Welcome

A big Welcome to Ms. Sedeane and Mr. Trey. It has been so wonderful having them as assistant teachers in Funtime. They are working on learning the kids names and figuring out which parent belongs to what child. If you have a minute when dropping off or picking up, introduce yourself and let them know who your child is. 

Welcome to our new students, it's been fun getting to know you this week!

A few reminders:

Please have your child go potty before entering the classroom.

Please have your child wash his/her hands with soap and water before entering the classroom - there are a lot of illnesses going around this time of year and a little prevention goes a long way!

No Funtime Thursday 10-20 or Friday 10-21

We will be having our Halloween parties this year on Thurs. 10-27 & Fri. 10-28 More details to come...

We did a lot of fun fall activities and crafts this week.  We also took advantage of this beautiful Indian summer and spent some time outside. 

Monday, the Dragonfly (9:30 am MWF) class spent time collecting leaves to make leaf rubbings, but we were having so much fun collecting the leaves, we ran out of time to do the actual craft.  I think after all the fun we had collecting leaves, the craft would have been a little bit of a downer anyway. :-)

For Monday math, the kids used different shapes to make a cute Halloween witch. We talked about each shape and where to place it. This was a really fun and cute way to do some shape recognition.

 

The good news is, the caterpillars (9am T, TH) and butterflies (10:15am T,TH) got to use the leaves the Dragonfly class collected to make a leaf collage.  We glued the leaves onto paper to make a beautiful fall collage on Tuesday.

Wednesday I read a story called The Leaf Man. It's about a leaf man who used to live in one place, but when the wind blew, it picked him up and now we don't know where he is. It talks about where he might be flying. It's a great book and all the illustrations are made out of leaves, so when it talks about how he might be flying over the spotted cow, the spotted cow is made out of leaves. After I read the story, we used our collected leaves to make leaf people. It's really fun to see what the kids create out of leaves, some had skirts, some had feathers, some were people like us with arms, legs and a head. They had a good time looking at the different leaves and deciding what to create. We just let them do whatever they wanted, my philosophy is: it's not about the product, it's about the process. So, you will see a lot of things coming home that are far from 'perfect'. I don't believe in making samples, because I don't want the kids to make something exactly like I made it, I want them to use their own creative visions. Sometimes we will complete projects as a group, where we do each step together, these projects will come home looking a little more 'perfect' or at least looking more uniform.

For Wednesday writing, the kids traced lines using dry erase markers. We wrote on page protectors and erased with toothbrushes.  If they wanted, I also had them write different letters , I called out a letter for them to write, then erase.

Thursday and Friday were gym days. The caterpillars and I ran back and forth across the gym. I asked if they wanted to get something out, I gave them a few choices, bouncy balls, big fit balls, basket balls and a basket. They said no to all of it - "let's just run" a couple little cuties said. So that is what we did, back and forth, back and forth, we got a lot of exercise and also got the giggles! :-)

Because I had a couple of requests last week for the big balls from the butterflies (and we didn't end up honoring those requests) we got them out this week. The kids have so much fun rolling on them, kicking them, rolling them and running behind. It's really a delight to watch! 

The dragonflies also did some fun 'science' today. We again collected leaves and when we got back into the classroom, we crumbled them up. We made sure to get the driest leaves we could find. After we crumbled the leaves, we sprinkled them onto wet paint on a piece of paper. Natures confetti or natures glitter is what we called it. When we crumbled the leaves, they had a different smell then when they were whole - interesting....

Next Week we will continue our Fall theme.

Have a great weekend!