‘A’ is for apple

These next couple months are going to fly by. Busy, busy, busy. I am having a difficult time not feeling stressed which is starting to lead to anxiety and asthma problems. However, I’m working in different ways to relax and take each day at a time. That’s really all I can do, right? September is over and October has come! Pumpkins, hot tea,  coffee and Halloween! I have also picked up a tutoring student. I am excited to get to work and help as much as I can.

“A” is for apple:

This week we finished our study on dinosaurs. The children read a few dinosaur books, played with our dinosaurs and sang our dinosaur song a few more times before all the dinosaur items were put away.

We reviewed our listening rules again this week: “eyes are watching,” “ears are listening,” “voices quiet” and “body still.” We played a listening game where we practiced our listening skills. We listened to a recording of the teacher’s voices to “guess who?” The children pointed to the picture of the teacher after listening to the voice. We also played a listening game where we listened to different sounds. We have a new telephone toy that we borrowed, that played different sounds. We listened to the different sounds and guessed the sound and pointed to the correct picture. The children enjoyed using their listening ears!

“A” is for apple. We started the letter of the week. The children colored an apple picture, and decorated “A” with apples. The children sorted red, green and yellow apples at circle time and them explored the apples at the discovery center. We cut the apples and looked inside to find the seeds. We used magnifying glasses to look at the apples.

On Friday, we cut up red, yellow and green apples and tasted them at snack time. Each child picked their favorite apple. We made a graph to see which apple was the favorite.

Bella, our class pet rabbit came to school this week. Each child had a chance to pet her and feed her a carrot if they wanted to. Bella will come several days a week to visit our class.

Lauren Muellner will receive her master’s degree in early childhood education with an endorsement in special education in December. She is student teaching in a self-contained special education preschool classroom in Oak Park and is a part-time nanny. Born and raised in Chicago, Lauren likes culture and adventure. She received her bachelor’s degree in theatre from Columbia College Chicago. She plans to integrate music and theatre into her curriculum and teaching.