Meet Chippy

Boy do we love spending time with your kids! As we settle in we continue to reinforce our rules and routines, and introduce more materials and activities. During our mornings in the woods we play, have circle time, meet in small groups for teacher directed activities, eat snack, play some more, go on expeditions, and have a story time. 

As students form friendships with one another, dramatic play is starting to flourish. This week kids baked birthday cakes, became chipmunks, crossed large bridges, and zoomed through woods as super heroes. Nurturing imaginary play is a crucial part of our jobs as early childhood educators. In play kids develop their interpersonal skills, build empathy (walking in someone else's shoes!), solve problems, make decisions, and so much more. 

A couple of notes: 

• Picture day is Tuesday 10/6
• No school on Monday 10/12 for Indigenous People's Day
• Please feel free to connect with me on zoom on Wednesday mornings between 8:00 and 9:00! 

We read a book about milkweed by Mary Holland, and then went to explore our own milkweed patch. If you're interested in a weekly update of what's happening in the natural world in Vermont check out her awesome blog, Naturally Curious.

So many interesting insects living in the milkweed!

Some leftover planks have been turned into great bridges and ramps.

A sunny spot in the cozy shed

These three worked very hard to make that beautiful birthday cake!

We rearranged our hand washing set up, and these kids helped shovel some gravel underneath to help with the puddling. 

Some kiddos collected acorns and carefully placed them around Chippy's hole. 

We waited quietly for a couple of minutes, and then...

We got to see Chippy come out of his (her?) hole and stuff his cheeks full of acorns over and over again. This lucky chipmunk collected an easy 20-30 acorns yesterday!

Needless to say, we all wanted to become chipmunks after such a close encounter with the real thing. 

Chipmunks on an expedition to find acorns!

More chipmunks!

Re-telling "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" with props

Some fun in the mud kitchen

We found a couple of last pumpkins in the pumpkin patch out behind the school. 

Next week we'll do some pumpkin projects.

Some kiddos are very interested in collecting. Here we started to sort the pinecones into two piles: "closed" and "open"

Most days before story time everyone takes a quiet minute to visit their "Sit Spot," a special spot that is just theirs. Sometimes we just sit and listen, but today students took mini chalk boards to their sit spots to do some observing and drawing.