October 2024: Exploring the changing seasons

“Nature gives to every time and season unique beauty; from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it’s just a succession of changes so soft and comfortable that we hardly notice the progress”

- Charles Dickens

Mindful Focus: Feeling/Emotions

Explorations: Autumn, Trees/Leaves, and Pumpkins

October is a fun month full of new experiences for our young children. This October was particularly warm and sunny, which allowed us to spend a lot of time outside. I enjoy creating play activities where children can explore the world around them, interact with peers, and understand the emotional connection we have with out place in this world. Strong educators understand that there is no end to growth, and we ourselves are continually growing and learning. These monthly blogs are not only for the benefit of families, to see in detail what we did, but for the teachers as well. It gives us a chance to reflect on each learning experience and process how it went and what we learned from it. Each activity is tailored for the learning and development of the children, including their emotional intelligence. Our teachers worked really hard to create October’s newsletter, enjoy!

- Miss Demi

Exploring Autumn Season:

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

This month we spent a lot of time outside, looking at leaves, trees, and all the changes that happen during autumn. It was so fun to watch the curiosity bloom in the children’s eyes as they explored. Autumn is a special time, full of changing colors, harvesting winter fruits and vegetables, and cultivating a better understanding for this time of year. Some of the best parts of autumn can be enjoyed right at our school. Crunchy leaves, beautiful colors, fallen leaves that change so quickly and the crisp, cool mornings. The children learned so much about or world this month.

This time of year also brought about many opportunities for art and exploration in nature. The children were able to create autumn wreaths using various natural materials found right in our schoolyard; rose hips, Russian olives, bean pods, giant leaves that cover your face and tiny leaves as small as your fingernail. It was fun watching them discover which items stuck best and which items rolled off and needed more glue. The children were also able to look through their pile of leaves and create leaf rubbings. They learned how adding pressure and holding a crayon sideways made a neat imprint on the thin sheet of paper. We were impressed by how quickly they learned the technique. It’s so fascinating how each child takes on new projects and how different a seemingly simple creation can turn out.

- Miss Annie

Feelings & Emotions:

“Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.”

- Mister Fred Rogers

All feelings are welcome here at Simplelife! This month we worked together to identify not only our own feelings but those of others. This can be a difficult task for little minds! When tough situations arise, Simplelife teachers work together with the child to guide them towards problem solving. How does that friend look like they are feeling? I think they are showing with their body that they don’t like that. 

Helping children develop emotional understanding requires frequent and intentional practice. Similar to our feelings chart that the children take time to view every morning then decide how they are feeling, we joined in a fun game with images of different emotions. Each child had a turn to identify a feeling then show how they would express that feeling. We had a blast singing about all of our different emotions! 

-Miss Mallorie

Trees Exploration:

Trees provide us with so much, from everyday objects, to the air we breathe. Trees have meaning and hold love in special ways.

A truly unique thing that SimpleLife has to offer is the abundance of fruit and nut trees. This was especially fun during October when the almonds and walnuts were falling with haste. Each class was able to use their imagination as they pretended to be squirrels scavenging and collecting nuts for the winter. After we collected as many as we could, they pulled the walnut from the outer husk, learning new terms and techniques along the way. Lastly, the children took turns carefully cracking the walnuts and tasting them. Many children enjoyed the taste of walnuts, really getting into the spirit of that squirrel, and devoured them!

To make our schoolyard even more special, the classes took turns finding their own “Sit Tree”. This special tree will be a beacon for them throughout the school year, giving them the opportunity to spend time with it when they are having feelings big and small. Our hope is that they can seek it out during outside play if they are needing a break or looking for connection to nature. They will be able to watch their tree change and grow throughout the year as well, which offers an extra cool learning opportunity. We learned about what comes from a tree and even made our own paper!

- Miss Annie

Fall Celebration:

Celebrating the changing of seasons.

With the changing seasons, and finally changing temperatures, we also got to celebrate Fall with the children this month! We got to celebrate the harvest by separating pumpkin seeds to make a yummy salted treat, and of course by carving the pumpkins into beautiful buildings for our lovely gnome village. Each of the children got to make their own gnome friend and they loved running around the yard gathering all sorts of nature items that were changing with the season in order to further decorate the village for their friends. We also got to celebrate the fact that the leaves outside are turning all sorts of lovely colors by attaching those leaves to beautiful fall crowns that they got to wear all day! And of course, the last piece of our celebration was getting to put on a special show and parade for our lovely SimpleLife grownups and families. The children got to wear special costumes to school and after doing a parade to show them off to everyone who came, they got to sing four of the songs that we have been working on so far this year! They were all so brave! Performing can be so hard your first time, especially being so small, and yet they all went up there and tried! Thank you so much to all the families and friends that were able to come and support them!

- Miss Sushi

Art Exploration:

SimpleLife values exposing children to many different art forms and mediums.

During the month of October, the children observed trees around the school and also made them! Our big focus was completing tree sculptures. This multi-step art project touched on many skills the children have been focusing on the since the beginning of school. Each class discussed the differences between 2D and 3D art as well as following a recipe to make the clay from scratch.

The children used their fine motor skills to pinch small pieces of clay to the wire branches which for little hands can be quite tricky. It was so fun seeing each child’s creativity shine as they painted their trees and added personal touches. Before the sculptures went home, they were displayed on our classroom exploration table for the children to play with and see one another’s work. Everyone was proud to see their sculpture!

Our other project was building an abstract tree, and no tree was the same! While gluing we learned about roots, trunks, branches, and leaves and how each component helps support the tree. Children had freedom to place the various parts where they thought best. Some may have looked more abstract and that’s what made them all unique!

- Miss Lottie

Nature Time:

Fall Nature Walk, Harvesting Nuts, Harvesting Mint

What better way to welcome the season of Autumn than enjoying a beautiful walk out in nature! Our fall nature walk allowed the children to investigate and notice different signs of autumn. Together we took a break and had a brief mindful moment to observe the changing season. We used our different senses and found that we could feel the wind blowing, see the leaves changing color and hear them crunch beneath our feet as we walked! During our walk we enjoy asking questions to help the children engage in deep thinking, “I wonder why this leaf is still green?” It was so exciting to see the children make connections like, “It’s because of the chlorophyll!” 

The children also had the opportunity to harvest nuts and mint! 

We got to harvest almonds and walnuts this year, working as a team to collect them all in baskets. The children were eager to try the almonds and even got to have a taste! After our walnuts were gathered each child had the opportunity to crack one! 

All that was left to harvest was our mint! What is mint used for? What different things can we think of that have a peppermint flavor? We discussed how mint is not only used in things like gum or toothpaste but medicine as well, a perfect cure for a tummy ache! Once we were finished carefully snipping off our mint we got to bunch them together and hang it up right in our classroom, now the children and teachers get to smell delicious peppermint as it dries right above us. An exciting start to our fall season! 

-Miss Mallorie

Cooking & Cleaning Day:

Building foundational life skills!

This month we got to have our first cooking and cleaning day! Cooking and cleaning day is something that we get to do with the kids each month, and while it can be super crazy it is always totally worth it. It helps the kids feel more connected to their school, gaining a sense of responsibility and ownership over it as they realize a piece of the work that goes into maintaining it, and their toys! They have so much fun helping scrub down the tables, chairs, floors, toys, and shelves all over the school both inside and out, but their favorite part is always the cooking. This month the kids and I got to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies - with pumpkin puree that we made ourselves! They loved watching how the pumpkin went from hard, to squishy, and finally to mushy throughout the process. They helped me to measure out and add each of the ingredients to our bowl, and showed their curiosity by asking to smell and even taste some of the ingredients like the vanilla and the cinnamon - which, as we all know, smell much better than they taste on their own. Once everything was mixed together and the dough was scooped onto the tray the kids were offered the choice of one final ingredient - walnuts from our harvest!

- Miss Sushi