December 2016

November has been a very active and social month. The toddlers have been very interested in what their friends are doing as well as greeting each other at the door. This month we welcomed two new friends to our class, Avani and Adam. We will also say goodbye to two of our friends, Aiden and Kaley, as they will move up to an Early Childhood classroom. We will miss them in our class but look forward to hearing about their many adventures in the Early Childhood community.


The children have really enjoyed painting the leaves on our fall trees. They used q-tips to dot brown and yellow paint onto their paper. This was a big work that required many steps and a great amount of focus and coordination. It was wonderful to see the variations between the children's pictures and how proud they were of what they made all by themselves. Another work the children have been interested in has been the sand paper letter “P”. On the tray with the sand paper letter there is a small pumpkin for them to hold and practice the P sound. With their pointer finger (or pointer and middle finger) the children will trace the letter and then sing “pumpkin, pumpkin, p, p, p”.


In our sensory table and with a few works around the classroom the children experienced many fall smells, such as cinnamon, and use kitchen utensils. On our practical life shelf the children could practice cutting a pretend carrot and cucumber as well as scoop, measure, pour, and sort various items in the sensory table. They have also become really interested in washing their own dishes after snack and lunch. The toddlers clear their plates by putting their excess food in the compost bin, scrubbing their dishes in our dish tub, and then placing their dishes in the dish rack to dry. Lots of independence and helpers around the classroom!


In December we will begin to learn about winter and the cooler weather as well as a few of the winter holidays. With the winter topics we will discover new books, sing new songs, and have some more winter art items.