colors mix and spread, and how it transfers to paper. 

Last week, the children again experimented with paint as they made handprints in yellow, red, and orange on long sheets of banner paper.  Their masterpieces will be used as colorful table runners at our Thanksgiving celebration.  This week, to go along with our discussions about families, the children will be drawing pictures of their own families.

At the beginning of the month, we provided brown cinnamon-scented playdough, a delicious aroma that flowed throughout the school.  Utensils such as two-handle and one-handle rollers, pizza cutters with crimped edges, scissors, and cookies cutters in pumpkin and turkey shapes made for a lot of conversation.  The table accommodates six children and social skills come into play as the children ask a friend to pass a playdough tool or to share some playdough.  Math skills are developed as they learn to divide the dough into four or six pieces.  Many of the children love to pretend to cook as they make pizza, roll out cookies or flatten pancakes.  These activities help develop hand muscles, and new friendships are formed as the children work together.  Coming next we will provide a new mixture called “sand dough” for a different sensory experience.  Colorful feathers will also be available to promote creativity and imaginary play. 

As a change from using paintbrushes at an upright easel, we provided an opportunity to finger-paint on a flat table at the beginning of the month.  This proved to be very popular as the children blended purple and green finger-paint onto shiny white paper sprayed with water to allow the paint to glide more easily.  The cool and squishy texture of the paint was a soothing sensory experience that kept the children coming back for more (they couldn’t make just one!)  Two children painted side by side, allowing lots of conversation as they used  both

 hands to spread the paint in circular motions.  At the second easel, they children used colored ink daubers on newsprint.  It was fun to draw, make patterns or just make big dots.  While the children were learning color recognition, they were also developing fine motor skills as they squeezed the daubers to make the ink come to the top.  Coming next at the easels will be red and blue tempera paint and stamp markers with letters on their tips. 

The sensory table is always a busy place, and we started the month with wooden alphabet letters buried in dry sand.  Our little excavators could find the letters using shovels and rakes.  Many of the children tried to find the letters in their names, and others were able to make simple words.  This activity promoted both language skills and letter recognition.  Currently there are two dishpans in the table, each containing colored bubble solution.  In addition to ordinary bubble wands, we added other gadgets such as a plastic strawberry basket, paper cups with the  bottoms cut out, a flat spatula with holes, a triangle shaped cookie cutter, and canning jar lids.  The children were excited to experiment with these different ways of making bubbles and were surprised to see how they could blow bubbles with each.  It is very tricky to blow just the right amount of air to make the bubbles and the children were excited with their accomplishment.  Many tried to pass a bubble to a friend without popping it, but of course it’s lots of fun to pop them, too!  This activity created an atmosphere for social growth and promoted the development of physical coordination as the children mastered the art of making bubbles!

a Bed, Five Green Speckled Frogs, Hands are for Clapping, Jumping and Counting, I Am Thankful, Little Bunny Foo Foo, The Baby Song, Down By the Bay, The Pirate Song, There Was an Old Lady, Five little Hot Dogs, Alligator Pie, and Peanut Butter and Jelly.  The words to some of these songs are included in the newsletter.  If you would like words to a particular song, please let us know!

Song Lyrics