Autumn
This week we talked about the four seasons of the year: winter, spring, summer, and fall.
Fall officially began on September 22nd and the Discovery room went through a change over the weekend! All the sudden, the Discovery tree has several leaves of orange, red, and yellow - and there were bright, beautiful leaves all over the floor and bookshelves.
The students and I talked about the many changes we see happening during fall: leaves changing color and falling, animals preparing for winter (especially the squirrels gathering and burying their acorns), the air getting cooler (which means we have to dress warmer), and the sun setting earlier in the evening. We talked briefly about the fact that the Earth is circling around the Sun and as we get tilt away from the Sun, our Earth gets a little colder.
Our WORD of the WEEK is chlorophyll! We learned that chlorophyll is the green coloring in leaves! We also learned that it helps the plant/tree use sunlight to make "food" (and energy via photosynthesis - which is a later, upcoming lesson!). We discussed that since it's getting cooler out, the sun isn't shining on the plants as much so the chlorophyll begins to fade and the green disappears to reveal beautiful colors of red, yellow, and orange!
In centers, the children were able to make their own fall leaves by coloring on red/orange/yellow and then covering that color with green. The final - fun! - step was scratching the green (chlorophyll) off their leaves to reveal the fall colors. They also played in the autumn sensory bin which was full of leaves, pinecones, acorns, gourds, pumpkins, and forest critters. The students were also able to make an autumn tree with (yarn) leaves if they chose to do so.
Our youngest explorers had an age-appropriate autumn lesson about leaves, pumpkins, acorns, bats, and scarecrows. We pretended to be scarecrows, we sang about acorns and leaves, we touched a (pretend) bat and squirrel, and we threw leaves in the air before trying to make our very own leaf pile! Some of us even raked up the leaves which helped Miss Marion so much!
My four seasons wall in the classroom!
Several great fun, fall reads...
Happy Fall, Y'All!
