Halloween Parade

Today the children came to school dressed in their Halloween costumes. There were princesses, heroes, friendly creatures and witches and even a helicopter. The children gathered inside their classrooms as their parents gathered outside with cameras in hand. It is always such a sweet surprise for the children, as they emerge from the school onto the porch, to see the paparazzi that awaits.
Lucky for us that we had a sunny day to parade around the park. Back inside, we read stories, created art, sang songs, practiced French and shared treats. The children work so hard every day. This was a well-deserved break.

Just 4 of the adorable jack-o-lantern bags made by the children for their Halloween treats.

Because skeletons are one of the Halloween icons, we've been learning about the bones in our bodies. You'll soon see cut and pasted skeletons and painted skeletons coming home. Since one of our students recently broke a bone, this lesson is especially meaningful.

It's the season for apples. Mrs. T. made this apple matching exercise, then helped the children peel and cut their apples to be cooked for applesauce. As it cooked, the whole school enjoyed the scent. All agreed that the applesauce tasted delicious.

I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of anyone peeling their apples. Here is the aftermath. We showed the children how to hold the apple and peel away from themselves and their fingers. Then Mrs. T. or I washed and cut their apples in half, cored them and watched as each child cut the halves into quarters, keeping hands and fingers always on top of the little knife. Again, I couldn't get a picture. As you could imagine, all my attention was focused.

We are pleased that everyone now has the habit of turning off the bathroom light and closing the door when finished. However, determining if the bathroom was occupied or unoccupied was difficult. Clever Mrs. T. solved the problem. When the switch is lowered, the light is off, therefor the bathroom is empty, or open. When the switch is up, the light is on because someone is occupying the room, and so we say it is closed.

From caterpillars to the leaves they eat ~

Here are some of the caterpillars the children made from the egg cartons. They're creeping up our walls! But enough about bugs. Now we're examining leaves! We are using some of the zillion maple leaves covering the playground to make leaf rubbings and prints.

The children made little Parts of Leaves books, labeling a leaf's veins, petiole, midrib, margin and blade. Last week we took advantage of the beautiful weather to hike over to the park in search of specimens for leaf books.
Here they are at the base of an oak tree, discovering the acorns hanging above and even more on the ground around it.
Upon returning to the classroom the leaves were pressed in books. Today we worked together to identify, label, create covers and bind them. The finished products brought many sweet smiles.

crickets, grasshoppers and woolly bear caterpillars

Showing the class a Woolly Bear caterpillar. We could see its little pro-legs and its true-legs.
With great concern, these children spent part of their playground time searching for food to nourish our classroom guest.
Then R.D. found this young cricket. All who came to look at it saw the long delicate antennae that distinguish crickets from grasshoppers, who have short thick antennae.

The Seguin boards

This is Seguin Board I. With this, a child learns that our teen numbers are made up of a ten and a number of units. It helps children in writing these numbers and in understanding our base ten system. E.C. caught onto this quickly and had a good time with the task.

This is the Seguin Board II. A.N. is matching the correct number of ten bars and a one to nine bead bar to a two digit number. Through this Seguin Board children gain a better understanding of two digit numbers to 99.

getting buggy on insects

Thank you so much for all the egg cartons that were sent in for our class. The children are still busy making their own insects with 6 legs, 2 wings, 2 eyes and 2 antenna, of course. Here is E.W. and J.K. painting their creations.