What a short fun week we had! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break with your loved ones and got to enjoy some fun time outdoors with your little ones on our first snow of the season.

This week we gather together with all the children and said good bye to autumn, giving a big welcoming to winter! Using the book Mouse’s First Snow by Lauren Thompson, we got to discuss the different things we can do during the winter. This created conversations and some children got to express their favorite things to do during this new season. We LOVE watching your children grow and be able to put into words what they are thinking!

This week we also introduced painting on the easel. There are three main objectives of this exercise. First, the development of hand-eye coordination. Dipping the paintbrush in and out of the paint pot requires a steady hand and a keen eye, working simultaneously. Second, small motor control. Holding the paintbrush and whooshing it across the paper in the direction you want it to go is hard work when you’re small. Think of all the pre-writing skills they are learning just by holding the brush! Third, and I have to say my favorite goal, creative independence! There are no rules when it comes to painting. There is no predetermined product, just a process. The children can plan their own painting, from start to finish without any interference from adult rules or directions. The only thing they must remember is to paint only on the paper. Their sense of satisfaction after they finish their masterpiece is just incredible to witness!

Hand-eye coordination is one of the most important parts of the learning process. It helps your child track the movements of their hands with their eyes, which is essential for reading and decoding. Because your child also uses their visual system with hand-eye coordination, it can greatly impact their writing skills and handwriting as they use their eyes to guide, direct, and control their hand movements across the page as they write letters and words.

As we enter the holiday season new works have been introduced. Some of the favorites have been placing little ornaments onto the Christmas tree, placing candles on the Menorah, putting together the seasons puzzle, making gingerbread men with our homemade gingerbread playdough, transferring and spooning ornaments, and flipping pretend latkes in the pan.

For food tasting we explored and tasted clementines. The children loved it!

Some new books your children seemed to enjoy are: Hannukah Is Coming by Tract Newman, The Child In the Manger by Liesbet Slegers, and Germs Are Not For Sharing by Elizabeth Verdick.

As families across the U.S. are preparing for one of the biggest holidays of the year, our children have been preparing for the Thanksgiving festivities! This week we introduced the concept of color mixing to the children. Using coffee filters in the shape of maple leaves, children discovered that when mixing red and yellow we can create orange! Children were excited to see the water moving and creating new colors! There is tremendous joy that floods a child’s spirit when they discover a transformation happening in front of them. We love color mixing because it’s a process that helps to develop a love of learning. We can’t wait to discover new colors together!

We also had a great time baking our vegan banana bread. Children learned names of ingredients and had the opportunity to touch, smell, see, measure, and mix all the ingredients. We can’t wait to share the fruit of our work with other students in the FWM community at the sharing bread event in honor of Thanksgiving next week! We can’t wait as well to share a special time with our friends in the younger toddler room for our own Toddler Thanksgiving bash! It’s going to be epic! Stay tuned!