November 4 – 7

This week, we learned more about community helpers, specifically postal workers. On Monday, we read “A Letter for Amy,” a story written by Ezra Jack Keats about a little boy who tries to send a birthday invitation to his friend, but runs into some problems along the way. The students also helped me set up the post office in the dramatic play area. Each student typed their own name into the label maker to label their own mailbox.

On Tuesday, students enjoyed finding giant spiders (not Ms Rice’s favorite activity), playing tag, climbing, building, and exploring. There were a lot of pine branches on the ground from the big wind storm, so students had fun adding them to the fort as a roof. They also pretended to paint the fort using the pine needles as paint brushes. This inspired a real art project that we did later in the day. Students brought pine needles back from the forest and painted with them to see if they really would work like a paint brush! Without the imagination of the students, I wouldn’t have thought to use pine needles in such a creative way, but I’m so glad we did! It turns out, pine needles really are nature’s paint brushes!

On Wednesday, we read a silly story about the letters that a mail carrier delivered to fairy tale characters. We also had fun playing in the pretend post office writing letters/pictures, sending cards in envelopes, using stamps, and finding our friends’ names on the mailboxes.

(Sorry I’m so bad at remembering to take pictures on Wednesdays…)

On Thursday, we took a walking field trip to the town post office! We met the post master and got a tour of the post office, including the back room! We learned about the job that a postal worker does, and we saw all of the different kinds of mailboxes that can be used at the post office! When we got back, we played outside and Mr. Matt helped the students rake a giant leaf pile to jump into! We also emptied our rain barrel (before it freezes) and some students had fun learning which objects from nature sink and float.