A Rockin’ October for Room 5

We have had quite a fun introduction to fall this year! With lots of cooking, autumn sensory play, seasonal themed art projects, and new songs like “My Pumpkin Vine” to sing each day we have filled our classroom with the spirit of the Harvest Season!

Thanks to many families and teachers donating different kinds of pumpkins both great and small, we have cultivated a lovely little pumpkin patch right here in our room!

Each child has responded to the pumpkin patch in a different way. Some like to roll the pumpkins, pick them up, compare and contrast each pumpkin by weight and experiment with how much force it takes to complete various actions like rolling, lifting, swinging, or simply see how long they can hold it up in the air… it’s become a little like toddler weight lifting! Some friends like to line up and organize the pumpkins over and over in different ways. They will tell us, “This is the daddy, this is the mommy, and this is the baby”. This is kind of 2-year-old code for “large, medium, and small”. We’ve been using these awesome teachable moments to learn new vocabulary through describing the characteristics of the pumpkins. There are many words used to describe size, color, shape, weight, and texture. We like to encourage our youngsters to explore all these components of the tools in our room- in this case the tools are pumpkins. Adorable, festive, fall pumpkins. (If you would like to donate pumpkins or gourds to Room 5, be our guest! We have plenty of room in the patch!) We are not just working on language and literacy with our pumpkin patch. We are also growing in physical development like exercising our gross motor functions through lifting, tossing, and rolling pumpkins. We are learning early math concepts through sorting, classifying, ordering, and counting our pumpkins. We are also learning social and emotional skills through sharing, conflict negotiation, and through personal conversations like, “I have a baby pumpkin at my house and my Daddy has a pumpkin too!”. Each child has shared a little bit about the way their family celebrates fall while playing in our pumpkin patch.

October also had some great cooking projects including personal pizza week, where each child prepped, baked, and devoured their own personal English muffin pizza! We got to practice fine motor development when we spread the sauce, sprinkled the cheese, picked out and placed each topping, and finally pulled it all apart at the snack table! We learned about different tastes like salty, sweet, and spicy with our olives, pineapples, and pepperoni. We practiced a very important fruit of the spirit- self control- while putting our creations together and not simply eating all the ingredients right there at the table (I get it, pineapples taste good right of the can to me too!). It was a great learning experience that ended in full tummies and happy kids.

We can’t wait to share more of our fall fun at PCPS. For now, have a blessed day and keep checking back for more!

Our First Month in Room 5!

Wow! Hard to believe we’re already through with our first month of the school year! We’ve been working hard getting to know the routine, the songs, the names of our friends and teachers, and learning all about each other! Back-to-School night was a hit and we’ve already had our first very generous parent donation from our Wishlist! We were given 3 beloved board books (Brown Bear, The Napping House, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) to replace the very loved and worn copies we had previously. Thank You SO much to the amazing parents who donate to our classrooms to make the environment a little sleeker, a little newer, and a little more plush than it was when they got here. You guys rock!

The students of Room 5 are already forming friendships and learning the lay of the land in their new school. For many, this is the first time they’ve been in a school setting, so we’ve been learning all about how to ask for things with “polite words”, how to scoop and pass snack at the snack table, how to take turns and say “I’m using that” or “It’s my turn” when another friend’s patience has run thin (two-year-olds’ patience runs thin quite often) and how to sit in a group and participate at circle time! We are also learning about common experiences, parts of the body, names of tools, and playing dress-up in our dramatic play Doctor’s Office! This has been a really fun way for the classmates to get to know each other by talking about this common experience we’ve all had, and taking turns operating on various teddy bears and sometimes even on willing human participants! Most any child in Room 5 can show you how to use a stethoscope! We’ve been exploring art and sensory bins through the theme of apples, and have already started enjoying our bi-monthly Younger Pod Music Class with Miss Maggie and Mr. Sam!

Outside the children are loving the “Baby Nursery” dramatic play center. They seem to enjoy comparing how they are different from babies and explaining to their teachers how one should care for a baby. Many of our students have new babies at home and they are quite excited to share about it!

Click on the photo tiles above to view them full size or in a slide show!

It’s been a sweet, snuggly, and sunshine-y month… we can’t wait to update again with more of the fun in Room 5!

…And I Can Cook, Too!

Autumn brings with it one of our favorite celebrations at Pasadena Christian Preschool- Stone Soup! Each classroom celebrates the spirit of Thanksgiving by sharing our blessings with one another on these special days. Each child picks out one item to bring to the celebration to contribute to our “Stone Soup” on the week of Thanksgiving.

Now even though Room 5 is the youngest of all the preschool classrooms- we can still cook up a storm! Our 2-year-olds have been busy in the Room 5 kitchen.

Last week we baked delicious and healthy lemon-poppy seed muffins with veggies (zucchini and corn bake very well in almost any recipe!) and everyone participated masterfully!

(Click on the images to view them larger!)

We have also been acting out social situations and role-playing in the kitchen/dramatic play center! We watch as our students set the table, “pour coffee”, mix in bowls, bake in the oven, serve each other, and eventually sit around the table and chat! It fills our hearts to know that they are reenacting and repeating the pro-social behaviors and family values that they see at home. It is so important to remember that we are always modeling for our young children whether we like it or not! The loving attitudes and considerate manners we see the friends in Room 5 act out in dramatic play come from their loving home environments, and that is such a blessing to behold!

The Teachers are Pasadena Christian are very blessed as well by these loving families! We all enjoyed a beautiful spread from the PTF this afternoon. Thank you to all the amazing, hard-working parents who never cease to amaze and bless us at this school.

In this time of great abundance and bounty- that is the celebration of Thanksgiving- we are called to remember the true spirit of abundance and brotherhood. The Bible tells us how to truly be rich and share God’s gifts with others.

“Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.”

–Isaiah 58:7

Room 5’s Fall Factory!

Room 5 is getting in spirit of autumn! We’ve incorporated the seasonal theme into our dramatic play center with a costume dress-up station, into our art projects with marbled leaf printing, and even into our sensory bin with orange corn kernels and black and white striped sunflower seed shells. Songs like “Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Vine” have been added into our morning meeting routine, and there’s much more to come!

(Click on the pictures to enlarge and get a scrolling view!)

Check out our fantastic fall sensory bin!

We’re still enjoying our time in the outdoor classroom before the weather turns cold, and Team 6 has a big hit with their Western themed dramatic play center. Room 5 friends decided to put on their hats and ride the “tractor”…Yeehaw!

We know autumn is a rich time of year where family traditions and special customs bring us all closer together. We would love to hear about your own family’s traditions and what you like to do together as we enter this special season. Pictures, stories, special dishes that you like to make can all be incorporated into our curriculum to help build on the family values that make this time of year so special to us all.

Blessings from Room 5, and happy fall!!