Seasons

This week we are talking about the 4 seasons, more specifically, summer. We have a beach in dramatic play this week, and the kids really enjoyed playing with the fish in the pool. My little one enjoyed "swimming" with her goggles on as I got it ready. And you'll probably see a lot of her on the blog, as she's always tagging along as I get ready....and I'm not entirely comfortable posting pics of other people's children on the web. You're welcome. She's pretty spoiled to have the playroom she does.






































I love having books in dramatic play! When I was student teaching at USU, we were challenged to have a book in every self-selected play area that tied into the theme. It was AMAZING how much the kids loved to read these books as they played. It really brought literacy into our classroom, besides just having a reading center and a story with large group. This worked on Monday too! The kids saw the books and asked what they were. I said they were about oceans, since we were at the beach. They asked me to read them, and soon all the kids were sitting around me, listening to the story. Then they were off to play again. It's like a teacher's dream when something works out like that!

We also made green leaves for our tree after going outside to see what colors the leaves are in the summer. They loved painting and stamping their hands!

 The concept of seasons is difficult for preschoolers to grasp, as time isn't tangible. In fact, I've read research that shows that kids don't understand time (months, days, years, today, yesterday, etc.) until about age 7. But that doesn't mean we don't introduce the concepts and vocabulary now. While they may not grasp that a season is a period of time, they can grasp what is happening in each season, and the order they go in. This is a great time of year (mainly because I love fall!) to point out the seasons changing with your child. Talk about what they've done all summer, what it looked like outside, and what it felt like, plus what types of clothes they could wear. You can point out the leaves changing colors on the mountain now, and find other signs of fall like colder weather and pumpkins growing. Daily weather is something kids catch onto quickly! We talked about the weather on day 1 of preschool, and as we came inside on day 2 (a little early because it was raining) one of the kids pointed out we needed to change our weather sign to "rainy." We did it right away and sang our weather song. I hope you enjoy watching the seasons change. We'll wrap up tomorrow with more fun in the sun, and revisit seasons again in October as we learn about fall.