Happy Fall! We are so excited that Fall is here! The weather is getting a little cooler, and Fall also happens to be our theme here at the center!
We talked about some of the things we see and do during this beautiful season, including leaves changing colors and falling from the trees. We also talked about how families can visit a farm or orchard to pick apples and pumpkins, as well as the holidays that are just around the corner.
We had a fun discussion about applesauce, too! I told the children that we will be making applesauce for our Feast in November, but they were so excited that they wanted to make it now so we could practice making it for the entire center! Don’t worry — we will make a small batch just for our classroom so that we can taste it and see what we think.
We also talked about Johnny Appleseed and why he became so famous. We learned that, according to the traditional stories about him, Johnny Appleseed traveled around parts of America planting apple seeds, helping spread apple trees so that people could enjoy apples for years to come. The children thought it was very funny that Johnny Appleseed is often pictured wearing a soup pan on his head! We talked about how he lived a long time ago and probably didn’t have a bag or other things that we have today, so he may have carried some of his belongings in different ways. The children had lots of fun talking about what it would be like to travel around planting apple trees!
The children enjoyed lots of fun Fall-themed literacy activities throughout the week! We did a leaf letter-matching activity, practiced writing Fall words and our names, and worked on our letter-writing skills. We also traced letters using colored chickpeas, which made practicing our letters extra fun! The children played a Same or Different game using leaves, where they looked closely at the leaves and compared their colors, shapes, and sizes.
We also had lots of opportunities to practice our math skills using Fall-themed materials! We used dice to determine how many leaves to count out, practiced apple patterning, and picked a number before counting out the corresponding number of acorns. The children also traced numbers using colored chickpeas, practiced subitizing the number of acorns, and counted out acorns before writing the number that matched their set. These activities gave us a fun and hands-on way to practice number recognition, counting, one-to-one correspondence, patterns, number writing, and early math skills.
In Art, we got creative with our Fall theme! The children made beautiful leaf rubbings using crayons, discovering the different shapes and textures of the leaves as they colored over them. We also created a tissue paper tree, using colorful pieces of tissue paper to make the leaves. The children had so much fun creating their own unique Fall trees!
The children were also curious to see whether the leaves around our neighborhood had started changing colors, so we took a short walk around the block to find out. And guess what? They were changing! The children were so excited to see the beautiful Fall colors beginning to appear.
We are looking forward to all the fun learning, exploring, and Fall activities we have planned for the weeks ahead! There is so much to see, discover, and enjoy this time of year!