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October 31st – 9:15 am, Whole School Halloween Parade. Students should come to school dressed in costume and bring a change of casual clothes to change into afterward. Following the parade, the children will return to the classroom and enjoy a special treat and a few fun activities. This will just be for the students and teachers.
Thank you to the following families for signing up to provide items for 23 children of the Halloween party:
Sweet treat- Ambyre Hensler
Salty treat- Alexa Yahn
Healthy treat- Maggie Turak
Drinks- Sophia Bowman
4 rectangular tablecloths- Bodhi Belancic
Plates & Cups- Amy Fitzsimmons
Napkins & Utensils- Chelsea Walls
Hello JK families,
The JK class simply loves throwing, launching, rolling, pushing, and flipping just about anything they can get their hands on. Last week, most of the movement remained on the ground until one morning, the children picked up the sheer colorful scarves that were placed on a table top and began throwing them in the air! The joy on their faces was infectious as the threw them over and over and over. Inspired by their desire to propel things upward and through the air we decided to present them with a variety of ways to move objects with wind. We began with a simple experiment: cut up tissue paper in a big pile in the center of the rug and each child armed with a clipboard. “How can we get them to move?” we asked.
“Like that.”- Forrest (blowing)
“Wiggle them.”- Mylah (with clipboard)
After a suspenseful countdown the children began fanning the large pile and watching the paper fly up in the air! Needless to say, they loved the results and we are still finding tiny pieces of tissue paper all around the room. Next they were invited to propel colorful scarves and balls with fans and hair dryers. Oh what fun!! The children discovered so many ways to use the hair dryers and fans to get the objects to move in directions they never imagined. They worked as a team by holding the hair dryer while friends took turns placing items in front of the wind. Then they discovered they could hold the hair dryer upright and place a ball on top and the ball would shoot up! Similarly, scarves would fly high in the sky when they were placed on top of a fan. One group of children, placed balls inside a bowl, covered it with a scarf and were still able to move the balls by blowing air through the sheer fabric. Ollie was determined to get the balls to fly in the air without air, but instead by partnering with a friend and creating her own “trampoline” with the scarf where the ball would bounce up in the air! Ollie was right on track with what we had planned next… a parachute party! Who didn’t love parachute day in gym class when you were a kid? The children practiced following directions in order to make the parachute go up and down. They took turns running under and switching places, and of course launching balls into the air.
Last week’s muddy pumpkins got a makeover! After their much needed bath, each child got their very own pumpkin and got to create a layered pour painting. The results were beautiful and more will be added to them in the week ahead. We also revisited the squash we explored last week by using them for printmaking. The children dipped the gourds in fall colors and pressed them on the paper to create an imprint. They quickly realized their hands would do the same thing, and dove right in to some messy finger painting!
In phonics, the children practiced the sound and formation for the letter Hh. They loved feeling the “hot heat on their hand” when they said the sound and adding lots of words to our word web. The class quickly realized that many of their classmates have names that start with H. Shoutout to Heidi, Henry, Hailey, and Hunter!
In math, the children’s interest in measurement was brought to life. We first asked them what it meant to measure something. Here are a few things they had to say:
“How tall you are.”- Henry
“Your height.”- Scarlett
“How short and how tall.”- Mylah
“How old you are.”- Kipton
“Lots of stuff. Like you can measure whatever you want when you are building.”- Wendell
“Measure whatever you want.”- Ollie
“You can measure your toys.” -Noah
We lined up, smallest to tallest like we saw in the book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? We were also inspired by their desire to measure each other with connected markers so we decided to let them do just that and see how tall each child measured. Here are the results of how many markers were needed to measure each kiddo:
Stylee: 8 Leonardo: 8 Dax: 7 Bria: 8 Izaak: 8 Bradford: 8 Bodhi: 8 Heidi: 8 Mylah: 8 Kipton: 9 Sophia: 8
Miss Claire: 13 Emma: 8 Scarlett: 8 Hailey: 7 Forrest: 9 Noah: 8 Lola: 8 Lucas: 8 Ollie: 9 Wendell: 8
Rory: 9 Henry: 9 Miss Liz: 12
Next week will bring more opportunities to explore the children’s curiosities and of course celebrate the upcoming holiday, Halloween!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Miss Liz & Miss Claire
Fans and Hairdryers






























Parachute






Pumpkin Pour Painting











Squash Printing














Measurement









Letter H





Daily Discovery and Outdoor Play














