Fall in Tennessee!

Can I just say I LOVE fall?!? It is my favorite season of all and there is no better place than Tennessee to experience fall in all of its glory! I know that many people think of Tennessee as hillbilly country but we really do have some sophistacated people here in these parts of the hills. We do wear shoes and not too many people still wear overalls (although I don't personally own a pair of overalls,  I am sure I could find a pair in a hurry if I needed to). Yep, Tenneessee is right in the middle of the bible belt where you can find a church on most every corner, people ALWAYS stop and pull their cars to the side of the road when a funeral procession passes by even if they don't know them, and we wave at people we don't even know and say "how you doing"...no, I didn't accidently leave out the word are...that's how we say it in TN.

Nope, we don't have hurricanes and I didn't even feel the 2 or 3 teeny, tiny earthquakes that we have record of. Up until a year and a half ago, tornados weren't much of a cause for concern and flooding isn't much of an issue in most areas, thanks to the many dams we have.  But can I please tell you about the fall leaves in Tennessee?! In the next couple of weeks, the leaves will begin to turn the most gorgeous colors of red, orange, yellow, and purple. Weekends will be spent taking a drive to the mountains (20 minute drive no matter where you start from in TN) for camping, hiking, biking, and looking for the perfect spot to take family photos while watching the deer (and bears) come out of hiding as they prepare for the winter. And if the chill in the air doesn't make you happy enough, then a visit to the Harvest Festival at Dollywood (thank you Dolly Parton) is sure to do the trick! Yes, fall in Tennessee is the best. I can't imagine living somewhere that doesn't have visual evidence of the four seasons. If you are looking for a place to get away from it all, come on down to Tennessee! 

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post....syllables! My kids love clapping the syllables in words....they seriously don't know the importance of this skill but boy can they do it well! We start by clapping the syllables in everyone's names and then they try to find big words to clap...hippopotamous, watermelon...seems that the more syllables the word has, the smarter they think they are! To extend this skill, I turn my housekeeping area into a Syllable shopping trip. I add a basket of all of the play foods and paper bags labeled 1 syllable, 2 syllables, 3 syllables, and 4 or more syllables. The kids clap the syllables of the food items and put them in the correct shopping bags. Their partner will check them out at the cash register by taking items out of the bag and "checking them out" to see if they are in the correct bag.  They love this activity and it is a super easy way to add some literacy skills into the homeliving center.

 

While we are working on early literacy skills, I also made this learning center game to practice recognizing spaces between words. Common Core K.RF1c. Click on the picture below to check it out!