- October 19th: 9:00 am – 3:00 pm, Fall Campus Refresh! Volunteer for a few hours by swinging by 8 Park Road with gardening gloves to help freshen our campus. Lunch and refreshments will be provided!
- October 22nd – Students are encouraged to wear pink to show support for Breast Cancer Awareness this Tuesday! Donations will be collected by classroom teachers and sent to local breast care centers.
- Wednesday, October 30th, Field Trip to Nicky’s Garden Center! Please let us know ASAP if your child will need transportation.
- Thursday, October 31st- Halloween! Students are invited to come to school in costume. Sign up here to bring an item for our Halloween party!
- Beforecare is available in the gym from 7:30- 8:20 and aftercare from 3:30-5:00.
- Teacher Email: mshah@wcdsedu.com, awolle@wcdsedu.com, aschultz@wcdsedu.com
Hello Preschool Families!
What a BIG week we had in Preschool, GIANT if you will. ENORMOUS explorations created for lots of excitement! Are you sensing a theme yet? The students dove into the world of mathematics this week.
On Tuesday we read the story “The Littlest Pumpkin” by R.A. Herman. A story about the smallest pumpkin in the patch who finds himself becoming more alone on the farm as everyone is quick to grab the largest pumpkin in the patch as the days quickly approach Halloween. However, when a group of mice come along, they make the littlest pumpkin feel like largest pumpkin in the patch when his dream comes true, as they turn him into the brightest Jack-O-Lantern. We then presented the children with 4 pumpkins of various sizes and a scale. We asked the children what they thought a scale does.
Atticus “You put things on it, I have two at home”
Lincoln – “It tells you something”
Avery – “It says how big!”
Levi – “I know, it says how heavy!”
We then introduced the term “weight”. Explaining to the students how things can be heavy and some can be light, We asked the children to form a “hypothesis” and took a tally of which pumpkin they thought was the heaviest. Most guessed pumpkin #1 was the heaviest and others guessed pumpkin #2. We then placed all four on the scale. Pumpkin #1 weighed 17.2 lbs, #2 weighed 12.2 lbs., #3 weighed 9lbs. and #4 weighed 11lbs. They eagerly shouted out that they knew 17.2 lbs. was the largest number! The kiddos were then invited to their own weighing stations. They were presented with scales, mini pumpkins, gourds, and loose parts. They clamored with excitement as they took turns balancing the scales or weighing down the scales to see how they could out weigh the pumpkins with loose parts.
On Wednesday we read the story “How BIG Could Your Pumpkin Grow?” by Wendell Minor. This story included larger than life pumpkins that decorated some of America’s favorite places, such as the gigantic Brooklyn Bridge, the jumbo oil fields of Texas, the colossal rapids of the Grand Canyon and the immense dome of The U.S. Capitol Building. Not only did this story take us through multiple U.S. landmarks and landscapes, it introduced us to various concepts of size and scale! Moving on from weight, we introduced the children to measurement! Armed with rulers and math link cubes we took the pumpkins from the day before and measured their height! Again, the children were asked to form a hypothesis on which pumpkin they thought was the tallest. Pumpkin #1 was 8 inches, #2 was 9 inches, #3 was 7 inches and #4 was 10 inches. We all determined that the smallest number was 7 and the largest number was 10! The students made their way to a provocation, pumpkins, cubes, building blocks, math link cubes and rulers lined the tables. The children loved building and counting the blocks to see how tall their pumpkins were, while others used the rulers and counted the numbers to see how “high” the pumpkins were!
In phonics we learned a new concept! The children are working on taking two small words and “smushing” them to make a big word. ex. Back-Pack (Backpack!) During Spanish, Miss Meredith noticed our bodies were extra wiggly, so she incorporated a little yoga using the Spanish animal names to move and calm those bodies. It only took these littlest learners to learn that a mariposa is a butterfly, Miss Arden found out in year 38 of life. Daily discovery was full of light! tubes lights and colorful dome lights turned into ghost cups filled with “juice” and the reflection from CD’s made it “spooky!”
To wrap up the week we took those pumpkins we measured and used them to measure us! The kiddos squealed with delight as we took turns counting how many pumpkins tall we were! It was truly a magical week of exploring and learning. There is not a scale large enough or a ruler high enough to measure the amount of joy your children bring us!
Have a wonderful weekend with your little pumpkins this weekend!
Miss Arden, Miss Meredith & Miss Airry
WEIGH IN STATION
MEASUREMENT
HOW MANY PUMPKINS TALL?
DAILY DISCOVERY
