October - The Goose Who Tried to Keep the Summer

This week we looked more at the harvest and the changing of the seasons. We especially enjoyed cooking throughout the week with the bounty of fresh local produce I got at the Farmer's Market! We will do more with this theme over the next few weeks, doing explorations with Indian Corn and Pumpkins.

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

This week's seasonal story was from the September 2019 issue of the Juniper Tree Puppets Renewal of Early Childhood Puppetry newsletter.

Circle Time

#1 - "Good Morning, Dear Earth" verse

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

#3 - "Rumble, Rumble, Deep in the Wood" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 89

#4 - "Swooping Gulls" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 91

#5 - "We Wrap, Wrap, Wrap Our Little Bundle" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 78

#6 - "Lady Fog" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 80

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

#8 - NEW - "I'm a Tall, Tall Tree" song

#9 - "Looking Through the Garden Gate" verse
from The Breathing Circle, page 94

#10 - "Rocks to Stones" finger play
from The Breathing Circle, page 84

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

#12 - "Five Little Leaves" finger play
from A Child's Seasonal Treasury, page 48

Monday, October 7

• The Goose Who Tried to Keep the Summer
• Ratatouille with Eggplant and Zucchini
• "Chop, Chop, Chippety Chop" from This is the Way We Wash-a-Day (p.34, track 32)

Honestly, Zac reminds me a lot of the Wild Goose who tries to keep the summer. He has been getting very sad about the leaves falling from the trees; he buries his head in my lap whenever we do the "Five Little Leaves" finger play and we get to the last little leaf. I want to emphasize for my students that the cycle of the seasons is natural and a good thing. So...

Today we talked about the Harvest season and made ratatouille! First the children helped me by washing the eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers. Then they peeled the cloves of garlic. We sang "Chop, Chop, Chippety Chop" as I helped them carefully cut up the zucchini. They also tasted the fresh basil leaves! Our shallots, Italian eggplant, zucchini, and purple bell peppers were all fresh and local from the Saturday farmer's market.

Tuesday, October 8

• The Goose Who Tried to Keep the Summer
• Green Tomato Bread
• microgreens from Union Springs Farm, Cobden IL

Today we talked about how sometimes gardeners have to pick tomatoes before Jack Frost comes. Then they aren't quite ripe and are still green. But you can still use them in delicious ways! And we made Green Tomato Bread. The green tomatoes were fresh and local from the Saturday farmer's market.

We also talked about how some plants are grown indoors, instead of outside, and so they can be grown all year long. And we tasted some wonderful microgreens which I got at the Co-op and which were grown at Union Springs Farm: pea shoots, sunflower shoots, radish microgreens, and a microgreen mix. The microgreen mix had an amazing variety (broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, arugula, red cabbage, cauliflower, red mustard, cilantro, radish, mizuna, basil, sunflower shoot, pea shoot, buckwheat, and fennel)!

Thursay, October 10

• The Goose Who Tried to Keep the Summer
• picnic snack outdoors!

The weather being about to take a turn for the worse, we enjoyed a warm sunny picnic snacktime outdoors. There was plenty of playtime, both inside and outside, of course. And we had snack again inside when the Stone Soup was done. This week's Stone Soup had an unusual purple broth (because of the red cabbage) and was a blend of chicken broth and vegetable broth, which was absolutely yummy! The vegetables which were contributed were

turnip
pumpkin
red cabbage
onion
red potatoes
white potatoes
sweet potatoes
zucchini
cherry tomatoes

The zucchini and cherry tomatoes were from the Saturday farmer's market. Zac also added in some soba noodles, which was a fun treat for everyone! And we had a family bring an artichoke, which I saved for Friday and the SWI lesson (which I will talk about more in the next post), so that we could correctly steam it, dip the leaves in melted butter, and enjoy it to the fullest.

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