It's been a very busy Autumn around here. We've had rainy days, celebrations, and many new activities. We've been working our fancy fingers with some tongs, taping, cutting, tearing paper, beading, painting, drawing, and of course whatever they can get into outside!
We've added in some gross motor exercises during our circle time. See if your child can show you the dog stretch, superman, and bicycle (or turtle). These are exercises that both strengthen the core and help their brains cross their midline. When children have strong cores, they actually tend to have better pencil grip. When they can successfully cross their midline, they can successfully read and write from left to right, or whichever way one's culture requires. And of course, with stronger cores, they can sit up for longer periods of time when it's required of them.
A little midline crossing poem we've been saying is:
Yellow the bracken, golden the sheaves (cross arms at head)
Rosy the apples, crimson the leaves (cross arms at chest)
Mist on the hillside, clouds gray and white (cross on lap)
Autumn good morning, Summer goodnight (open arms, then bring hands to lap)
We've added in some gross motor exercises during our circle time. See if your child can show you the dog stretch, superman, and bicycle (or turtle). These are exercises that both strengthen the core and help their brains cross their midline. When children have strong cores, they actually tend to have better pencil grip. When they can successfully cross their midline, they can successfully read and write from left to right, or whichever way one's culture requires. And of course, with stronger cores, they can sit up for longer periods of time when it's required of them.
A little midline crossing poem we've been saying is:
Yellow the bracken, golden the sheaves (cross arms at head)
Rosy the apples, crimson the leaves (cross arms at chest)
Mist on the hillside, clouds gray and white (cross on lap)
Autumn good morning, Summer goodnight (open arms, then bring hands to lap)
Our projects lately, including their capes and crowns for the Harvest celebration, have looked very simple but required many different steps to complete. Each step presents a different skill such as painting, cutting, or sewing. In the case of our capes, they even got to use spray bottles to spray dye onto flour sack cloth! The children loved making their little lanterns and I told a story the week before our lantern walk about a little girl named Naiya who misses the warmth and light of summer. The sun tells her to make a little "home" to put a little light in to last the winter long. Naiya makes a little lantern and the sun gives her a little spark to light it up.
RSS Feed
