Fall Fun

     Since Fall Festival, everything has been about apples, pumpkins, and everything Fall. The children have listened to Pumpkin Town by Katie McKy, Picking Apples & Pumpkins by Amy & Richard Hutchings, and Albert's Fieldtrip by Leslie Tryon. We've been using these stories to reflect on our own Fall Festival trips. We had a few minutes before heading off to music class yesterday, so we made "thank you pictures" for Carvins Cove and Jeter Farm.  The children drew pictures of their favorite part of each trip. If your child didn't attend our FF, he/she drew a picture of their favorite thing about their trip. The bubbles were popular at Carvins Cove while the slides were the favorite at Jeter Farm. We will stuff them in an envelope and mail them to each place.

 

     In Math Workshop yesterday, we played with different shapes and positional words (above, below, etc). In the midst of playing with shape magnets, the children got very interested in magnets. The discussion quickly turned into what things are magnetic and what things aren't. Each of the children predicted if something they picked out would "stick" to our magnet wand or not. We had fun finding metal objects around the classroom. 

     Today during Literacy, we reflected one more time on our FF trips and did a journal page. We had drama this morning after fruit break recess and the children got to put on costumes and get into character once again. I heard we had several pirates, cowgirls, race car drivers, and lizards. Be sure to ask your child what they dressed up as.

     Later this morning, we had Science Discovery. I put out several different sensory activities on the tables that the children rotated through. We used moon sand, water beads, and magnets. 

     Thank you to Lila and her mom for baking us an apple cake that we each enjoyed during fruit break this morning. If your child didn't eat all of the fruit break you packed, that's why! :) YUM. Next week in class, we will be making applesauce from scratch.Have I mentioned how much I love Fall?!? 

Remember all of the chatter about Bake Sale during Gatherings? If you checked Quick Notes this week, you know the first Bake Sale was today! If you'd like to, you can just send in a couple dollars for your child to use over the course of the next several weeks(Bake Sales are every Wednesday), I have a special place where the children keep their money. They can just go grab their $0.50 when needed. I'll let you know when it's time to refill their stash. 

Check out our Facebook group for some added photos. 

Wednesday

       The past few school days have flown by. I guess that's what you get when your fish fly. We've been lead through morning meeting this week by Hayes. Over the past few days, we've read a number of books during morning meeting. Holly has came in and read How are you Peeling? by Saxton Fraymann and Joost Elffers and Piggies by Don and Audrey Wood.

     

     I have continued to work on assessing the children when I have help in the classroom. I have Hollins University student employees who work in our room three days a week. Their names are Denise, Marissa, and Erika. If you hear about them, they work in our room to either help me (copying, cutting, laminating, etc.) or do activities with the children. Currently, they're helping me out by playing with or reading to the children while I work one-on-one with them to complete assessments. I am hoping to have them all finished up by early next week. We will begin adapting our daily "schedule" more closely next week, although we have Fall Festival. 

     The children have familiarized themselves with the things in the classroom and language used in the classroom (clear bins, floor toys, and free art for example). Here is the answer to the hint I posted in our Facebook group last week. We're exploring Water Beads. They start out in tiny little baggies. Once submerged in water, they look like this after about 5 minutes:

After about 5 hours, they look like this:

     We've been watching them grow and today they were put in our sensory table. A couple of the kids tried them out after lunch. Some words they used to describe them were: wet, slimy, squishy, cold, and bouncy. We took a couple out and dropped them on the floor to see what would happen - they certainly bounce! We'll sit a couple out and let the air dry them out and watch them shrink back down. 

 

     Please make sure you're visiting the school Calendar, Quick Notes, and our Facebook page often. Several of you were surprised about not having school Monday and picture day today. Please utilize all of the tools available to you so you're up to date on what's going on.