The Blue Whales had fun with pumpkins this week. We used screwdrivers to put screws in pumpkins. And decorated pumpkins with push pins. And the children didn’t even realize that they were working on their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. The children are always learning through their play.
We decorated our pumpkins this week based on the work by artist Yayoi Kusama. We read her biography and learned that she is from Japan and saw the world through dots. She translated that to her artwork and touched upon the concept of infinity. It led to a wonderful discussion about the dots in her artwork and infinity. The Blue Whales had various resources to make dots on their pumpkins, such as q-tips, tips of pencil erasers, dot gems and push pins. They loved being artists and it was so fun to see how different each pumpkin turned out.
The children were very busy decorating our classroom this week with spider webs, plastic spiders and bats. They made amazing jack o’lanterns in a salad spinner. It was a true group effort, and they really enjoyed the ownership of decorating their classroom.
We did some color sorting with buttons. And then counted how many of each color button we had and what was the smallest number and what was the biggest number. All the Blue Whales practiced writing the numbers for each amount of buttons on dry erase boards. They were so proud of themselves and each other for trying their personal best.
Cutting was a popular activity this week. Each Blue Whale cut out a circle and turned it into a jack o'lantern as we talked about the proper way to hold scissors and use our helping hand. There was cobweb fun with white yarn as they wrapped themselves in "cobwebs" and cut all different sizes of yarn. And our responsible and helpful Blue Whales picked up the many strings of yarn on the carpet with their busy fingers. They worked so hard on their fine motor skills and didn't even know it.
We had Guess-n-Tell and Eden did a great job with three clues about her item and calling on friends to guess the item. The Blue Whales were able to guess Eden’s item because of her great clues.
Important Information for October:
- Thursday, October 31st: - We hope you can join us for our Halloween Costume Parade around Southern Village. Please send your child to school in their costume and drop them off at the classroom at 9:00 a.m. The Blue Whales will meet families outside in front of the church at 9:25 a.m. and start our parade with the Yellow Ducks class. Families are welcome to dress up too. Please help your child change out of their costume after the parade. If you are OK with them wearing their costume all day that is fine too, but we will be our normal messy selves and play outside that day.
We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.