We celebrated our Autumn harvest today with some fairies painting the leaves on our trees. These little fairies have done so much painting the last couple of weeks. They painted their silk capes and many, many "leaves" or coffee filters that were cut into leaves. With glittering paintbrushes in hand today, we set off to paint some forest leaves and wound up finding some goodies for our bags! It was lovely as always, to be joined by parents for a special little lunch. 

It is a joy to watch how the children challenge themselves to bring their bodies into fuller and more diverse movement. They certainly choose challenging work for themselves. Over and over they will climb the ladder, or go up the slide in reverse, or lug heavy blocks to build a road. They will carefully fill and refill the watering pots to water our newly sprouted seeds. Both inside and out, the children have all been involving themselves in building a fire engine and taking turns "driving" it. Each takes a turn, sometimes children don't even know they are the driver until they hear their friend say "Yeah, you're really driving! Whoa!!". Generally the firetruck becomes a house as well with sleeping babies that require everyone to "hush" and then later the site of some impromptu picnic. 

As I mentioned before, the seeds we planted last week have begun to grow. The children water the little sprouts everyday. Our story this week is from Europe, about a little boy named Hugin who plants a turnip seed so that he can make a lantern for Halloween. The children may not relate to turnip carving, but they love how the animals from the forest each come out in turn to help him pull the turnip, until they are all pulling "but the turnip wouldn't budge an inch!". But when clever little mouse reminds Hugin that he must ask the root gnome, all is set aright and the gnome pops out saying he's been pulling on the other end the whole time! So they try again and out it pops, with everyone falling down and having a laugh. Hugin has in his hands the biggest turnip ever seen.

This week we headed into the forest, now that most of the weeds and poison ivy have died back. It was exciting to watch the children's expressions as they figured out all the possibilities that the forest offered for play. A little log home was found, some ropes were used for climbing, and the hay bales were back there for climbing and sliding down. It's our "biodegradable playground". The hay bales will be used for making houses, climbing towers, and mazes among so many other things. Then by spring, they're ready to be composted or used as mulch. 

We are attempting round two of our winter vegetables since the first ones didn't take. I had little fingers helping to plant beets, kale, lettuce, carrots and arugula. We will see if we have any luck! We will certainly have sweet potatoes to dig up in the next few weeks though. We continued with our garden songs at circle time, which include rolling, crawling and jumping movements. At the end of our circle, we make "Ala-mala-mink-monk stew", which is a delicious sounding Halloween stew that the children "sprinkle" in imaginary ingredients. There's quite a bit of chocolate, apple pie, and peanut butter in it. I think these guys could start a business here in Durham and call it something quaint.  Maybe a food truck?

I told the story of the little mouse who finds his winter home in a pumpkin. Children love the ending with the mouse curling up in his pumpkin, safe and warm. It's a reassuring story. I love when I get to the part where the mouse has nibbled a hole and reveals "This is a house that is warm and bright, it shines for me both day and night, with a warm and golden light" and often the children can't contain themselves and shout out "He's going in there! He's curling up in it!" 

Friendships are forming, and it's lovely to hear the children eagerly talking about how their friends will be coming soon. The favorite part of the day seems to be when the children hear the door open, rushing to see who has arrived and giving them an enthusiastic "hello". 

This week was our first week back from Fall break, and it's amazing how much children are growing and changing just in the span of a few weeks! We celebrated 2 birthdays this week, so we were all busy bakers. Our birthday celebrations are a wonderful time to hear more about what the birthday child was like as a baby and how those first days, months and years went by! It's a lovely time for me as a teacher to be able to celebrate with the parents and child, and the stories shared are another way I can know your child as a whole person! I feel lucky to share birthdays with you. 

     We harvested our Scarlet Runner beans this week. They have a beautiful pink and purple speckled bean that is a real treat too find. They were used in play for all kinds of "soups" and I have a feeling they were re-planted in various places. I'm sure we'll find bean vines all over the place come spring! Next week, we'll be planting carrots, kale, lettuce, and arugula, seeing as how my first batch never wound up coming up. I have a good team of waterers with me now, so I'm sure to have more success. 
    

I was reminded of how important the role of self-directed pretend play is in creating a mind that is flexible and creative. Allowing children the freedom to play and pretend will give them greater capacity for abstract thought and creative thinking. Take for example this conversation, and imagine if more adults and leaders could do this:
A: I'm going to the beach (heads to sandbox)
B: There's no beach. Oh, THAT"S the beach!
A: Wait, let's get a truck. 
B: And build a road!
A: Yes we're building a road. (Child B pours water on the road)
    Wait, don't pour water on the road, it's not      a...river...wait...yes it is. Let's make a river! 
B: Yes, we're making a river, I'll get some water. 
The sandbox was a beach, then a road, then a river. By having the freedom to play, children are able to allow their minds to flow through different possibilities. This can lead to potential conflict with other playmates, but when they both have the freedom and time, they can create ideas that allow them both to play and expand on that play. Think of how helpful this is in later relationships! 

Our story this week (though I only told it twice because we heard the birthday story on Monday and Thursday) is about a little mouse who has to look for a house because his leaf has blown away and the Autumn winds are making it impossible to sleep under the leaves. With the help of wise owl and an Autumn fairy, he finds a pumpkin to make his home in and curls up, cozy and warm. We are singing songs about plants that grow up and plants that grow down and plants that twine round and round. So we say "The corn grows UP!" (jump) "And the carrots grow down" (touch the ground). "And the green bean vines twine round and round" (crawl around). I'll be sharing more of our circle verses and you'll notice that I try to include crawling as part of the movements. This is because crawling is actually an important movement that strengthens the connections between both halves of the brain and prepares the brain itself for reading and writing later on down the road! Many children skip crawling or go quickly to walking in their babyhood, and sometimes have later trouble with reading and writing. By playing and moving while crawling, it helps to give the child some extra time to use this beneficial movement! This is also why tunnels are often a part of our morning play time. I'll be sharing more of our verses and songs next week, and we will continue to hear about "Sweetpea" the mouse and his little pumpkin house. 

We've been out this week for fall break and I'm a bit late writing this as I've been enjoying some time with my own family. I hope all of my Appleseeds families are enjoying some time together as well. 

I've been researching the importance of movement in young children and the need to allow children to climb, balance, and overall maneuver their body around. Of course, for the most part, children do this on their own given the time and a little space. But for fun we set up a little obstacle course with the blocks for the children to climb up and down and also balance on a board. 

An extra challenge was when we made the board into an incline and it was exciting to watch children play on this. The first few times they would use both hands to help get up, then eventually they would do it by walking slowly. Eventually, they would sometimes bring over a toy truck and carefully walk behind it while pushing it in front of them. You can imagine the degree of concentration and care this takes on the part of the child, but they do it! Without encouragement, they will repeat this over and over until they have mastered it. 

We made some play dough last week. It is tempting to make some that I've seen made with delicious pumpkin pie spices, or even chocolate pudding playdough (really!), but that seems a bit torturous to all involved. Who wouldn't want to eat that? So we stuck with plain old homemade flour and salt dough. The children kneaded in the color themselves. It's a wonderful way to really have to work the dough, and it feels delightful because the dough is still warm. They loved watching the orange color finally appear from the yellow and red. 

We added a new, very silly part to our morning circle. It's our scarecrow song! 

When all the cows are sleeping
And the sun has gone to bed...

UP!!! Jumps the scarecrow, and this is what he said...
I'm. A. Dingle, dangle scarecrow with my flippy floppy hat
I can shake my hands like this, I can shake my feet like that. 

(Note: our friend pictured to the left is NOT doing the dingle dangle scarecrow as she carefully walks the logs!)

Some of you asked for our bread recipe, so here it is:
2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup oil
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups white flour
Cinnamon, raisins, seeds, etc. (optional)

Combine the flours, salt, and optional extras in a bowl. Dissolve your yeast and honey in the water until the yeast is frothy. Pour it into the flour mix. Then add the oil in. Mix it all together and add more water or flour as necessary. Let it rise for at least 30 minutes in a warm spot. After rising, divide the dough and knead for 5 minutes. We add our raisins and seeds at this time. Shape, put it on your pan and let rise for at least another 30                                                             minutes. Bake at 350 until it's looking done!