzzles sheets will motivate the children to practice their cutting skills before taping pieces together, a favorite activity for many. The paper and paper strips can be used for making props to support dramatic play.
-Skills: fine motor control, creative ideas, writing, letter recognition

Blocks:
-Materias: Large logs and bark have been added near the hollow blocks and unit blocks.
-Rationale: To allow the children to be creative and to problem solve while building. Developing community building and cooperation when creating large structures that accommodate many children.
-Skills: communication, cooperation, geometry, spatial skills, social skills, problem solving, construction, dramatic play

Dramatic Play:
-Materials: Kitchen materials, teddy bears, comfy pillows, dress up clothes (princess dresses, vests, skirts, bird wings, furry animal coats etc.) Books about trees.
-Rationale: We added new dress up clothes and tree books to the dramatic play area to help foster the learning about trees through dramatic role play.
-Skills: communication, social skills, peer interaction, creative imaginary play

Large Motor:
-Materials: slide, wall climber, open area for scooters, jumping station, balance beam, monkey bars, circle seat. The playground will have shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows, bikes, rakes, and wagons out for the children to use.
-Rationale: To develop gross motor abilities and allow outside creative play.
-Skills: large motor, balance, awareness of others, jumping, running, climbing, coordination, upper body strength, digging, pedaling

Snack:
Monday - Apples & Saltines
Tuesday - Graham crackers & milk
Wednesday - Rice cakes & milk
Thursday - No School
Friday- No School

Overview
Although the Lab School is closed on Thursday October 20th and Friday October 21st, we have a busy week planned! We will continue our apple applications in the classroom while maintaining the focus on studying trees in our community.
We will focus our exploration of color on the color red. Many children are noticing the red color of the leaves on the changing trees, and of course the red color of the apples we picked on our field trip! Our study of trees and the changes taking place outdoors are on their way and we will continue to direct children's attention to these!

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Red, white and black paint of to create varying hues, thick brushes and white paper. Colored construction paper, colored pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, tape, staplers, and hole punchers, Collage materials for fall item collections
-Rationale: To engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art: color. To provide materials to inspire children's creative expression.
-Skills: Exploration and in-depth investigation of color. Self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development.

Science
-Materials: Tree photos from our playground, places that are close by our school, and from children and teacher's homes. Leaves and other fall items collected in the playground and our walks, including the crabapples we picked from the trees behind our school. Magnifying glasses and baskets/containers for independent sorting. Poster representations of local trees, their leaves, and seeds for comparison. We will be adding a variety of apples after our field trip on Wednesday. Collected special "treasures" brought by the children (special pinecones, acorn seeds, leaf from a tree close by our homes, etc). A bird watching station has also been set up for the children to view and chart the different types of birds that come to the feeder. Children will be making their own feeders on Wednesday to add to the bird watching station. Picture representations along with the printed names of birds native to the area have been added along with clipboards and colorful pencils.
-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity about the world around them. To encourage symbolic representation. To promote children's observation of changes in nature, comparison, and identification abilities. To encourage literacy and documenting abilities.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, symbolic representation, identification, comparison, fine motor, hypothesizing, reasoning about events.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, inset puzzles emphasizing people and animals, interlocking puzzles reflecting people and baby animals. Colors and Shape-Match Me game. Slot-a-rounds, Duplos and laminated leaves on the light table, variety of apples. The game "Hi-Ho cherry-o" will be added as well.
-Rationale: Our focus this week continues to be matching and sorting (trees and apples) taking advantage of our visit to the apple orchard. Children will have the opportunity to build on their matching skills as they examine leaves on the light table and match them to the ones we found outside. They will also further develop their measuring and ordering skills as they compare shapes and sizes of different apples. We continue to draw children's attention to different kinds of shapes.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, sorting, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, ordering, fine motor development, creative expression, measurement.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, and envelopes continue to be available, now in multiple locations in the classroom (one under the loft and another one right by the "Bird Watching Station"). Our library has a wide variety of books about animals, fall, and families. The loft will hold a variety of books related to trees, leaves, seeds, and apples.
-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. Provide the children with an additional opportunity to experience symbols. Integrate tree curriculum into literacy activities and encourage symbolic representation.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control.

Blocks
-Materials: Logs, sticks, cross-sections tree trunk discs, and small wooden pieces. Hollow blocks and unit blocks, small wooden cars, wooden trains.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, develop awareness of geometry and allow for opportunities for sharing, turn taking, and social interactions. To reinforce the curriculum of trees inside the classroom and encourage children to incorporate tree elements into their dramatic play.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, cooperation.

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes and dress up clothes. The top of the loft will continue its transformation into a tree/forest. Real apples, crabapples, and baskets are available in the dramatic play area in order for the children to be able to act out their apple orchard experiences. Animal costumes of birds and bears will also be added to enhance the forest theme. The animal cave continues to host puppies, kittens, pet dishes, and leashes.
-Rationale: To encourage social interactions. To continue to foster an interest in trees, especially apple trees, and the changes taking place outdoors. To continue to encourage children's expression and of family life by taking/playing on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction, discussions about taking care of animals and conversations about taking care of pets.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios and taking on various roles

Large Motor
Gym
The focus remains on balance. In the gym a balance beam was added for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down as well as cross the top (with teacher assistance, of course). Lastly, we will add scooter boards to encourage core-strength and balance as children ride independently or cooperatively (being towed by a peer).
Playground
Materials: Leaf rakes, shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.
-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Special Interest
- Large Group
On Monday, the sense of school-wide community will continue to be fostered as the class will write a letter to Elizabeth's class (the other PM classroom) thanking them for going to the apple orchard with us and for helping to prepare the apples for our cooking project last week. The children will also work in their preliminary small groups to create their own drawn or written representations of the field trip. These drawing will be added to each child's individual book. Working in the small groups will allow the children to become better acquainted and comfortable with the individuals they will be working closely the next few weeks! The children will work in the same groups on Wednesday as they create their own bird feeders to add to the bird watching station.

Cooking Projects: Make baked apples (Wednesday)
-Rationale: Focus on our sense of community and apply apple knowledge. Exploration and inquiry of apples.
- Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities, cycle of learning (exploration and inquiry).

Reminders
Creativity Night: Tuesday, October 18th 6-7:30.
No school: Thursday and Friday, October 20th and 21st. Room parents are organizing opportunities to get together... make sure you R.S.V.P!
Small Group Project Work will start on Monday, October 24th... stay tunned!

Thanks! -
Jenny

Overview: This week we are still focused on growth and change. We are looking at how the outdoors is changing, how we are growing, and how we can change colors within our classroom. We are bringing items from outside into our classroom and observing what these items look like up close. We are continuing to discuss our trip to the apple orchard. We will be eating and cook with the apples that we pick, as well as explore the topic of apples at large group.

Dramatic Play
•Materials: 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, diapers, apples
•Rationale: to allow for the expression of family life and to encourage social interaction while playing with familiar props. Diapers have been added to extend children's interest in care-giving and exploring the needs of others. The familiar items continue to facilitate discovery related to the materials. To allow children to extend their experiences cooking with apples through imaginative play.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, wooden doll houses, furniture, peg people, wooden cars, pictures of previous building projects
•Rationale: to support children's creativity 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. To continue the already rich social and creative play surrounding building with hollow blocks, by allowing children to reflect and build upon previous block experiences. To support concepts of measuring and comparison.
•Skills: large motor development, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking

Sensory
•Materials: wet sand, shovels, molds, and buckets
•Rationale: to cooperatively work together while exploring a familiar sensory experience, to emphasize concepts of size, shape, and texture. Children will continue to experience the different medium of the damp sand and mold with the sand. The children will also be able experiment with building their sculptures upwards.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, knowledge of conservation, scientific exploration, cooperative play, social relationships building, sharing materials, math concepts related to volume and geometry.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: pegs and pegboards, puzzles, shape boards, seriation pegs, interlocking cubes, sorting animals
•Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials where they can develop more complex skills and collaborate to support each other's learning, to encourage beginning mathematical concepts, such as counting, sorting, and patterning. More complex puzzles are added to this area to challenge students' problem solving skill. Children will start graphing through the use of color. The children will also use hollow blocks to see how their height is in comparison with everyone else in the classroom. Teachers will assist the children in these activities in order to introduce graphing.
•Skills: color recognition, shape recognition, number recognition, seriating (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), matching, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
•Materials: one primary color (red) mixing in white and black at the easel, natural materials for collage, clay, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers, and engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art. We will highlight one color (red) and the children can mix their own shades by adding white and black into the paint containers creating new shades of colors to paint with.
•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition, comparison between shades.

Science
•Materials:1. cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, salamander, feeding chart
2. light tables with different translucent materials; tracing paper, leaves
3. leaves, branches, acorns, magnifying glasses
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature, to begin understanding the needs of other living things, to become aware of what materials come from trees and trees' different lifecycles. To begin using different tools to observe, investigate and record.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, outdoor/indoor connection

Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and pictures of children in our classroom
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and the social activity of note and letter writing. To give the children the opportunity to create their own stories and writings. Children are still exploring this area.
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition
•Materials: the library has books that are reflective of our continuing curricula such as trees, colors, and the growth and development of our bodies
•Rationale: to encourage reading time with friends and teachers, encourage exploration of fiction and nonfiction texts, introduce books as a source of information
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, and community building

Large Motor
Gym
*Materials: Balance beam/A-frame/Slide, Jumping station, Monkey bars
*Rational: to provide experience with balance. Balance beam for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide is placed in the gym. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down, hang and swing on.
*Skills: jumping and landing, balancing, upper-body strength, lower body strength
Playground
Materials: Shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.
-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Snack:

Monday: Apples and rice cakes
Wednesday: Applesauce Muffins
Thursday: No School

Special Announcements:
• Conferences begin this week!
• Jennifer begins lead-teaching.
• Please join us for creativity night! Tuesday, October 18th from 6-7:30

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Large Group

Getting our apples ready for cooking

Cook

Math and Manipulatives

Symbolic Play

Large Group

Gym

Blocks

Art

Science

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Overview
The beautiful weather outside and the rich and inviting materials in our classroom have served to create several learning opportunities throughout the first weeks of school. This week, we will continue to use the outdoors to fuel our investigations. On Wednesday, our trip to the apple orchard will provide an opportunity to observe growth and change in nature, while presenting us with a hands-on exploration of where our food comes from. Additionally, we will continue to delve into ideas of growth and change in the classroom. The student teachers are busy planning experiences in the classroom that encourage children to investigate three different topics: Color, Trees, and Bodies. They will begin building awareness of these topics this week and continue creating opportunities for the children to explore how these things change over time.

Dramatic Play
•Materials: 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, diapers
•Rationale: to allow for the expression of family life and to encourage social interaction while playing with familiar props. Diapers have been added to extend children's interest in care-giving and exploring the needs of others. The familiar items continue to facilitate discovery related to the materials.
•Skills: creative role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, symbolic representation

Blocks
•Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, wooden doll houses, furniture, peg people, wooden cars
•Rationale: to support children's creativity 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. To continue the already rich social and creative play surrounding building with hollow blocks.
•Skills: large motor development, expressive creation, symbolic representation, cooperative play, problem solving, mathematical thinking

Sensory
•Materials: wet sand, shovels, molds, and buckets
•Rationale: to cooperatively work together while exploring a familiar sensory experience, to emphasize concepts of size, shape, and texture.
•Skills: large and fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, knowledge of conservation, scientific exploration, cooperative play, social relationships building, sharing materials.

Math and Manipulatives
•Materials: pegs and pegboards, puzzles, shape boards, seriation pegs, interlocking cubes, sorting animals
*Rationale: to encourage children to work with open-ended materials where they can develop more complex skills and collaborate to support each other's learning, to encourage beginning mathematical concepts, such as counting, sorting, and patterning. More complex puzzles are added to this area to challenge students' problem solving skill.
•Skills: color recognition, shape recognition, number recognition, seriating (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), matching, one-to-one correspondence, counting, fine motor development.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
•Materials: one primary color (red) at the easel, natural materials for collage, clay, markers, crayons, colored pencils, scissors
•Rationale: to explore with hands and tools to promote sensory awareness, increase fine motor skills, foster social relationships as children observe and work together with their peers, and engage in an in-depth investigation of a basic element of art. A real life object such as an apple will also be added to the area for children to use as inspiration. Highlight one color (red) to begin introducing ideas of different hues and shades.
•Skills: fine motor development (strength, coordination), creativity, symbolic representation, sensory input, color recognition, comparison between shades.

Science
•Materials: cockroaches, beetles, mealworms, salamander, magnifying glasses, light tables with different translucent materials
•Rationale: to support children's curiosity of the natural world around us and to encourage the investigation of nature, to begin understanding the needs of other living things, to offer beginning experiences in color mixing, and guide experimentation with light and different opaque and translucent materials.
•Skills: observation, scientific investigation and inquiry, outdoor/indoor connection

Language and Literacy
•Materials: the writing center has a variety of writing utensils, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, and pictures of children in our classroom
•Rationale: to involve children in writing and the social activity of note and letter writing. To give them the opportunity to create their own stories and writings
•Skills: fine motor, pre-writing, letter recognition
•Materials: the library has books that are reflective of our continuing curricula such as trees, colors, and the growth and development of our bodies
•Rationale: to encourage reading time with friends and teachers, encourage exploration of fiction and nonfiction texts, introduce books as a source of information
•Skills: receptive language, early literacy, listening, and community building

Large Motor
Gym
New gym set up! Will update as soon as I get the update from the set-up team!

Playground
Materials: Shovels, , buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.
-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.
Special Announcements:
*Wednesday, October 12: Visiting an apple orchard! Please arrive at 12:30 so that all children can use the bathroom and board the bus by 12:45.
Rationale: To continue to build a strong community of learners. To draw attention to changes happening around us during the fall, as well as learn about different types of trees and the ways people interact with them.
Skills: Exploration and Inquiry (cycle of learning), cooperation and working together, comparing and contrasting.

Snacks:
Monday: Popcorn and Raisins
Wednesday: Animal Crackers and Apples
Thursday: Applesauce and Granola Bars

WEEKLY LESSON PLAN FOR ROSS' CLASS
Week of: Oct 10-14, 2011
Lead Teaching This Week: Rachel

Overview: The children are really getting into the swing of things and are seeming to enjoy the classroom and all that is in it (including their peers). We have started to explore our topic of "Growth and Change" and have had large group discussions surrounding this topic. To foster our home-school connection we will start looking at trees both at home and at school and discussing and changes we see happening. We have also begun to look at what changes about us as we get older. Look for homework surrounding this theme later this week!

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: primary color paint at the easel, various natural and "beautiful" materials for collage (e.g. wood shavings, pinecones, seed pods, leaves, etc.), markers, crayons, clay (with supportive tools: mallets and wood knives)
• Rationale: Art continues to be a popular spot in the classroom. Many children have been exploring glue as both an adhesive and an art medium. Due to the continued popularity of collage making, we are still asking that materials be brought in and children are invited to continue collecting leaves, pinecones, small rocks and other natural materials.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, foster the home-school connection

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: damp sand, scoops/shovels, buckets, sand molds
• Rationale: After several weeks of pouring and dumping multiple children began to express an interest in building sandcastles. To capitalize on this interest, as well as contribute to our topic of change, we have decided to add damp sand to the area. The physical change from pourable to moldable will allow children different experiences with this medium.
• Skills: large-/fine moor strength, eye-to-hand coordination, math concepts related to volume and geometry, planning skills

Science
• Materials: various critters (tiger salamander, hissing cockroaches, mealworms), magnifying glass, clipboards, feeding charts
• Rationale: Children have continued to show interests in the animals with mealworms being an exciting focus. In order to transition from observing the animals to caring for them, feeding charts will be posted in the area. These charts will let the class know if the animals have been fed yet. We hope to connect our topic of "Growth and Change" to the area through discussions of feeding as well as why living creatures need food.
• Skills: learn about living creatures and how to take care of them, scientific inquiry/investigation, hypothesis creating/testing

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: Children continue to visit and interact within the dramatic play areas. Storylines with numerous children have begun to emerge and have blended with other areas including blocks, language and literacy center and art.
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Montessori stacking pegs, (new) puzzles, multi-colored pegs (with pegboard), sorting/counting animals, sorting trays
• Rationale: Children have been enjoying using the puzzle both independently and cooperatively. We have added some new, more challenging puzzles for those who are ready to move up. We will also continue to explore the sorting/counting animals with teachers prompting the children to think of different ways to sort them. Sorting trays will initially have colors to assist in prompting children, but will later have other sorting themes (e.g. pet vs. farm animals, adult vs. baby, etc).
• Skills: color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classification, matching, opportunities for collaborative problem solving.

Language and Literacy
• Materials: pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, picture labels of all the children
• Rationale: Letter writing continues to be very popular with the children. We are continuing to introduce the concepts of "to" and "from" as the children show a greater interest in the classroom pictures as well as sending letters to peers and family members. Teachers continue to provide support in this area through modeling.
• Skills: pre-/early -literacy skills, letter recognition, introduction to storytelling, fine-motor coordination/endurance (as children's hand muscles grow strong with holding writing utensils)

Blocks
• Materials: large hollow blocks, small multi-shaped unit blocks, peg people, wood houses
• Rationale: Many children have been exploring and building with the blocks. Children are often seen working on structures together. Children have begun to branch out from house building to building more elaborate structures with multiple purposes, such as stadiums and schools.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play

Large Motor
• In the gym: We have a new gym set-up and the focus is on balance. There will be a balance beam for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down as well as cross the top (with teacher assistance, of course). Lastly, we will add scooter boards to encourage core-strength and balance as children ride independently or cooperatively (being towed by a peer)
• On the playground: The bikes are out, the shovels are available, the rakes of constantly in use (thanks to seemingly never-ending supply of falling leaves), and the laughs/shrieks of excitement can be heard the moment we hit the playground! The children are really enjoying their time outside, and utilizing all their major muscle groups (as well as supporting their growing friendships within our class and those formed with the children from Amy's class). With this delightful autumn weather, we will capitalize on it and be outside as much as we can be "hibernation" sets in

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)
• Looking at trees - don't forget to find a tree near your home which the children can watch/document its change. We will be discussing these trees in class and connecting them to our own tree at school.
• Thanks to those who have signed up for conferences....those that haven't, there are still times available!
• Starting this week children will be asked to bring in photos of themselves at different age. These pictures will be displayed and used in explorations/discussions about how we change as we get older - look for more information later this week!
• Creativity Night is almost here. Bring the family and have some fun! Tuesday Oct. 18th from 6-7.30p
• NO SCHOOL - Thursday Oct. 20 and Friday Oct 21

Snack
Monday - Trail mix with dried apples
Tuesday - Baked apples (made with Sheila)
Wednesday - Graham crackers
Thursday - Animal crackers
Friday- Birthday snack made by the children with Christine (Ellie's mom)
* All snacks served with milk and water unless otherwise noted *

Overview
This week we are focusing on our field trip to the Apple orchard! Community, math, science, dramatic play and creative opportunities will be inspired by this field trip, support and expand our current curriculum topics.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Blue, white and black paints, thick brushes and white paper. Sticks, pinecones, acorns, leaves, seeds, glue, and tape. Colored construction paper, colored pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, glue sticks, tape, staplers, and hole punchers.
-Rationale: To continue to investigate color; this time offering the opportunity to create a palette of blues. To provide natural materials to inspire children's creative expression.
-Skills: Observation, self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development.

Sensory
-Materials: Water, cups, pitchers, bottles, funnels, and gutters.
-Rationale: To provide the children with a soothing and familiar sensory experience and to promote social interactions.
-Skills: Experimentation, sensory stimulation and pleasure, beginning to understand the concept of conservation, exploring inclines in the water, taking turns and sharing materials.

Science
-Materials: Tree photos from our playground, places that are close by our school, and from children and teacher's homes. Leaves collected in the playground and our walks. Crabapples collected from nearby trees by the class on another walk. Magnifying glasses and baskets/containers for independent sorting. Poster representations of local trees, their leaves, and their seeds for comparison with physical materials. We will be adding a variety of apples after our field trip on Wednesday. Collected special "treasures" brought by the children (special pinecones, acorn seeds, leaf from a tree close by our homes, etc). We will draw children's attention to special beginning of fall signs when in the playground and taking walks around our school.
-Rationale: To support children's intrinsic curiosity about the world around them. To encourage symbolic representation. To promote children's observation of changes in nature, comparison, and identification abilities.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, symbolic representation, identification, comparison, fine motor, hypothesizing, reasoning about events.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Colored shape sorter/stacker, inset puzzles emphasizing people and animals, interlocking puzzles reflecting people and baby animals. Colors and Shape-Match Me game. Slot-a-rounds, Duplos and laminated leaves on the light table, variety of apples.
-Rationale: Our focus this week will be moving toward matching and sorting (trees and apples) taking advantage of our visit to the apple orchard. Children will have the opportunity to build on their matching skills as they examine leaves on the light table and match them to the ones we found outside. They will also further develop their measuring and ordering skills as they compare shapes and sizes of different apples. We continue to draw children's attention to different kinds of shapes.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, sorting, one-to-one correspondence and whole/part relationships, ordering, fine motor development, creative expression, measurement.

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A variety of writing materials, paper, and envelopes continue to be available. Our library has a wide variety of books about animals, fall, and families. The loft holds a variety of books related to trees. Personalized books will be introduced this week and remain at school throughout the year.
-Rationale: To provide children with many opportunities to enjoy the spoken and written world. To support the children's sense of self and community.
-Skills: Letter recognition, listening and receptive abilities, fine motor control.

Blocks
-Materials: Logs, sticks, cross-sections tree trunk discs, and small wooden pieces. Hollow blocks and unit blocks, small wooden cars, wooden trains.
-Rationale: To support children's creative and problem solving abilities, develop awareness of geometry and allow for opportunities for sharing, turn taking, and social interactions. To reinforce the curriculum of trees inside the classroom and encourage children to incorporate tree elements into their dramatic play.To connect between natural materials we may find outdoors and materials found in the classroom. To foster children's creative expression through building.
-Skills: Construction skills, creative building, dramatic play, symbolic representation, problem solving, cooperation.

Dramatic Play
-Materials: Kitchen with dishes, fruits and veggies, dress up clothes. The cribs, babies and babies' accessories will be by the loft on the lower level. Crabapples that the children picked on Thursday of last week will be added to the loft area in order to facilitate the transformation into a tree/forest. Animal costumes of birds and bears will also be added to enhance the forest theme. The animal cave continues to host puppies and kittens. The big dolls' house with accessories is located by the caves and unit blocks.
-Rationale: To encourage social interactions. To continue to spark an interest in trees and the changes taking place outdoors. To continue to encourage children's expression and of family life by taking/playing on familiar roles. The cave provides a cozy close place that promotes small group interaction, discussions about taking care of animals and conversations about pets.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios

Large Motor
Gym
The focus is on balance. Balance beam for the children to cross to get to the A-frame slide. The landing donut has been removed from the jumping station to encourage/promote the children's dynamic balance (i.e. jumping and landing) as they develop the strength and coordination necessary to land solidly on two feet. The monkey bars will be available - fostering full-body strength/coordination/balance as the children flip themselves upside-down as well as cross the top (with teacher assistance, of course). Lastly, we will add scooter boards to encourage core-strength and balance as children ride independently or cooperatively (being towed by a peer).
Playground
Materials: Shovels, , buckets, bikes, and wagons; climbing structure, monkey bars, slide, swings, logs.
-Rationale: Offer plenty of opportunities for the children to use their big body muscles. Encourage cooperation and social connections through dramatic play. Offer opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and notice and investigate the changes taking place.
-Skills: Running, biking, pedaling, hauling, digging, balancing, jumping, upper body strength, coordination, strength and endurance.

Special Interest
- Large Group: Focus on our classroom as a community of learners and our upcoming field trip. We will continue to build awareness and explore trees by our school and compare these to those by our homes by discussing our pictures of home trees during large group.
- Field trip to the apple orchard.- We will attend a field trip to the apple orchard to integrate our themes of community, trees, and apples!
-Rationale: Focus on our sense of community. Exploration and inquiry of trees both indoors and outdoors
- Skills: Listening, discussing, enjoyment of group activities, cycle of learning (exploration and inquiry), and comparison.

Jenny, Kate, Kristi and Dalia

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM Classroom
Week of October 10th
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, such as focusing on the changing foliage, and begin to wonder how the change of the season is affecting 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: Red, yellow, and green paint. White paper and brushes.
Rationale: To explore the changing fall colors in their surrounding environment. More leaf visuals will be attached to the art easel to promote inspiration. To explore mixing of all colors as well as different design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Branches, leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, beads, buttons, and glue
Rationale: To explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors. A branch will be brought into the classroom and the children will get the opportunity to decorate it with different materials sorted by color.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

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: Cinnamon-scented play dough, Play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, Pretend oven, mixing ingredients like Salt and Oregano.
Rationale:To enhance children's imaginary play. To give the play dough a more realistic scent by adding cinnamon. To promote ideas of baking and eating.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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: turtles, feeding, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin investigating the turtles and holding them. Questioning - are the shell hard or soft? Why is the shell hard? What does it do?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.

**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Ears of corn of various colors, Magnifying glasses, Crab apples, A halved squash, tomato, and crab apple, other fruits and vegetables.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a tomato, crab apple, and squash. To investigate similarities and differences of each vegetable.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, reason, and problem solve

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted questions and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
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 bears, emphasizing the animal's lifestyle 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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, baby food jars, spoons, and high chairs.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative plays, empathy, and turn taking
Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time.
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, and moving trucks, street signs, hollow blocks, ramps, 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, seriating manipulatives, 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: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, 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 - A Frame ladder, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - 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, 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, 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:
Tuesday - class cooking, applesauce muffins
Friday- Apples & saltines

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
Week of October 10th
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, such as focusing on the changing foliage, and begin to wonder how the change of the season is affecting 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: Red, yellow, and green paint. White paper and brushes.
Rationale: To explore the changing fall colors in their surrounding environment. More leaf visuals will be attached to the art easel to promote inspiration. To explore mixing of all colors as well as different design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, symbolic representation, object manipulation, observation

**Materials: Branches, leaves, sticks, string, yarn, pom-poms, ribbon, beads, buttons, and glue
Rationale: To explore natural materials including branches, leaves, and colors. A branch will be brought into the classroom and the children will get the opportunity to decorate it with different materials sorted by color.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, object manipulation, cooperation, turn-taking, social negotiation, brainstorming, problem-solving, and classification

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: Cinnamon-scented play dough, Play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons), Visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, Pretend oven, mixing ingredients like Salt and Oregano.
Rationale:To enhance children's imaginary play. To give the play dough a more realistic scent by adding cinnamon. To promote ideas of baking and eating.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, Familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression and imagination, Social skills (i.e. turn taking)

**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: turtles, feeding, natural materials, terrarium
Rationale: To begin investigating the turtles and holding them. Questioning - are the shell hard or soft? Why is the shell hard? What does it do?
Skills: Observation, ideas, try out.

**Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Ears of corn of various colors, Magnifying glasses, Crab apples, A halved squash, tomato, and crab apple, other fruits and vegetables.
Rationale: To continue to explore the food items at the science center. To observe the insides of a tomato, crab apple, and squash. To investigate similarities and differences of each vegetable.
Skills: Observation, Comparison, Classification, Expressive language, Scientific and higher level thinking, reason, and problem solve

Dramatic Play
**Materials: "bear cave," with stuffed animal bears and materials the children collected from nature, various animal fur, posted questions and books focusing on bears and hibernation.
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 bears, emphasizing the animal's lifestyle 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: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles, blankets), stuffed animals (puppies and bunnies) strollers, bibs, baby food jars, spoons, and high chairs.
Rationale: To continue interest in caring for babies and pets. To explore and incorporate baby and dog food into pretend play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, cooperative plays, empathy, and turn taking
Materials: Bowls, tongs, cardboard graham crackers, pipe cleaner pretzels, basket and napkins
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of using tongs and taking a napkin. To encourage independence during snack time.
Skills: Self-help skills, taking turns, fine motor skills, and independence

**Materials: various dress-up clothes, and moving trucks, street signs, hollow blocks, ramps, 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, seriating manipulatives, 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: foam blocks, hollow and cardboard blocks, planks, 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 - A Frame ladder, slide, jumping station, monkey bars, donut hole, balance mat. Outside - 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, 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, 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 - Animal crackers & milk
Wednesday - Apples & saltines
Thursday - Class cooking, tomato sauce and pasta

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Dramatic Play

Walk

Large Group

Sensory

Art

Science

Walk

Large Group

Math and Manipulatives

Dramatic Play

Art

Large Group

Weekly Lesson Plan for Ross' Class
October 3-7, 2011
Lead Teaching These Weeks: Team teaching

Overview: The year is underway and the children are quickly settling into the routines of the daily schedule. With the excitement of a new year, new friendships are forming fast while existing relationships are picking up where they seemingly left off! The children have also been very interested in the materials around the room. To help the children visit the different areas and become familiar with all the materials, the teachers are intentionally placing the children in areas after large group for what we are calling "activity time." The purpose of activity time is to increase intentionality with the materials in the room -- at times inviting children to revisit a topic/idea/activity from the day before; others times to introduce/highlight a new focus in the room, help foster social relationships, or help children become aware of the other areas/materials they may not typically choose during free-play. The children have responded positively thus far, sometimes staying actively engaged for most/all of free-play! As we continue into the fall session, we are going to explore the topic of "Growth and Change:" looking at how many things in the natural world do exactly that (i.e. people, animals, plants, insects, seasons, etc.). We will start exploring this topic this week, looking closely at ourselves, trees, and possibly the insects (due to the booming interest at the end of last week). Be sure to talk with your child about what they are doing each day (and use the lesson plan to help guide your conversations), as these discussions will help foster the home-school connection, and help them recall the details of their day.

Expressive Arts (paint, collage, clay)
• Materials: primary color paint at the easel, various natural and "beautiful" materials for collage (e.g. wood shavings, pinecones, seed pods, leaves, etc.) collected by the children, markers, crayons, clay (with supportive tools: mallets and wood knives)
• Rationale: The children have been very active in the art center! Last week, they made collages with the different natural materials and gained a strong interest in the glue - even using it as a medium itself! Due to the amount of collage making, we are quickly running out of natural materials. To foster the home-school connection we invite the child to collect and bring in leaves, seed pods, pine cones, and small rocks around their home.
• Skills: color recognition, creativity, fine-motor strength/coordination, artistic expression, symbolic representation, social skills, foster the home-school connection.

Sensory (sand table)
• Materials: sand, scoops/shovels, funnels, and various shaped containers - same size containers with different scoop sizes and same size scoops with differing container sizes.
• Rationale: The sand was a definite hit last week! Children continued to come back to the area day after day and began exploring different ways to fill containers. Some counted the number of scoops while others came up with new techniques for filling. By continuing on this trend and controlling one variable we hope the children will begin to notice connections between size (volume) and number of scoops. Again, this area allows for children to interact and work cooperatively while counting/filling containers.
• Skills: large-/fine-motor strength, eye-to-hand coordination, math conceptions related to counting/measurement/comparing-contrasting, fostering new/existing social relationships

Science
• Materials: Various critters (tiger salamander, hissing cockroaches, mealworms), magnifying glass, and clipboards.
• Rationale: Throughout the week the children observed the animals, and action in the mealworm bin took off! We had many "investigators" learning about these fascinating creatures. To help strengthen interest and inquiry as well as allow for a better understanding of these animals, we will take a closer look at how to properly care for them as well as learn more about how they grow and change.
• Skills: Learn about living creatures and how to take care them, scientific inquiry/investigation, hypothesis creating/testing

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 has seen many visitors and has helped facilitate many dramatic play storylines. We will continue to facilitate play in this area, intentionally inviting new members to join play to help children build new relationships as well as promote the skills related to initiating social interactions with peers
• Skills: imaginative/creative play, symbolic representation, fostering social relationships

Math and Manipulatives
• Materials: Montessori stacking pegs, (new) puzzles, multi-colored pegs (with pegboard), and sorting/counting animals)
• Rationale: these open-ended materials allow the children to sort, order, and arrange the materials in various ways. The introduction of new puzzles allows children to continue to expand and develop puzzle solving strategies, while the introduction of the more standardized sorting/counting animals allows children to continue to expand on a budding interest in patterns as well as classification skills. The nature of the materials allows for children to work together and collaborate on activities - this increases our sense of classroom community.
• Skills: color recognition, seriation (i.e. stacking highest to lowest), patterning, counting, one-to-one correspondence, sorting/classification, opportunities for collaborative problem solving

Language and Literacy
• Materials: pencils, markers, paper, envelopes, staplers, tape, picture labels of all the children
• Rationale: We have observed many children writing letters to the teachers as well as to one another, and to support this interest as well as help with "addressing" their notes to others, we will had copies of everyone's picture (from the picture page) to an organizer at the writing table. The teachers will model how to use the pictures to show whom the note is to/from.
• 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, peg people, wood houses
• Rationale: The block area has transformed each day into a busy building area: see the building of many houses (some very long, some tall, and a few very short!). These houses have promoted strong opportunities for children to work collaboratively as well as make new friends! The unit blocks have provided similar support, allowing the children to build houses on a smaller scale and use the peg people to act out different "coming to school" and "house" play themes. We anticipate lots more building this week!
• Skills: large-/fine-motor skills, symbolic representation, concepts of balance, counting, comparing/contrasting skills, social relationships, opportunities for endless dramatic play

Large Motor
• Materials: in the GYM: A-frame slide, jumping station with padded donut landing zone, monkey bars, climbing wall, monkey bars, trampoline
on the PLAYGROUND: climber, slides, swings, buckets, shovels, and (possibly) tricycles
• Rationale: The children have really enjoyed the gym, and we are figuring out our gym schedule day-by-day. Be sure to have your child check the "Gym Chart" on the day to see if it is their morning to go to the gym before large group (the group in the manila section) or stay in the classroom (the group in the white section). We have been playing many name games in the gym to help foster our growing sense of community and are seeing it carry over to the playground - with many children finding each other outside to play on the playground. We will continue these games as well as introduce new activities to continue building community while challenging the children's physical skills!
• 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

Special Interest (large group, music, cooking, fire drill, etc)
• Family picture page - for those that have yet to bring it, please do so this week.
• PAC meeting Monday night from 7-8.30p. Your ideas/voice matter, and these meetings help keep our school moving forward! Hope to see you there.
• The Fall Conference sign-up sheet will be posted on the day please be sure to stop in (or email me) and sign up for a time to meet. Again, the purpose of this conference is to set goals for your child for the upcoming year. Please arrange childcare as necessary.

Snack
Monday - Animal crackers
Tuesday - Graham crackers
Wednesday - Wheat thins
Thursday - Applesauce (made by children with Ross!)
Friday- Popcorn (made by the children)
*All snacks served with milk/water unless otherwise noted*

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 2AM 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, crayons, markers, stickers.
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping.
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

**Materials: Red and yellow paint, paint brushes, white paper, leaf visuals.
Rationale: To explore the changing colors in their surrounding environment. Leaf visuals will be attached to the art easel to provide representation, imagery, and inspiration. To explore mixing of the two colors as well as different design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, imagination, problem solving, curiosity, decision making, sensory input, observation, and comparison.

**Materials: Cinnamon-scented play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons),visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, and pretend oven
Rationale: To promote ideas of baking and eating. To add materials specific to baking and enhance children's imaginary play. To give the play dough a more realistic scent by adding cinnamon.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression, imagination, Social skills, turn taking

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.
Rational: 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: Our Turtles, Tuck and Rainbow. Magnifying glasses.
Rationale: To observe the turtles in the terrarium using magnifying glasses. To continue discussing how to care for these pets as a class: What do they eat? How do we hold them? How do they clean themselves?
Skills: Observation, prediction, ideas, try out, and comparison.

** Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Various colors of maize, Magnifying glasses, Visuals of gourds, tomatoes, and squash
Rationale: To continue interest and curiosity in tomatoes after discovering both ripe and unripe tomatoes in the garden on the playground. To spur interest in fall season and harvest items, such as gourds and pumpkins. To explore the different colors, sizes, shapes, and textures we see in different varieties.
Skills:Observation skills, Comparison skills, Classification skills, Expressive language skills, Scientific and higher level thinking skills, reason, and problem solve

Dramatic Play
**Materials: Animal smocks and scarves.
Rationale: To encourage creative expression and role play. To explore and discuss different textures of fabric.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and role play.

**Materials: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles), pets (puppies and bunnies), dog food tray, dog food, and visuals of pets and babies.
Rationale: To stimulate pretend play with familiar household pets. To encourage social interaction between peers and teachers. To provide opportunities to learn about caring for another living animal. To support cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, and cooperative play.

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen items, furniture, plastic food, gourds, tongs, puffballs, and bowl.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To simulate snack time experience and practice using tongs to grab snack.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, Fine motor skills and independence

**Materials: Wooden cars, dump trucks, and street signs.
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, 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.

**Materials: Leaves of multiple varieties and colors, color coded sheets of construction paper.
Rationale: To observe the differences and similarities between the leaves. To sort the leaves by color and discuss some of their identifying features.
Skills: Problem solving, collaboration, color recognition, sorting, grouping, following directions, mathematical thinking, reasoning.

**Materials: Baskets with color lining, visual color representation, written color name.
Rationale: To provide opportunitites to lean how to clean up and help sort items in the classroom. To learn color recognition and classification skills and provide direct instruction and visual aids.
Skills: Color Recognition, Grouping, Sorting, Self help skills, problem solving, reasoning.

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 caretaking and vehicles.
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, A-Frame Ladder, slide, and jumping donut. 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, discussion about taking care of self - hand washing.
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:
Tuesday: Graham crackers and milk.
Friday: Pretzels and milk.

Lesson Plan-Ayuko's 3AM Classroom
Week of October 3rd
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, crayons, markers, stickers.
Rationale: To promote fine motor skills of cutting and snipping.
Skills: fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, persistence, creative expression.

**Materials: Red and yellow paint, paint brushes, white paper, leaf visuals.
Rationale: To explore the changing colors in their surrounding environment. Leaf visuals will be attached to the art easel to provide representation, imagery, and inspiration. To explore mixing of the two colors as well as different design elements including brush stroke, paint application, and pattern making.
Skills: Fine motor skills, creative expression, imagination, problem solving, curiosity, decision making, sensory input, observation, and comparison.

**Materials: Cinnamon-scented play dough, play dough tools (cookie cutters, muffin trays, garlic presses, rolling pins, pizza cutters, mixing bowls, wooden spoons),visuals of people baking pies, pizzas, cupcakes, and muffins at eye level near the play dough table, and pretend oven
Rationale: To promote ideas of baking and eating. To add materials specific to baking and enhance children's imaginary play. To give the play dough a more realistic scent by adding cinnamon.
Skills: Symbolic representation, Fine motor skills, familiarity with play dough and its properties, Observation, Creative expression, imagination, Social skills, turn taking

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.
Rational: 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: Our Turtles, Tuck and Rainbow. Magnifying glasses.
Rationale: To observe the turtles in the terrarium using magnifying glasses. To continue discussing how to care for these pets as a class: What do they eat? How do we hold them? How do they clean themselves?
Skills: Observation, prediction, ideas, try out, and comparison.

** Materials: Gourds and squash that vary in color, size, shape, and texture, Tomatoes that vary in color, size, and shape, Various colors of maize, Magnifying glasses, Visuals of gourds, tomatoes, and squash
Rationale: To continue interest and curiosity in tomatoes after discovering both ripe and unripe tomatoes in the garden on the playground. To spur interest in fall season and harvest items, such as gourds and pumpkins. To explore the different colors, sizes, shapes, and textures we see in different varieties.
Skills:Observation skills, Comparison skills, Classification skills, Expressive language skills, Scientific and higher level thinking skills, reason, and problem solve

Dramatic Play
**Materials: Animal smocks and scarves.
Rationale: To encourage creative expression and role play. To explore and discuss different textures of fabric.
Skills: Sensory input, creative expression, and role play.

**Materials: Baby dolls, baby items (clothes, bottles, rattles), pets (puppies and bunnies), dog food tray, dog food, and visuals of pets and babies.
Rationale: To stimulate pretend play with familiar household pets. To encourage social interaction between peers and teachers. To provide opportunities to learn about caring for another living animal. To support cooperative play.
Skills: Communication, social skills, role play, symbolic representation, and cooperative play.

**Materials: Familiar household kitchen items, furniture, plastic food, gourds, tongs, puffballs, and bowl.
Rationale: To support pretend play, symbolic play, foster social interaction and cooperative play. To simulate snack time experience and practice using tongs to grab snack.
Skills: Communication, cooperation, turn taking, role play, symbolic representation, Fine motor skills and independence

**Materials: Wooden cars, dump trucks, and street signs.
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, 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.

**Materials: Leaves of multiple varieties and colors, color coded sheets of construction paper.
Rationale: To observe the differences and similarities between the leaves. To sort the leaves by color and discuss some of their identifying features.
Skills: Problem solving, collaboration, color recognition, sorting, grouping, following directions, mathematical thinking, reasoning.

**Materials: Baskets with color lining, visual color representation, written color name.
Rationale: To provide opportunitites to lean how to clean up and help sort items in the classroom. To learn color recognition and classification skills and provide direct instruction and visual aids.
Skills: Color Recognition, Grouping, Sorting, Self help skills, problem solving, reasoning.

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 caretaking and vehicles.
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, A-Frame Ladder, slide, and jumping donut. 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, discussion about taking care of self - hand washing.
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: Graham crackers and milk.
Wednesday: Apple sauce and milk.
Thursday: Birthday snack, pretzels and milk.

Overview
This week will focus on building collective awareness of the topics apples and trees. Not only will we set up the environment to support exploration of these topics, we are also planning special activities to help continue the process of building classroom community. On Wednesday we will walk around the school to look at the wide variety of trees and changing leaves. The children will collect natural materials along the way then use them to create a collaborative collage.

Expressive Arts
-Materials: Red, white and black paint. Collection of natural materials from walk. Additionally, there are a variety of open-ended art materials that are always available for self-expression.
-Rationale: We will encourage the children to mix red with white and black paint to begin an exploration of "how many reds we can make." The children will use the natural materials they gather on Wednesdays walk to create a collaborative collage to display in the classroom.
-Skills: Self-expression, creative risk-taking, fine motor development

Sensory
-Materials: Water, cups, pitchers, bottles, and funnels
-Rationale: These materials have contributed to great social interactions at the water table. The children talk about what they are doing and share materials. One of their favorite activities is to work together to fill the largest containers.
-Skills: Experimentation, sensory stimulation and pleasure, fluency with objects, and beginning understanding of the concept of conservation

Science
-Materials: Natural materials related to trees that the children have gathered, photographs of trees and their parts, magnifying glasses, apples brought in from home by the children, small bins for sorting, clipboards and pencils for recording observations; thought provoking open-ended questions posted about the pictures and materials in the area.
-Rationale: It is important for the children to feel a personal connection to the materials they are investigating. By using self-selected items they are naturally more inclined to examine them more closely and talk about their observations. This active exploration will encourage greater interest in the natural world and questioning that can lead to deeper learning.
-Skills: Observation, inquiry, sorting, hypothesizing, beginning understanding of measuring/comparing dimensions, expressing ideas, asking questions, and reasoning about events.

Math and Manipulatives
-Materials: Amy's Class Bingo, colored shape sorter/stacker, inset puzzles emphasizing color/shape, interlocking puzzles reflecting new themes of trees and apples, color and shape matching game, slot-a-rounds, duplos
-Rationale: We are introducing a Amy's Class bingo game that incorporates the children's names and faces. This will foster classroom connections by helping the children continue to learn each other's names.
-Skills: Color and shape recognition, matching, one to one correspondence, whole/part relationships, games with rules, and fine motor development

Language and Literacy
-Materials: A new variety of apple books set out in our classroom library as well as continuing with a variety of writing implements such as paper, envelopes, and a posting of upper and lower case alphabet.
-Rationale: Fiction and non-fiction books related to apples will provide opportunities for conversation as well as provide factual information.
-Skills: letter recognition, asking questions, fine motor, listening and receptive skills, expressive language and communication

Blocks
-Materials: Hollow blocks and unit blocks with small wooden cars. Long planks and cove molding for ramp building.
-Rationale: A wider variety of ramp building materials will support the children's interest in creating ramp systems and racetracks for their cars. Communal building with hollow blocks encourages cooperation.
-Skills: Construction skills, dramatic play, symbolic representation, creative problem solving, physical knowledge of inclined planes

Dramatic Play
-Materials: In the loft we added costumes and fabrics to represent animals that live in trees, blankets and pillows in greens and fall colors, books about trees including some with beautiful photography of trees.
-Rationale: With the changing of the seasons, the children have started to show an interest in the trees and leaves outside. By providing these "tree-inspired" materials in the loft area, we hope to inspire the children to bring their ideas about trees inside by expressing it in their dramatic play.
-Skills: Role-play, peer interaction, social problem solving, creating imaginary scenarios, creative risk-taking, large motor development, fine motor development (when creating props)

Large Motor
-Materials: Slide climber, wall mounted ladders, monkey bars, mini-trampoline, and jumping station. The playground will be set up with shovels, buckets, bikes, and wagons. On the playground we will also encourage exploration of the natural areas and draw children's attention to the vegetable garden, plant and animal life.
-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.

Snack
Monday - Animal crackers & milk
Tuesday - Graham crackers & milk
Wednesday - Saltines & Sunbutter
Thursday - Pretzels & raisins
Friday- Apple crisp & milk