Baking

From the end of last week to the beginning of this week, we welcomed several parent volunteers into our classroom to bake with the children. We made many delicious treats, and we thank all parents for coming in!

Decorating

When we have special events at school such as Pinata Party day, we like to decorate the space that we eat our special snack in. We used our leaf/sponge painting from last week as one tablecloth, and the children used fall colors to decorate two more. They also colored in some pumpkin and maple leaves that we then cut out and glued onto the tablecloths. 

The big day has finally arrived! The children helped to set up for the party by setting up our eating space - placing plates, napkins, and centerpieces on the table. They also all got a turn to place handfuls of our goodies into the pinata.

Special Snack

The food has been made, the tables are set, and now it is time to eat!

Games

The whole school was opened for game time, and children were able to go to all of the classrooms. In the Half Day Nursery, we played Monster Toss, hopscotch, and Erase the Pumpkin. In the All Day Nursery, we played mini golf and Skittle Bowling. In Primary, we played Witch Hat Toss and Stack the Ghost Cups. The Big Room also contained a walk through maze and some hula hoops!

Pinata Time!

At the end of our party, it was finally time to break open the pinata! We hung our pumpkin pinata in the Block Area, and the children sat around it in a large circle. Each child had a chance to come up and hit the pinata with a bat. After all of the children had two turns, the teachers even got a chance to hit the pinata! The children had their goodie bags ready, and when the pinata finally broke, they all raced to fill their bags with as many toys as they could.

Voting on Our Pinata!

The fun prep for our big pinata party on November 1st begins! As a class, the children shared their ideas of what our pinata could possibly look like. The next day, we all voted and counted up the tally marks. It came down to a tie between sea turtle and pumpkin after all of the children and teachers voted! We called in Zach to break the tie and the pumpkin was the grand pick of them all with seven votes! 

Creating Our Pumpkin Pinata

It was a team effort this entire week from Danielle and Rachel's group to make the pinata. On Monday, the 5 day children made the papier mache mixture including flour and water. Once it was mixed, they dipped strips of newspaper into the mixture and placed it onto the balloon that will initially hold the shape of our pinata!

On Tuesday...

We continued to apply papier mache to create a sturdy shell for our pinata. We are almost there!

On Wednesday...

We worked on painting our pumpkin orange. Some of the children pointed out that there are other colors on a pumpkin such as green and brown. Billie worked on creating a green vine with them, which strengthened their fine motor skills as they twisted the pipe cleaners around the stick. 

Sponge Painting

In the art room this week we focused on the technique of sponge painting. The children understood the motions going "up, down, up, down" onto the paper instead of going side to side. We collected different leaves to explore how the paint transferred around the leaf and even turned the leaf over with the paint covering it. What print mark did it make? 

Working with Unifix Cubes

Some of the children were interested in putting together unifix cubes. Several of the children counted how many cubes there were, some identified their colors, and others compared unfix towers and noticed their lengths! 

First Game Day

On Wednesday, we took part in the first Game Day of the year! Once a month, several parents come into school and bring board games. A few children from each classroom are able to go to the Big Room and play these board games together. The children will get a chance to play games for a short time and then will go back to their classrooms and other children will come out, until every child who wants a turn has had one. This event builds community in our school as children in every class get to play together and learn from each other. 

This month, the games consisted of "Bluey - Keepy Uppy Game", "Yeti in my Spaghetti", "First Orchard", "Trash Stash", and "Turtle Hatch".

Family Book

In the beginning of the school year, each family filled a page with pictures of the different members of their child's family, and those pages were compiled into our Family Book. Each page is unique and consists of who is most important to the child - including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even furry friends! The book has been available to look at during the day and many of the children have enjoyed sitting around a teacher and reading about their friends' families. 

We are starting to send out our Family Book so that each child may look at it with their own family. We ask that you go through the book with your child, and then return it the next day so that every family can have a chance to look at it throughout the year.

Under the Sea

Recently, we brought in two fish decorations to put up in our classroom. Before they were hung up, several children enjoyed playing with them, and pretending to make them swim around. This inspired us to create an underwater mural, so that our fish would have somewhere to live in our classroom!

We started this experience last week with finger-painting. The children explored finger paints for a day, and then we offered them underwater colors such as shades of blues, greens, and purples. Each child who wished to help added finger paints to our large sheet of paper to create a background for the mural. This week, we finished our mural by adding collage elements such as fabric, ribbon, and streamers to represent different objects and animals found in the ocean.

A New Project with Billie

This week, we began work on our new mural with Billie. The children used different paint brushes and painting techniques to create an outdoor scene which will soon house all of our favorite animals. Different shades of blue were mixed together and painted onto our board to create the sky, and then grass and dirt was added by using paint brushes and flat sponges. Some children used sea sponges to dab on white clouds, and others used fan brushes to swirl the colors of the sky. Our next steps for this project include figuring out and adding what type of homes each animal lives in, and then adding in our animal pictures!

Winterizing Our School's Garden and Planting Flower Bulbs

Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who helped plant flower bulbs with the children in our Welcome garden! We can't wait to see them pop out of the ground in the spring! The garden in our yard was prepped for a long winter ahead. In order to prepare for the chill in the air, the children picked tomatoes, flowers, and turned over the soil to get ready for a long season!

Book Borrowing

You might have seen a book come home in your child's bag this week. That means they have started to use the wonderful book borrowing system we have at school! There are 3 steps - pick out a book, find the card in the back of the book and put it in the book borrowing chart, then take it home to enjoy! Your child can borrow their book for as long as they like. Once they bring it back to school, they can take home a new book! Happy reading!

In the Art Studio With Billie This Week...

Billie had the children come into her Art Studio in small groups to work on adding fall leaves onto our Big Room's tree. The children mixed paint colors that represented the beautiful fall colors and painted them onto the leaves!

Exploring Finger Paint

Admiring Nature

On Monday, the children in the Half Day Nursery were all together on the climbers and stumbled upon mushrooms sprouting up from the ground. They began collecting mushrooms, acorns, sticks, and sweet gum pods in baskets to observe them closer in the week ahead. During work time one morning, some of the children came over to the table to look at mushrooms under magnify glasses. Many of the children observed the inside of the mushroom while others studied the outside. 

Studying and discovering nature up close gives children the chance to build more of an appreciation for the environment around them.