🐞🐞🐞
Starting off with some reminders and important dates…
FALL BREAK - Thursday, October 1st, and Friday, October 2nd.
We tentatively have our fire drills on October 5th and 6th. Miss Shelly will just use a signal for attention to keep things very calm - no loud alarm to scare us. We will just be practicing how to line up and go to our safe spot outside quickly, and will have gone over our fire safety books within our classrooms.
The Chapel Hill Fire Department will be coming to CCP on Monday, October 12th, around 9:15am. I would love to encourage my Tuesday/Thursday grownups to bring their children to this special experience. All will get to meet firemen/women, learn about fire safety, and will get to sit in the firetruck. Great photo opportunity!
Fall Conferences will be held on October 13th and 14th. You will be receiving an email with a link to sign up for our Fall Conferences. If these dates don’t work with your schedule, we will need to arrange an alternate time to meet.
Fall picture days are October 20th and 21st with David Gallatly. Family photo sessions will be held on October 21st for anyone who is interested.
We are a NUT FREE, SESAME FREE, and BANANA FREE classroom! Please check labels to make sure snacks do not contain nuts, sesame, or banana.
Please check your child’s cubby daily for papers.
Check out our photos posted on the website! Use the password CCP-26/27 to enter the parent portal and find the class albums.
Please have all Ladybugs use the stairs, and NOT play on the steep hill next to the stairs. We know (and understand) the temptation over how fun the hill looks to roll, run, or climb down, but we care so much about their safety even when not in our care, and would love your help to reinforce what we have been teaching them about safety.
🐞🐞🐞
Onto our week…
This week we have been learning about our five senses. We explored books on each of the senses, and discovered that certain experiences allow us to use more than one of our senses. Air-popping popcorn provided a multi-sensory experience that engaged all of our five senses: the sight of kernels rapidly transforming and expanding, the distinct sound of popping that built anticipation, the warm, toasty aroma that stimulated appetite, the light, crisp texture felt when handled or bitten, and the subtly sweet, nutty flavor that satisfied our palates. This combination created a unique and memorable sensory experience, even without the added oils and flavorings.
YUM! Air-Popped Popcorn - A Multi-Sensory Experience!
Since tasting is a multi-sensory process that goes beyond the tongue, we got to do a taste test, and talked about the taste buds. While the taste buds detect the basic tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory (although I didn’t include savory this year), our other senses play essential roles in shaping the full experience. Sight influences our expectations through color and presentation. Smell works closely with taste, as aroma enhances flavor perception. Touch contributes through texture and temperature, while even hearing - such as the crunch of a crisp food - can affect how we perceive freshness. Together, these senses helped us to identify and enjoy the wide variety of flavors we tried. We tried sweet apples, sour lemons, salty pretzels (two types), bitter arugula, and I added a sweet (safe) chocolate semi-sweet morsel to see where they though that fit in. They felt like the morsel was both bitter and sweet. The favorite in both Ladybug classes was the chocolate morsel. We loved how all that we did together allowed us to experience flavors in a more meaningful and memorable way.
Another Tasty Multi-Sensory Experience!
Our centers this week were also focused on our multi-sensory experience. In the art center, we were able to feel various textures. We compared and contrasted each item’s different feature, and then got to create a work of art using those materials. The sensory bin included different varieties of pastas, and little hard figures, that we got to sort by color. I added a seek-and-find center, which was definitely a challenge to our little eyes, but some friends did find some pictures and hidden objects. The dramatic play center, dress-up, Play-Doh, blocks, and puzzles were also available, in addition to the reading center.
Our Multi-Sensory Art Center
So many of us are finding our names at the door all by ourselves now! We are definitely feeling more confident, and know the routine. Everyone has a job to do each week: line leader, door holder, caboose, weather helper, etc, and are becoming experts. Our class jobs will rotate weekly so that everyone gets a turn to do each job. We did great walking down the hallway to our specials this week. We are doing wonderful with keeping our bodies safe, and using hugs and bubbles while walking. All seemed excited (and maybe a bit timid) to begin our new specials.
We had our first Chapel with Pastor Lee. He told us a story about a man coming to Jesus and asking him what the most important rules are for life. Jesus told him that the number one rule was to love God with everything you have, and the number two rule was to love everybody. He taught us about lighting the candle to show that God is with us always, and had us each catch the light so that we are forever able to carry it with us. We sang, “This Little Light of Mine” at the end, and were encouraged to go out and share our light with others.
We also had our first music class with Miss Crysta-Anne. Everyone was very engaged, and loved singing, dancing, and being introduced to the rhythm shakers and stretchy band. Stretchy bands are particularly useful for teaching rhythmic concepts, spatial awareness, and teamwork, allowing us to work together to create visual patterns and sounds synchronized with music.
What a fun-filled week of sensory play! We explored, touched, smelled, listened, and even tasted as we engaged all five senses through a variety of exciting activities. It was a wonderful week full of curiosity, exploration, and lots of hands-on learning!
Next week will be a short one, but we’ll still have plenty of fun! We’ll continue exploring our senses while also beginning to focus on name recognition. We’re looking forward to another week of learning, playing, and discovering together!
Enjoy the weekend with your sweet Ladybugs!
Miss Lisa, Miss Phoenix, and Miss Jennifer