Welcoming Fall

Fall is by far my favorite season. It means crisp mornings, sweaters and scarves, the start of a new school year, soups and stews, and... pumpkins!! The children of Cohort 5 welcomed fall this week with a variety of squashes. The children have delighted in rolling them, carrying them, touching them, and sitting among them. Twice this week we have cut up a squash to take a closer look inside. 

We started with this small, orange acorn squash. I let the children hold it before we cut it open. Q and IS   found the stem to be much more interesting than the body of the squash, while LC loved rubbing the smoothness of the squash against her face. Although at first, LC wanted nothing to do with it. She waited to see what Q and IS thought.

First, I cut the squash into one large piece and two smaller pieces. Each child had time to hold a small piece and a large piece. Q needed both of his hands to hold the large piece. He tried tasting it but raw squash apparently wasn't very tasty- according to Q.

IS was the most adventurous with the pieces we first cut. His first instinct was to smell the squash.Then he tried poking his fingers into the seeds. I couldn't get a picture that wasn't blurry, but when IS pulled his fingers out of the squash he found the seeds stuck to them. IS excitedly showed the seeds to LC. 

 Then, of course, IS tried to eat it.

LC also tried to eat the squash. After her first taste, she pulled it out of her mouth and away from her body so she could gaze at it. She rubbed the meat of the squash with her fingers and used her nail to scratch the surface of the meat. Then she tried tasting it again.

After a few more cuts and some preparation of the squash that was not tasted to be cooked, we were left with only seeds and the very top piece- which held the beloved stem. Q and IS both spent some time holding on to the stem and studying the bottom.

Then, before we cleaned up, Q gave it one last taste- just to make sure.