News From the Outdoors

This week the Detectives took full advantage of the wonderful fall weather with more than one all outdoor days! We enjoyed the crisp fall air, noting the different clothes we wear for the weather and how Woodend is changing around us.

 

The Detectives noticing lots of nuts falling from the trees around the Sanctuary! We discussed how different plants change in fall, noting the harvesting of pumpkins and apples that we saw at the farm as well! The kids also took a trip to compost station, adding our pumpkins to help make dirt for us to plant in the spring time.

 

Both classes enjoyed trips to ultimate climber, observing decomposer bugs, animal scat, as well as discovering a “fire fighter” pole that can be accessed from the top of the climber!

 

The Detectives were also transformed into squirrels this week, hunting for acorns around Woodend! By the wobbly logs, the “squirrels” collected and hid acorns in sneaky hiding spots to store for the winter time.

 

News From the Classroom

The Detectives continued their harvest exploration this week by examining apples further. We listening to the Star of the Apple story, where a little boy discovers the star of seeds upon opening an apple! The kids enjoyed using those apple halves to create apple print art!

 

We also embarked on our first, two day long science expirement! The Detectives were introduced to the concepts of a hypothesis and observation by making guesses about how an unpeeled, peeled and apple with holes poked in it would change overnight.

 

In the block area, we introduced the triangle blocks, challenging the detectives to create ramps for rolling apples! In the dramatic play area, we opened up a class farm stand, just like we saw at the farm last week. Dry corn was added to the lab table, as well as pumpkin and leaf cookie cutters to the play dough.

 

At the art station, we started prep for our Fall Celebration! During meeting, we introduced the idea of celebrating the seasons with our families at Nature Preschool. Each child got the chance to work on their own eye dropper art leaf to decorate the class with for the party!

 

 

 

Books we Read

Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

From Shoot to Apple by Stacy Taus-Bolstad

It’s Fall by Linda Glaser

 

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Weekly Top Hits

Wait and See

I’m a nut (3x)

That’s me,

Gonna grow into a big oak tree,

I may be small,

but someday I’ll be tall,

wait and see!

 

 

 

Spoiler Alert: Next week we are talking about signs of fall at Woodend!