We celebrated our Apple Festival last weekend. The children were eager to try the applesauce they've been working on during their mornings here. Once dinner was served, we were able to taste the apple cider as well. The children were able to play with their "shooting star" wands and just have an altogether lovely time with all our families. 
There has certainly been a resurgence in large scale building lately. The children love making large structures with the blocks and lumber, and even parking garages for the tricycles and ride-on cars. Also this week we finally took our first hike into the forest. It was a very exciting walk and the older kids were excited to see how their old viney caves had changed, but were still there. 

Inside, the storytelling continues. The kids love to gather around eachother to hear a story, or build a little set up of their own. The story I've told this week is about a mother who gives her daughter a riddle to solve and so she sings "There's a little round house you've seen before. It has a brown chimney this big and no more, it has neither windows nor a door, but a star inside!" It is of course, an apple. During our lunch this week we read the story of Mother Holle. I try to choose fairly non-violent fairy tales for this age group, but they certainly do love the fairy tales, particularly the older ones as fairy tales give them that fodder for imaginary play they thrive on. 

Our beautiful cool mornings have helped extend our outside time each day. We've been focusing the last two weeks on preparing for our Apple Festival, so the kids have been felting shooting stars, sewing around their edges, peeling and chopping apples, and using a food mill to blend up the cooked apples. We've also had some extra sewing exercises which are great practice for pencil grip, especially among our older kids. The kids have enjoyed building their "ships" together as well, using the big blocks and bricks.

Inside, our stories have been focused on the apple harvest season. Last week, I told a story of Old Gnome, which was based on our apple finger play. He reaches and reaches for the apples but "one little apple hanging up so high, it fell down and bumped his eye!" There are several little rhymes like this until one apple "rolled and rolled nearly to his house, and there it was discovered by a funny little mouse..." Our story this week has been about Mother Earth, who plants a seed in her garden. The seed grows into a tree and tries to stretch all the way to the stars, but to it's disappointment, cannot reach them and must remain planted to the earth. But apples grow all over and when Mother Earth one day gathers all the apples, she cuts one open and shows the tree that all this time, it's been carrying stars all over it's branches, and each "star" is a house for little apple tree seed babies. The children LOVE this part, so next time you cut into an apple, 
"Take an apple big and red
Don't cut down, cut through instead
Open it up and you will see
A star inside for you and me!"

Because we have such avid storytellers, I've made some little "treasure boxes" which have some fun props for stories inside. It's a great way to let kids play with those little doodads that they love without having them everywhere. So our boxes will contain a silk, perhaps some toy animals or wooden people, little pumpkins or gourds, and some shiny stones, etc. The kids love making their own stories with these. 

Things are already beginning to settle in this week with children learning the routines and stories. It is sweet how they eagerly anticipate the arrival of each of their friends and they are preparing little "scenarios" for their friends to take part in. We've had submarines and boats and of course fire trucks. During our large gross motor skills circle time, they wait until their friends have done their task and encourage the ones who are hesitant about climbing or rolling. 

The children have heard two stories all week long. The story I tell with my props has been "Little Spider's First Web". I love this story because it reminds me of some of the children's sweet, encouraging side. The story is about how a little spider begins spinning her first web and it sets off a chain of busy, excited behavior among the other little critters. The big spider swings on her web because she's so happy about little spider; a fly comes along and when he finds out why big spider is so happy, he begins to hum, and so on. At last the children characters in the story see all the activity and they too are happy. It's a sweet and gentle story that helps set a tone for our nursery. Then at lunch, the children have been listening to the longer story of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. One of the nice things about stories of steam shovels or big workers of some sort or another is that it encourages children to use their energy in play that imitates work and to honor that strength inside of them. They'll put their muscles to work digging in the sandbox to build a town hall of their own, or climbing up the ladder to see a "fire" in the distance. 

The children have been industrious these past couple weeks, as always. The hammers have made a comeback and we discovered a nice, somewhat soft log that was perfect for hammering into. The children are more interested lately in trying to get the nails out with the other end of the hammer. Another game that has been well loved lately is "space ship" which is generally played inside, but has sometimes continued outside. They build a giant structure out of chairs and playstands, and everyone gets in. Electricians and fire crews are always needed as well, and food is imperative on their long journeys, so there's work for everyone. 

We started work this week on a project for our "Apple Festival", which is my version of the Michaelmas celebrations often observed in Waldorf schools. Because the holiday falls near apple harvesting time, I generally focus on the apple harvest. However, part of Michaelmas is a celebration of the season of shooting stars, of the celestial coming to Earth. So we are felting some shooting stars to throw and enjoy during our own celebration. 

I've been incorporating a few fine motor exercises for the purpose of mastering pencil grip. One of these exercises is transferring pom poms from one bowl to another using a clothespin. The children loved practicing this but oddly enough, they only wanted to use the sparkly purple pom poms. No one wanted to transfer the sparkly green. Another exercise is stringing beads onto a pipe cleaner. We'll continue with various exercises throughout the year. It also can provide a quiet respite during their busy day! 

Last week, we acted out our previous week's story of "Little Spider Spins Her First Web". The children loved playing the different characters and had no trouble remembering what to say since I had told the story so many times to them. This week, I told a story about Old Gnome picking blackberries for his birthday tea. By far their favorite part was the song Old Gnome sings, 
     Jam cakes, jam cakes, blackberry pie and tart bakes
     Blackberry syrup, pancakes, YUM!
     Ripe juicy blackberries in my tum!
The children sang this loudly each time it came up. At lunch this week, we read "Hairy Maclary, Rumpus at the Vet". As you can imagine, any story with the word "rumpus" in the title is bound to be good.