September - The Gigantic Turnip

This week we had a puppetry story, "The Gigantic Turnip," with wooden figures lovingly handcarved by Anne Moze of the Etsy shop huttonroad.

I also used my wooden stable from Nova Natural Toys & Crafts, a green embroidered play silk, and a real turnip with some leaves on top.

We continued with our Songs, Verses & Movement for classroom routines.

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

#2 - "Morning Verse"
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 13

#3 - "The Door's Shut Tight!" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 73

#4 - "Hippo Song" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 71

#5 - "Pull on My Rain Boots!" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 88

#6 - "The Elephant" verse
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 17

#7 - "Looking through the Garden Gate" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 94

#8 - "The Squirrel" finger play
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 49

#9 - "Five Little Peas" finger play
from The Breathing Circle, page 82

#10 - "Caleb the Cricket" finger play
from Move Over, Mother Goose: Finger Plays, Action Verses and Funny Rhymes, page 20

Monday, September 16

Today I introduced some new open-ended play inspired by the Loose Parts series of books (which spring from the Reggio Emilia philosophy). We had an enormous sunflower head alongside a bowl and some tweezers for carefully picking out the sunflower seeds (tweezer work is wonderful for this age). The sunflower seeds then went into the mud kitchen in our outdoor play time. We had several boxes of 2 inch square countertop samples (Staron and Corian) which are absolutely irresistable to touch and come in many joyful colors. And we had large cardboard tubes (for pouring concrete forms) to roll around outside on the lawn and use in a myriad of fun ways.

The sunflower head, the countertop sample tiles, and the masonry forms were all donated to our classroom... THANK YOU! They gave our class many hours of enjoyment.

Tuesday, September 17

Continuing with Loose Parts play... messy-fun outdoor finger and toe painting Portraits of a Turnip... passing around an osage orange which a classmate brought in... noting the coming change in the seasons.

Thursday, September 19

Making a bountiful Stone Soup... enjoying doll play and new board games... VERY happily painting magnolia leaves, sticks, and all of the timbers in our fort with cheerful rainbow colors of washable paint!

Current favorite games include Pillow Pincher by Selecta and Snug as a Bug in Rug by Peaceable Kingdom. The wonderful fairy dolls from Magic Cabin have also been well-loved. And our Stone Soup was a real harvest, including parsnip, radishes, carrots, broccoli, summer squash, fresh sweet corn, mushrooms, Swiss chard, onion, vegetable broth and -- of course -- turnip!

A great family field trip to follow up on this week's activities would be the Pick Your Own Sunflower Field at Rendleman Orchards in Alto Pass IL.

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