As the leaves change color and fall begins, Kindergarten begins an exploration and celebration of colors. We began last week with red. The children created a display of red objects with items from our classroom. They requested apples and red peppers for snack. We had strawberries, as well. They planned to make individual pizzas with red sauce and pepperoni for those who wanted it. Several dough makers mixed and kneaded the dough for the crust on Tuesday morning. Each Kindergarten topped their own pizza, and we baked them for a much enjoyed afternoon snack. The children's favorite new song is "Little Red Wagon", and they modified "Little Grey Ponies" to "Little Red Ponies" in honor of red. Two stories the children especially liked were Jamberry and The Giant Jam Sandwich.
Monday was Forest Kindergarten, in addition to being the start of red days. We hiked down to the creek, where the some of the children worked in their sketch books, while others walked the banks of the creek or explored the concepts of shallow and deep by attempting to step on stones, some partially submerged. Back in our forest classroom, we talked about building a lean to. Our fire pit is outlined with stones. While we were on our hike, a couple of parents delivered some wood for possible construction or firewood. We have an area now designated for firewood storage near our fire pit.
Sadly, as we were saying hello to fall and color days, we needed to say good bye to one of our guinea pigs, Mocha, who had been sick and died over the weekend. We buried him near the garden on Monday afternoon. Some of the children helped dig the hole. Everyone gathered for his burial, and many Kindergartners had a kind word to say about him. They have been giving Pistachio, our remaining guinea pig, daily attention, as he has always lived with his friend, Mocha.
On Wednesday we walked to the Antioch College Wellness Center to check out the gym and the pool, where we will be playing and swimming on Thursdays. The children were very excited for our first gym and swim day on Thursday. Thursday was also our first yellow day. Once again the children gathered items to create a yellow display. We ate bananas and yellow peppers. This is a pepper eating group! We sang "You Are My Sunshine", "A Tisket, A Tasket", and "Five Little Ducks". The children also enjoyed some selections from The Stories Julian Tells.
On Thursday morning, each Kindergartner made a sandwich for afternoon snack, after swimming. The question of the morning was, "When will we go swimming?" It was hard to wait until after lunch! When we arrived at the Wellness Center, the children played in the gym, until it was our swim time. After changing in the locker rooms, we met our Older Group partners at the pool. I will definitely bring my camera next week, because the smiles during swimming were some of the best and biggest I have seen from this group so far! There was lots of underwater swimming and jumping off the side to partners. The children were very glad to have their sandwiches to eat, when we got back to school!
Our Older Group partners joined us on Friday to sing a song that we have been learning for Grandfriends'Day. The Kindergartners love their partners and are looking forward to swimming with them again next week!
