Characters, Setting, and our 5 Senses

This week we spent much of our whole group learning time activating and building schema using our five senses.
We discussed our five senses and used some of them to explore our fall tree.
We also spent some time discussing WHY DO LEAVES CHANGE COLORS?
Prior to exploring and reading our non-fiction book some of our friends had this information in their schema:

• a fairy makes them change
• my mom does it
• the holidays
• the seasons change, so the leaves do too
• it gets cold
• there is not enough light
• a wizard zaps the trunk

After activating our schema we worked on building it. We spent so much time  this week turning and talking.  We are always encouraging appropriate oral language.  The children are learning about how to keep their conversation on the topic, look their partner in the eyes, and being bucket fillers.

We went outside and observed the tree using our senses.  WOW! Did we collect some information!  The we read a story called Why Do Leaves Change Colors?

We discovered that we had some "misconceptions."  

Now, we know that leaves change colors because of less sunlight, temperature changes, less water, and we learned a new word that makes the leaves change from their green color to other colors because chlorophyll begins to fade.

We observed this happening by touching and looking at actual branches with leaves on them.  As you are out in your yards or walking around where there are trees.  Please stop and discuss what we have learned about in school with your child.

This week we also spent time learning about characters and setting.  The children discovered that there can be many characters in a story or just one.  They also saw that the setting of a story can change.

As you are doing daily reading please encourage retelling and discuss characters and setting.