What happened this month?

The month of October was abuzz with Fall and Halloween fever. The teachers and children had a great time decorating the classroom for the occasion. Naturally the children were excited to share about their costumes for trick-or-treating, and enjoyed the yummy treats from the festivities. Our first annual Fall Fest was certainly a success! We had so many of our past, present, and future families show up to enjoy the day. That was followed by our Halloween Parade in the office space. Thank you to all of the families who were able to participate, we had a BLAST!

Toddler Group (Ms. Lam’s group)

In October, our toddlers focused on the colors orange and red. For the color Orange, the children got to experiment with puff paint and glue to make a collage using leaves. For the color Red, we sang “Five Red Apples in the Apple Tree” during circle time. The toddlers learned to listen and wait for their names to be called for their turn to pick an apple off the tree. So fun!! One of the books they enjoyed reading this month is called “Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too?” by Eric Carle. They will love to read it again, here’s a read-along you may want to watch with them.

Up next – November’s theme will be woodland/farm animals.

Preschool Group (Ms. Angelina’s group)

Signs of Halloween were present throughout the classroom and reflected in the topics we discussed during the month. We explored the topic of spiders, learning they have eight legs, are hairy, and are not usually harmful to humans. We also learned about bats. We discussed how they are nocturnal (active at night), use sonar (sound) waves when hunting prey, and sleep upside down. While the focus was on Halloween, the circle time lessons were about taking the “scary” out of these subjects, while learning more facts about the subjects. We also addressed monsters, what they are and do we really need to be afraid of them? We also talked about the difference between a pumpkin and a jack-o-lantern. The children enjoyed finger painting, gluing, and using our imagination to turn everyday objects into beautiful works of seasonal art.

Vocabulary words introduced this month were autumn, smooth, rough, bumpy, nocturnal, sonar, arachnids, poisonous, venom, Frankenstein, and mummy.

A Month in Review

January 2022

With the transition to Winter came much needed rain here in the bay area and lots of fresh snow up in the mountains. So we brought the frigid fun indoors here at Pillar Kids. We’ve had lots of fun learning about the water cycle and winter weather for the first half of the month. From there we explored the way in which some animals hunker down for the winter to hibernate, and how in other areas like the arctic, animals come out to play!

New Skills

Early Literacy

Some of our most loved activities this past month involved our forest animal, penguin, and polar bear figurines. The kids loved using them for pretend play and acting out some of our favorite stories about slumbering bears and daredevil penguins (see “Currently Reading” list for titles & authors). We built dens out of blocks for our forest animals and our penguins swam through the blue waters of our water table with some friendly sea creatures! Acting out stories helps draw kids attention to key details in a text like characters, setting, and major events or conflicts. Building these skills in early childhood not only makes reading fun, but also prepares kids for kindergarten where they will be asked to identify details and retell stories as they learn to read.

Counting & Cardinality

We have also been building our math skills here at Pillar Kids, in particular our counting and measurement skills. We have been using our math manipulative cubes to compare and contrast the height and width of objects in the classroom and of each other! Clicking our manipulative cubes together to make measuring sticks also works to strengthen fine motor skills. We work together to build the measuring stick as long as our object or person and then count the total number of cubes.

Currently Reading…

“Bear Snores” on by Karma Wilson

“Archie the Daredevil Penguin” by Andy Rash

“Penguins Love Colors” by Sarah Aspinall

“Rain!” by Linda Ashman

“The Luckiest Snowball” by Ellior Kreloff

Let’s Review October 2022 at Pillar Kids

Winter Wonder

A Month in Review