This week at circle we introduced the calender. We’re working on recognizing the year, the month and the day. We’ve been singing “Months of the Year” and “Days of the Week”.

We’ve been reading nursery rhymes and poems and working on rhyming words together. Our October poem/fingerplay is called “5 Little Pumpkins.” Rhyming is an important pre-reading skill that helps children discover many common word patterns and the ability to hear rhymes  is an essential skill for learning to read because it means that your child can discern the differences among individual sounds. Playing with rhymes trains the ear to hear the differences and similarities in how words sound.

On Thursday we read Mouse Paint and enjoyed a color mixing activity. We learned the names of the primary colors and found out what happens when we mixed blue and yellow, yellow and red and red and blue. We did this as a group at circle, but this activity will be out on the shelf this week so the children can experiment for themselves.

On Wednesday we listened to “The Bear Hunt” which delighted our younger students who had not heard it before. On Thursday, Sue shared a CD about family members and we learned the signs for “mother”, “father”, “grandmother” and “grandfather.” See if your child can show you!

Our Friday students read a book about bear cubs and created their own black bear cubs.

The bears are in their den with their fish (each one displays a fact about bears). The students really enjoyed this activity and worked  diligently on their bears. It was a great way to combine our NH animal study with some fine motor work.

We’ve added a nature table! This was a big hit this week. The children take turns sitting at the table and are able to examine different nature items and view them under the magnifying glass. If you have an item you would like to contribute to the table please send it in!