A ripped book was found today. There were lots of questions about how and why the book was ripped. And then it all came pouring out. Lisa grabbed a marker and wrote as fast as Finn and Nate could dictate.

“Emergent literacy is defined as writing and reading behaviors shown that develop and precede into conventional literacy. It explains that a child has a knowledge of reading and writing before they ever learn to read and write.” Here is one explanation of emergent literacy and an example of how we foster it each day.

When the story was completed, Lisa read it aloud to a group of friends. Afterwards, they created illustrations for the book. These can be found on the wall near the habitrail.

We’ve been spending a lot of time reading and singing nursery rhymes. After exploring “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, we set out to create our own spider’s web.

Max and Ada used the string to measure their height.

We moved our study to the art table to create webs with paper, glue and string.

Still interested in the string, Ada and Max created God’s Eyes.

Lisa worked on math skills with a counting/pattern game.

Melinda played a montage of different songs and friends jumped in to exercise their bodies and their voices.

When a song about falling leaves played, Mel ran outside, collected a basket of fall leaves and invited friends to the art table to talk about autumn leaves and then, create art using them.

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers. Breakfast: Corn Flakes and pear slices. Lunch: Whole wheat tortillas with melted cheese, oranges and mixed veggies. Snack: Elliott’s WF Zucchini bread and milk (thanks, Amy and Bill!).

Have a great weekend.