8: The Change of the Seasons

 

Autumn means harvest,

And grain in the bin.

Autumn means farmers

Are bringing fruit in.

It means summer’s blooming

Has given its yield.

Autumn means high tide

In orchard and field. 

-Lenore Hetrick

In 1720, Antonio Vivaldi, a great Italian composer, captured the essence of the four seasons by composing a series of concertos. His music is a narrative of life through the seasons, which transports his listeners to the world that he has painted through his melody. 

His works are considered to be timeless classics up to now.  

As we transition into a new season, I borrowed Vivaldi’s masterpiece, Autumn, as a provocation for our yearlong inquiry on the earth’s cycles. I introduced the children to the concerto, which they tapped and clapped along with as they listened. 

We talked about autumn colors, and connected this beautiful season with falling leaves. The children went out of our classroom to see if they could collect dried leaves that have fallen from our playground plants, which we used for leaf printing. 

Aside from its amazing array of colors, I explained to the children that autumn also bring an abundance of food for farmers as it is known to be a harvest season. It was a new concept for them, so what better way to find out more about it than to visit some sweet potato plants that my former Kindergarteners planted last school year. They’re ready for picking, and we’re hoping that we can help harvest them -- especially since we’re also learning about where food comes from in our current unit!

To simulate what farmers do during harvest time, I invited the children to “harvest” some weeds in our back lot. We repurposed an old fence and turned it into a weaving frame to showcase what we’ve gathered. It turned out to be a beautiful work of art!

The concept of ‘from farm to table’ is something that I support, and I wanted to show the children the different kinds of food that farmers bring to our table. We read the book called Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert and we saw different kinds of food from A to Z — some we never even heard of before! Have you ever eaten a kohlrabi or a rutabaga? Do let me know as I'm curious on what it tastes like.

After this, the children worked on our alphabet wall display by using autumn elements like leaves, acorns, pine cones, sticks, wood, and some stones. We’re just letting them dry and soon, they’ll be ready for hanging up!

We even spelled the word 'Autumn' using the colors of nature!

For this week’s story workshop, I laid out some colorful manipulatives that the children used to create their story. To connect with the candy shop that they created last week, I challenged the children to come up with a story using this provocation:  

What is your ‘sweet’ story? 

Emi

This is a dog. 

It saw a candy on the floor. 

The dog ate the candy. 

The dog said, "ruff!"

Ren

I have two dice. 

I rolled them and got the number 10. 

Mommy gave me 10 cupcakes!

Haruto

The boat is going to the house.

It has chocolate.

The duck saw the boat.

The duck ate the chocolate!

Rino

It's a heart cake for Eda's birthday.

Everybody ate it.

It's so yummy!

Yanchen

I went to the supermarket.

I saw candy and lollipops.

I bought 5 rainbow lollipops!

Diego

There's fire around the candy.

The arrow has water inside.

They made the arrow fly to sprinkle water on the fire.

There was one fire left. 

It is close to the candy.

It's hard to get because it's hot.

There's no more water in the arrow!

Eda

My mom used to buy me a rainbow chocolate.

It's so big!

She bought when my friends came to the house.

We cut it and everyone could have it!

Jin

The boy is playing but it is rainy. 

The sun is hiding.

He is at home.

He ate ice cream.

When he finished, he played again.

Sophia

Emily, Sophia, Daddy and Mommy went to the supermarket to buy ice cream.

We ate it in the park.

We went camping after.

We ate lollipops there.

Arisa and Mana

This is a rabbit who is dressed as a rainbow.

He has ice cream and a lollipop.

We saw him in the shop and bought him!

Their narratives are all wonderfully made! 

The past few weeks, we’ve been learning about the concept of choices and how they affect us. This week, we finally connected this with food. The children unlocked the words “healthy” and “unhealthy” through a sorting activity of the two food groups that we finished learning about: fruits and vegetables, and sweets. 

The children had an amazing discussion about where to put some food items, such as the pies and cakes. Some of them said they’re not unhealthy, and some of them said that they’re not healthy either. They all finally decided to put them in the middle because they think it can be both. Their reflections were remarkable, as they realized that choices are not always black/white, good/bad, healthy/unhealthy — sometimes it’s a continuum or a scale that gives you room to just be human!

One of them even said, “I eat candies and chocoloates. I think even if they’re unhealthy, they’re okay if you don’t eat too much.” 

To further deepen our discussion on choices, I connected it with the choices that the children make in class and how it affects their relationships with others. I’ve created a choice-o-meter to help the students visualize that our actions fall under a scale too, and that we can change our choices to move up to green. I wanted them to understand that making orange or red choices doesn’t make us a bad person, and that making mistakes is okay especially if we learn from them.

This week, I’ve given the children the opportunity to build stronger friendships with their classmates. Throughout all the activities this week, I’ve created a buddy system for the children. Every day, they had a new friend to work with and to get to know. I read the story “What I Like About Me” to show them that we all have something to offer to others, and sharing all the good parts that make up who we are will help us build better relationships with our friends. 

I’ve recorded what each child liked about their buddy for each day, and read the comments to the class before we went home. Everyday this week, there was a smile on each child’s face knowing that others see goodness in them. It was so heartwarming to see their joy.

The seasons are changing, and friendships are growing. It’s time to harvest the abundance of goodness in all of us.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Your Kindergarten teacher, 

Pam

P.S. We have a new classmate who joined us this Friday. His name is Atsuharu, but you can call him Haru. Please give him a warm welcome when you see him!