During our connections time, the kids explored the remaining senses: smell and taste. We discussed how those senses can keep us safe. We also talked about the memories that a smell or a taste can bring. The scents of vanilla and cocoa made us all think of a baking experience – and the people with whom we shared it. We talked a bit about how describing with our senses can help make your writing more interesting.
Our field trip to Sherwin Williams was a great way to see color mixing in action. We’ve been mixing tempera and watercolor paints, reading books about colors, and learning about primary and secondary colors. Seeing how the computer mixed from 10 or so different pigment colors to make our colors was fascinating. Jenna, the store manager, prepared color wheels for the kids using paint samples, we went into the back where paint is mixed, and we purchased paint to use for our sharing chairs. We will be writing thank you notes this week.
Our workshop time focused on building some skills to help the kids in their dramatic play and their explorations. To support our museum and museum store, we read about the size of dinosaurs and built towers to show their relative heights. We played a game with pretend money to help show that $1, $5, and $10 have different values. Our literacy exercises revolved around hearing and representing sounds in words. We practiced stretching and “squeezing” words to hear all the sounds, with our bodies, with cubes, with letter tiles, and in our writing. It is exciting to watch the kids as they start to stretch words on their own, using the alphabet charts to find the letter they want to write.
We had an opportunity during free play to talk about ways to communicate about our play – if we have other ideas about a game, if we want to join a game, if we don’t like how a game is going. We also talked about body language that might suggest that someone is wanting to be included or is frustrated.
During our calendar time, we read “Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn,” and talked about the changing seasons.