Tag Archives: early learning

Springing Forward and Springing Up

“Growth is not merely an increase in size, but a transformation.” ~Maria Montessori

By Alex Chiu

Hopefully, we can say with confidence that spring is finally here. After quite a crazy winter and the late arrival of spring-like weather, we seem to be moving toward warmer temperatures, budding trees, and greening grass. And just as the seasons have changed, so have the children in their Montessori classrooms.

What can you expect from your child this spring? And what can you do to keep their growth springing forward in a positive direction? Let’s take a look at the different age groupings to find out.

2 ½ – 3 ½ Year Olds
With eight months of school behind them, the toddlers and younger preschoolers are showing more independence. You might start hearing the phrase “I can do it myself” much more often. If you do, the very best way to respond is to allow your child to make attempts at doing more things by him or herself! From putting on their own coats and shoes to cleaning up toys to pouring a drink, allowing your children the time to do these tasks independently further encourages their confidence in their own abilities and helps to motivate them to learn to do more and more on their own. You will likely notice that your children are more adept at communicating their needs, and that they have had a ‘language explosion’ in terms of vocabulary and speech. Continue to foster this development by engaging in conversations, commenting on the things you see when you are walking or driving, and of course, reading together on a daily basis.

4 and 5 Year Olds
These students are likely starting to take on more responsibilities in their Montessori classrooms. They might be helping younger children with lessons or doing more to keep the classroom in order. Having had the older role models ahead of them has provided this group of students with a map for what their role will be in the coming school year. They are aware that they are now among the older more experienced classmates, and they rise to the occasion of helping others as needed. At home, provide your 4- and 5-year-olds with opportunities to help you plan, shop for, and prepare a family meal, organize the games or activities when friends come to play, or choose a family outing. This group is also deep into their friendship development, so encourage that further by inviting a friend or small groups of friends to get together during the summer to play, attend a free outdoor community concert, or visit the library together.

Kindergartners
The Kindergarten students may find themselves feeling some mixed emotions at this time of year. They are generally excited about their upperclassmen status, having worked through the complete 3-year cycle in their Montessori classroom. They are the leaders, the role models, and what the younger students aspire to be. They have learned a wealth of academic information, grown in confidence, gained leadership skills, and developed deep friendships and connections with their classmates and teachers. At the same time, they may be feeling nostalgic and a little apprehensive to leave this warm, safe, familiar environment. If they are moving on to a different type of school for first grade, the unknowns may be tugging at them—Who will be in my class? What are the expectations? These and other questions or concerns may be addressed by reaching out to your child’s new school for the upcoming year and asking if they might be able to take a tour. Looking around your neighborhood, you might see potential new classmates and have your child start developing those friendships during the summer through casual playground get-togethers. For those children who will continue their Montessori journey in Montessori Elementary, they likely will have the opportunity to visit their new classroom and meet with current Lower Elementary students. Being able to see what lies ahead may help these graduating Kindergartners feel more at ease with the transition that is approaching for the next school year. Don’t forget to celebrate their Kindergarten graduation as it is indeed a milestone worthy of recognition. These children have worked hard for the past three years on their academic, social, and emotional development, and what they have achieved is worthy of celebration!

Elementary
By springtime, the Elementary students are using the skills they have acquired to extend their knowledge and dig deeper into their various areas of academic study. While some students experience ‘spring fever’ or ‘senior slump’ with a lackluster attitude toward school as summer vacation approaches, we find that most Montessori students continue to approach their school days with anticipation and excitement. The Montessori materials provide continuous learning opportunities and grow with students, moving them ever forward from concrete to abstract thinking and from simple to complex concepts. Each day is a new day for discoveries, and the Elementary groups are not done yet! Elementary students have made the adjustments needed to thrive in their classroom setting. They understand the Elementary level expectations and have worked with their teachers and peers to develop time management skills. They have had the opportunity to do both independent and collaborative work, building skill sets with each of these types of learning. Moving into the summer, parents might encourage their Elementary students to create a reading list, with titles of books that span a variety of genres. Perhaps your Elementary child might like to further research an area that he or she found most interesting during the school year and take it to yet another level of learning. A family field trip to enhance this makes an especially nice summer activity. And just as with the toddlers who have moved onto declaring “I can do it myself”, your Elementary children will surely want to show you the added independence that they have in their new stage of development. Encourage them to take on more responsibilities at home. Invite them into deeper conversations about current events. These students are growing in their personal confidence and opinions, so it’s a perfect time to allow them to share their ideas, and teach them how to do that in a respectful, thoughtful manner which will serve them well throughout their maturation.

Family Dynamics
As your children grow and reach different milestones and stages of development, your family dynamic may shift a bit or require some adjustments. Keeping true to core family values is important. However, how you interact with your children and what you do to uphold what is important to your family could require some changes. For example, as your children grow, the vocabulary you use should grow with them. The responsibilities you place on your children can increase, and the conversations and ways of letting loose and having fun might become different. Being aware of how your children are growing and developing will help you help them to continue springing forward into the wonderful beings that they are and will continue to be as they grow in their knowledge, independence, responsibility, commitment to service, and love of learning and life. After all, each one of us continues to spring up and spring forward through each season of life!

Balanced Literacy in a Montessori Classroom

By Imelda McShane with Alex Chiu

Balanced literacy contains both spoken and written components. The foundation for language learning is hearing and imitating sounds, listening to words, understanding the meaning of words and sentences, and being able to use words to communicate. At The Montessori Children’s Academy, we teach the children who are ready to read by using a phonetic approach that demonstrates how words are made up of sounds, which is later supplemented by sight-reading strategies. Learning to read starts with phonics in Montessori schools because we understand that reading is essentially the decoding of the individual sounds of a word, and connections are made among speaking, reading, and writing in all areas of the curriculum right from the start to promote balanced literacy.

Many preschool children may already have mastered the names of the letters by the time they come to school. They know their ABCs from the Alphabet Song which uses the names of the letters and which we all know very well. When young children enter a Montessori classroom, they then are introduced to the sounds the letters make. For example, “A” says the sound “a” as in “cat”. This is a new concept for most preschoolers, and as their interest in the Language area of the classroom grows, they become engrossed in the various materials that facilitate their reading, writing, and general language skills.

The first of the Montessori materials used to help teach the sounds of letters are the Sandpaper Letters. These materials consist of 26 individual flat, thin wooden boards, each with a lower case letter made of sandpaper attached to one side of the board. Consonants are on pink boards and vowels are on blue boards. The Sandpaper Letters are kept in boxes containing 4 or 5 letters, chosen because of their differing sounds and shapes. For example, the first box a child would be introduced to includes the sounds “b”, “m”, “s”, and “t”. Each letter’s shape and sound is quite distinct from the others in the box, promoting an easier differentiation for the child.

Using these materials, children learn to recognize the symbols of the letters, associate the phonetic sounds with the letters, and make a tactile connection between the sounds and the formation of the letters. Montessori teachers show the child how to trace the Sandpaper Letter with one finger. While the child traces the letter, the teacher will repeat the phonetic sound of the letter. The child is encouraged to repeat the sound. An extension of this work is to have the child write the letter in a shallow tray filled with sand. The child is invited to form the letter in the sand, and if dissatisfied, the letter can easily be ‘erased’ by gentle smoothing the sand so the child can try again and again. These activities are direct preparation for writing because they give the children practice in the movement used for making the letter, which they will do with pencil and paper in the future.

Recently, in one of our MCA preschool classrooms, the children used crayons to trace letters written first by a teacher in pencil on a piece of paper. After tracing the letters, the children could choose stamps with pictures of objects that begin with those letters to illustrate their papers, for example using a stamp of a “rose” for the sound “r” or a stamp of a “monkey” for the sound “m”. Students have also used watercolors to paint turkeys and hats representing the sounds of “t” and “h”. Using a small pin punch tool, the children pin punched the outlines of the shapes of pumpkins and cats on construction paper to help them learn the sounds “p” and “c”. While studying invertebrates, the children had the opportunity to match different sounds with different types of invertebrates. Montessori classes perform many activities like this to reinforce the sounds across curriculum areas.

Another fun way to work with sounds is to play an “I Spy” sort of game. During circle time, some teachers, when calling children to choose work, line up, or get their coats, will often say, “If your name begins with the sound “d”, you may get your coat.” Parents can play this in the car or at home too, as it is an enjoyable way to incorporate learning sounds throughout the day.

Once the children have mastered many of the sounds, they begin working with another Montessori material – the Movable Alphabet. The Moveable Alphabet is a box containing small, lowercase letters of the full alphabet. Consonants are usually red and vowels are usually blue for the children to easily distinguish. The activity is done on a mat on the floor with a set of phonetic objects (for example, a hat, a cat, a rat, etc.). One of the objects is laid down on the mat, and the child is asked to identify the object. When the child names the object, he or she is then invited to listen for the first sound he or she hears when saying the word. The child then finds the letter that represents that first phonetic sound from the Moveable Alphabet box and places it beside the object on the mat. The child and teacher will repeat the word again, “h-a-t”, slowly so the child can hear each of the sounds used to make the word, and the child chooses each of the corresponding letters to spell the word on the mat. The fact that this reading activity requires manipulation of material is important because the child is still at an age where he or she learns a great deal through the use of the hands. The objects also are very inviting and draw the children to choose this activity in the classroom.

After the children have learned to spell out the words “hat”, “cat”, “bat”, etc. using the Moveable Alphabet, they read what they have laid out to a teacher; thereby moving from building the word with the Moveable Alphabet letters to reading the word out loud. The children will continue in this way building many words using all of the vowels in the box, and progressing from simpler words to more challenging ones, as they are ready.

To continue their work in putting sounds together, the children progress through the Montessori Pink, Blue, and Green Language Boxes. In one of the first Montessori reading exercises, the Pink Reading Boxes, the child matches small pictures with simple, phonetic words printed on cards. At first, this exercise involves three-letter words with short vowel sounds. Later, in the Blue and Green levels, four or five letter words such as “stamp”, “flag”, “crab”, etc. are introduced. These are called blends. There are many such pictures in the classroom, so that a variety of work is always available. The children are introduced to basic sight words and eventually reading phonetic sentences.

One way to enhance the Language curriculum in a Montessori classroom is with an activity known as “Sharing the Pen.” An example of this activity was observed recently when an MCA teacher drew a place setting on a large piece of paper. The children were asked to choose an object from the place setting picture and come to the paper and write the sounds they could hear when saying the name of the object. One child wrote “plt” on the picture of the dinner plate. Each child was allowed a turn to “share the pen.” The children look forward to activities such as this, and they are able to see how language is part of everything that they do.

Another important component of the Montessori Language curriculum is literature. Literature is part of every school day. Reading and class discussion are woven into every aspect of the MCA curriculum. Through their continuous exposure to literature, children build a wide vocabulary, gain a better understanding of the function of words, and learn to communicate and express themselves better, both orally and in writing. One recent literature lesson at MCA involved the book 10 Black Dots by Donald Crews. The author wrote, “One dot can make a sun, two dots can make the eyes of a fox, and three dots can make a snowman’s face.” The children were asked what they would do with 10 black dots. One child wrote, “Four dots for the flowers in my dad’s garden.” Another child wrote, “Two dots are for yummy chocolate chip cookies,” while still another one wrote, “10 dots can make a necklace for my mom.” Even the youngest students participated by illustrating pictures and dictating their stories to a teacher.

MCA students engage in language across all areas of the curriculum. Music and art connect to their Language learning, too. For Thanksgiving, some of our children wrote what they were thankful for on leaves with crayons and used watercolors to paint over them. In December, other students talked about their own holiday traditions and read holiday stories with a theme of gifts from the heart. The children then wrote cards to the parents expressing a gift such as love, joy, kindness, etc. Recently, a class read the book The Wonder of Hands by Edith Baer, which illustrates the many wonderful things hands can do. This book inspired much discussion about the varied things that hands could be used for, after which the children wrote about what their own hands can do. For example, one child wrote, “I can make a heart with my hands to show love,” while another wrote “I can hold my friend’s hand with my hand.” Throughout all seasons of the year, the children are exposed to poems and stories related to holidays, seasons, and current classroom themes, all contributing to their Language learning.

The goal of a developmentally appropriate classroom is to accept the children where they are and take them forward on their literacy journey. Montessori classrooms especially help guide children on this journey through a variety of activities and with specifically crafted materials that facilitate their language growth. A balanced literacy program, such as what you will find in MCA’s classrooms, helps to ignite the excitement of language learning and light the way for children’s development in this area.

Reflections at The Montessori Children’s Academy

As we enter this new year, we thought we’d take a look back at just some of the MCA special events and highlights from September through December. In just a few short months, the children have experienced so much both inside and outside of the classroom. Reflecting upon the fall 2017 semester, we are filled with gratitude for the opportunity to work with our MCA children and families, as well as with others in our local areas and the broader Montessori community. As we look forward to what 2018 holds, we are filled with hope and anticipation
for all that we are yet to discover and achieve together!

Commemorating the International Day of Peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall Harvest Family Fun Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit from Our Local Firefighters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating Diwali

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Music

 

Picasso Studies

                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elementary Study of Atoms

 

 

 

 

 

MCA’s Disaster Relief Bake Sale to Support Montessori Communities in Puerto Rico

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paws of War Assembly with Jason and Dixie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working Around the Classroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gingerbread Decorating

Looking ahead to 2018…

Promoting a Lifetime of Healthy Habits at MCA

 

By Polly Bliss with Alex Chiu

“Teaching health class is my favorite time of the day at MCA. The hand washing and vegetable songs are music to my ears, and I enjoy the great questions and funny, honest comments your children make during class. If you have Diet Coke for breakfast, I may hear about it!” ~ Nurse Bliss

Health lessons at The Montessori Children’s Academy (MCA) are based on five simple principals that are the same whether your child is in our Preschool, Kindergarten, or Elementary Program.

They include:

1. Washing your hands, brushing your teeth, and taking care of your body.
2. Practicing safety.
3. Taking a deep breath.
4. Eating more fruits and vegetables.
5. Exercising.

Every day, we should all be doing these five simple things.

1. Wash Your Hands! Brush Your Teeth! Take Care of Your Body!

The simple act of washing hands prevents us from getting sick and stops the transmission of illnesses. We encourage the children to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom, before they eat or prepare food, and when they come in from playing outside. The first thing children should do when they get home from school is wash their hands.
A Practical Life lesson MCA preschool students learn in Health Class is how to use a tissue, and children are reminded to keep fingers out of their noses and mouths. A favorite lesson is titled “Germs are Not for Sharing.” Using a spray bottle, we dramatically demonstrate what happens when sneezes and coughs aren’t covered—the children do NOT like to get sprayed with the pretend germs, and they quickly learn to use an elbow to catch their coughs and sneezes to protect themselves and others. In the Elementary Program, we take the topic of hand washing further by discussing viruses and germs and the many ways our immune system protects us.
In the fall, our preschool lessons also focus on body parts and how each body part has a specific job to do. We discuss ways to keep all of our body parts healthy and working properly. At the Elementary level, we discuss each body system, how the body systems work together, and ways to keep each body system functioning for optimal health. Later in the year, during Dental Health Month, students learn all about teeth and how important it is to keep teeth clean by brushing twice a day and flossing once a day. A local dentist and hygienist visit our classrooms for a fun, interactive dental health lesson, as well.

2. Practice Safety!

In winter, Health lessons focus on what to do in emergencies and calling 911. We talk about what an emergency is and what an emergency isn’t. Students are given different scenarios, and they must decide if it’s an emergency or not. They also learn to call 911. This is a tricky lesson because children cannot practice actually making the call to 911. However, as fewer of us have land lines in our homes, it’s important that children know how to use cellular telephones, so students should practice unlocking the phone, choosing a name to call from the contact list, or accessing the keypad–these are essential skills needed to call 911 in an emergency. Our Elementary lessons also focus on personal safety. After this lesson, you may find that your children remind you, their parents, not to text and drive or cross the street while looking down at your phone!
Poison Prevention Month in January provides us with the opportunity to teach the students about things that are good for our bodies and things that are bad for our bodies and that could hurt us. Students are introduced to a basket of poisons, such as cleaners, laundry detergent pods, dishwasher pods, and medicine, and in Health Class, they discuss the many things children should not touch or put in their mouths. At home, please remember to keep all poisons out of sight and out of reach. Elementary students also discuss medicine, both prescription and over the counter medicine, and they are taught how important it is to read directions and to take the proper prescribed dose. Students are reminded that a safe adult should always administer medicine to them rather than the children taking the medicine on their own.

Later in the year, during the month of May, our safety lessons focus on staying safe around water and the importance of wearing sunscreen. Students often end up reminding their parents to apply sunscreen, which is a wonderful way to see how they have internalized these important lessons!

3. Take a Deep Breath!

Throughout the year, and in every Health Class, students practice taking three deep breaths. The children learn to breathe in through their noses, the body part that warms and filters the air before it comes into our bodies. They learn to sit up, let their shoulders drop, and let their stomachs go out when they take a deep breath. We discuss how breathing is a great tool that can help us calm ourselves, and the children come to understand how breathing helps to flood our brains with oxygen so we can think better. In Elementary, students also use deep breathing as a strategy to calm their nervous systems, de-stress, and refocus their attention to the task at hand.

4. Eat More Fruits and Vegetables!

To introduce nutrition, preschoolers explore a basket of colorful fruits and vegetables and are invited to form a rainbow with the produce. They learn that each different colored fruit and vegetable has different health benefits. For example, blueberries are brain food, naturally red food is good for your stomach, naturally green food keeps your insides clean and builds strong muscles, naturally orange foods are good for your eyes, and naturally yellow foods are good for your lungs, while white vegetables are great for fighting germs. We also discuss the food plate and how important it is to eat a variety of foods.

It doesn’t matter what diet you follow at home, our health lessons at MCA focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and less junk food. Fruits and vegetables are nature’s multivitamins that come in a form our bodies can immediately recognize, absorb, and digest. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with healthy fiber. We encourage you to send fruits and vegetables for your child’s snack and lunch. If you have a picky eater, there are some strategies you could try to help your child incorporate a wider variety of healthy foods into his or her diet. If your child will only eat vegetables dipped in something or covered with cheese, that is a really great start in developing healthy eating habits. If your child is hungry after school, offer vegetables first. Have vegetables prepared when you are making dinner or setting the table so your children are free to munch on them. Choose different colors, shapes, and textures and let your child pick out new fruits and vegetables to try when you go food shopping.

In Health Class we refer to fruits, vegetables, and healthy whole foods as “go foods”, which are foods that our bodies need to stay healthy and foods that we should eat a lot of each day. “Go foods” also are foods that our bodies immediately recognize and can easily digest. Whole and natural foods have more nutrition in their natural, minimally processed state. At school, we call junk foods “whoa foods,” and these include foods that are loaded with chemicals, sugar, food coloring, preservatives, and anything hydrogenated. Our bodies aren’t designed to digest “whoa foods”. In fact, many foods we consume today wouldn’t have even been considered food 100 years ago. And sugar certainly wasn’t added to practically everything either. Our bodies don’t know how to digest highly processed foods and foods loaded with chemicals and preservatives. “Whoa foods” take much longer to move through our digestive system and since they stay in our bodies longer, it’s no wonder why obesity and chronic illnesses are on the rise.

Our MCA students learn that they should eat “go foods” most of the time and have “whoa foods” every once in a while. If you do choose processed food items, (which are usually the foods you find in the center aisles of the supermarkets), try to keep the number of ingredients listed on the packaging to under five. Another good rule of thumb as you shop is if you can’t pronounce an ingredient on the package, it’s probably not good for you. Also, if you lose count trying to count the number of ingredients, it’s not good for you, and if it will stay fresh for a year, it’s not good for you. You might also keep in mind that if your preschooler can reach a breakfast cereal, it probably isn’t good for them, and if your yogurt is loaded with sugar or has candy on top of it, it’s dessert.

During our Elementary nutrition lessons, we discuss the digestive system and how to read nutrition labels including portion sizes. We “re-think our drink” by using a sugar bowl to count out the number of teaspoons of sugar that are in our favorite junk beverages. This can be quite an eye-opening lesson for our students. Try it at home sometime and you, too, will be surprised! Take the number of grams of added sugar and divide by four. For example, if your 16 ounce bottle of soda has 44 grams of sugar, you are consuming 11 teaspoons of sugar. We hope this helps you all to ‘re-think your drink’!

As the seasons change and we get closer to summer, the children are encouraged to visit a local farmers market to see what fruits and vegetables are local and fresh. Not only is this a fun family outing, but a great way to take part in a community event and perhaps discover a new favorite healthy food!

5. Exercise!

MCA students are taught that exercise is also important for healthy bodies. Our bodies are made to move, not to sit in front of a computer or television all day. It’s no wonder so many of us have a stiff neck from looking down at our computers or phone screens constantly. Our MCA students learn that they should engage in at least one hour of physical activity a day. The best exercise for children is simply to go outside and play. Children build strong bodies by playing. Go to the park, go to the playground, go for a walk or a hike, ride bikes together, play a sport, learn to swim, and take the stairs. As parents, we model behavior for our children, so we encourage you to put the phone down, turn off the computer, turn off the TV, and go do something active together with your children. Encourage raking leaves, snow shoveling, vacuuming, cleaning, gardening, and car washing. They are all terrific physical, family activities that also count as exercise. Engaging in physical activity is a family affair that is good for everyone across the lifespan, and all of our MCA students from our youngest to our oldest, learn the value of movement and exercise. The older students extend their understanding of this by also learning about the cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular systems. We are always emphasizing healthy behaviors that keep all of our body systems functioning properly.

Putting It All Together

In every lesson throughout the year, MCA students refer back to the 5 basic principles of taking care of their bodies, practicing safety, taking a deep breath, eating more fruits and vegetables, and exercising, and they learn to see the connection between these simple steps and staying healthy. It is our hope that our students are learning healthy habits that will last throughout their lifetimes!

Image credit: intranet.tdmu.edu.ua

An Abundance of Autumn Activities for Fall Family Fun

By Alex Chiu and Alisa Jones

Autumn is in the air! Crisp, cooler temperatures make us grab a sweater in the mornings. Vibrant colors of the changing leaves cause us stop to take in their beauty. Smells of cinnamon, apples, and pumpkins spike cravings of pie and cider. Our senses are beckoned at every turn.

Similarly, the senses of children in Montessori classrooms are heightened as we invite them to tune into all that is around them, not only in autumn, but all year long. While the Sensorial area of the classroom is specifically dedicated to stimulating and enhancing children’s senses, Montessori classrooms enrich students’ sensorial experiences across curriculum areas. This happens in every season through a variety of enriching activities that bring in what is unique to each different time of year.

Fall provides us with an abundance of activities we can do that help to build skills across curriculum areas using easy to find apples, acorns, pumpkins, and leaves. There are so many things we do in our classrooms with an autumn theme, and there are even more that you might enjoy trying at home as well. What follows is just a sampling of some fun fall activities that are easy to do with your family and friends this autumn season.

Fall into Science

• Sort types of apples or leaves by size, color, or variety.
• Grade apples or pumpkins from largest to smallest.
• Examine the parts of an apple or pumpkin from stem to skin to core to seeds.
• Experiment to see if apples (or pumpkins) sink or float (and if you find that apples float, why not create an apple boat by slicing an apple in half, adding a toothpick and paper flag, and letting it set sail in a bowl of water!).
• Do an experiment to find out why apples turn brown. Slice an apple, leave one piece as a control, soak one in lemon juice, one in vinegar, one in water (label them). Set them out on plates, and then observe and log what happens to the different samples of apple slices as they sit out over time.
• Explore gravity! Don’t want to drop the apples or pumpkins from the top of the swing set and clean up the mess? Try rolling two down the slide or a ramp made of cereal boxes. Guess which will roll to the bottom first. Were you right? Why or why not?
• Measure the circumference of your pumpkin and compare it to the measurement for your head.

Practical Life Autumn Activities

• Slice and serve apples. Check out the website www.forsmallhands.com for child-safe kitchen utensils.
• Wash a pumpkin. Have a parent carve open the top, and scoop out the seeds. Design your jack o’ lantern.
• Make applesauce or apple or pumpkin pie or muffins, or any other wonderful recipe you have.
• Conduct a blind taste test of different types of apples and vote to see which is your family’s favorite variety.
• Toast pumpkin seeds. Sprinkle with salt, cinnamon sugar, or a favorite spice to try a new twist on an old favorite.
• Transfer acorns from one dish to another using a spoon, tongs, or, if you’re really up for a challenge, chopsticks.

Seasonal Reading Connections

• Read the Dr. Seuss classic Ten Apples Up On Top and then do some follow-up activities.
After reading, see how many apples you can stack. Discuss with your child what makes it easy or hard to stack them? What could you do to make it more stable? (Pyramid? Skewers?)
• Cozy up with some of our favorite pumpkin-themed books, such as Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington, The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons, Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper, Pumpkin Town or Nothing is Better than Pumpkins by Katie McKy.
• Go on a nature scavenger hunt after reading We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. Invite your children to search for seeds, different types or colors of leaves, a stick that looks like a letter, something fuzzy, etc.
• Count acorns or leaves by ones, twos, fives, and tens after reading Nuts to You or Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.

Autumn Art Projects

• Chop up an apple, add toothpicks, and build creative 3D structures.
• Slice an apple in half, paint the flat half, and make apple prints. Try slicing one apple through the center and another from core to base to see how the prints differ. This makes pretty fall stationery.
• Make leaf rubbings. Peel off the paper around your crayons to allow for a smoother crayon rubbing.
• Create an apple or pumpkin inspired drawing using crayons, colored pencils, or oil pastels. Look closely at your apple, what different colors do you see? Blend them together and cut out in an apple shape.
• Decorate a pumpkin using paint, pipe cleaners, glitter, buttons, or unusual items you may find around the house.

Math Fun in the Fall

• Count the number of trees that have lost all of their leaves in your front yard or on your street.
• Estimate how many seeds are in your pumpkin as you carve it. Then count them before roasting!
• Collect acorns or leaves when out for a walk (you will need a lot!). At home, have your child set out the leaves by quantity from 1-10 (or as high as you can go!).

As you can see, it’s easy to incorporate fun learning activities into family time this fall season. We look forward to your children sharing all of their family autumn adventures with us when they come to school. And as fall turns to winter, and then spring, and then summer, challenge your family to apply some of these ideas to what is unique to each of the seasons for family fun all year long!

 

Clip art credit to:  https://gallery.yopriceville.com/var/resizes/Free-Clipart-Pictures/Fall-PNG/Autumn_Pumpkin_and_Fruits_PNG_Clipart_Image.png?m=1443543781