Pumpkins

We keep Halloween very low key at School for Little Children. We know that Halloween can be a very overwhelming and frightening holiday for young children. In the Bunny Rabbit class, we focus on pumpkins. This week the children had opportunities to hammer nails into a real pumpkin as a woodworking activity, play with whisks and funnels in orange soapy water, build with pretend bones, decorate paper pumpkins, measure our pumpkin and measure ourselves.

If I had to list all the math and science concepts represented by these activities, it would take me all day - there are so many!

Hard Lesson

It's an annual event. We have to have this hard lesson at some point early in the year, but I never know when it will be.

"What's the lesson?", you ask. The lesson is: if you clear the shelf of ALL the blocks, you will also put them all back. Turns out that putting blocks back isn't very fun and it takes FOREVER - especially since each block has a certain (labeled) place on the shelves.

You can imagine that it doesn't take long to learn from these natural consequences. I predict we won't see this again. We've had conversations now about taking two blocks off the shelf at a time - one for each hand. If more are needed, then get two more and continue until the structure is finished.

By the way, this lesson works well at home, too.

And The Winner Is...

Thanks to all of you who visited our Look and See event this week at school. I hope you got a feel for the amazing learning that is happening in every classroom - for every child - every day.

I understand there were door prizes. The winner of one of the prizes is...Sarah's Mommy! Lucky you!

The Warming Tray

Recently we introduced a new form of art expression to the Bunnies - the warming tray. This has been a well loved practice for the children at SLC for years, but it was new to me when I arrived years ago and new to Mrs. Magee this year! We take those old fashioned electric warming trays, wrap them in several layers of newspaper and plug them in. They heat up and get warm, but not hot enough to burn fingers. We provide pieces of thin, slick paper and crayons with the paper peeled off. When the children color on the paper, the heat melts the crayons and the effect is a smooth ribbon of wax that glides across the paper with ease. You can see from the samples above that the colors and patterns are vibrant. The children enjoyed it, and we will have warming trays out many more times during the year.

Book Fair

I love book fairs! Our school book fair will be Monday November 10. This is our first year to have it off campus. I hope you will all try to visit our neighborhood Barnes and Noble to purchase books and enjoy chatting with other families.

So Close!

Last week the children got to try Boggle Jr. for the simple task of letter matching. We start with three letter words and later in the year we might advance to four letter words. At this point we aren't even talking about the names of the letters very much - just matching.

Absolute Contentment

What would you give for the opportunity to lounge on comfy pillows (wearing a beautiful necklace) with stacks of books around you for as long as you desired?

Firetruck Fun

This was a big day! A big red firetruck came to school today. The children got the grand tour. They saw a giant ax and other tools, the inside of the truck where the firefighters sit, and they even got to try on the heavy coat. A few were brave enough to try!

These particular firefighters were not particularly chatty, so I asked them lots of questions. We learned that the truck can carry it's own water, that the hoses are very heavy, and that the firefighters can use an ax to break down a door or chop a hole in a roof to let smoke out. We learned that they have a fan to blow smoke away, that they attach their uniform pants to their boots and that they drink water from a big orange igloo cooler. We learned that the firefighters wear their seatbelts when they ride in their truck, that they have a big saw and a ladder, and that they can control the water from hydrants.

A visit from a fire department reinforces our practice of letting the children experience "the real thing". No amount of books or toy firetrucks could provide the same knowledge as a visit. It's so nice to encounter our community helpers. Lucky us!

Envelope, Please

We go through a lot of envelopes in our class. Three year olds make lots of tiny things - they love snipping and tearing paper. It's very hard to a.) corral all those bits and - b.) keep them from blowing away on the porch. Envelopes are the perfect container. We encourage the kids to write their name on their envelopes. Callie usually writes it her way on one side and I write it in "real letters" on the other side.

I Wonder Who...

As most of you know we embrace the importance of showing children "the real thing" at School for Little Children whenever we possible can. We have an enormous collection of "real things" accummulated through 50 plus years of educating young children. We've got a closet that has items you'd see in a science museum! The great part is, we get to touch them - as much as we want.

Anyway, this past week as we learned about animals God made for us, I brought in a skull with antlers and rabbit fur. Both were a huge hit! The kids really explored these items over and over again. About ten different times, I glanced over to see the skull "perched" on the fur. Each time I dutifully walked over and gently removed the skull and set it upright. After repeating this sequence of events multiple times, I just finally laughed and snapped the picture.

I still have no idea who did it (over and over again). We have a sneaky Bunny.

Three year olds crack me up.

We Love Books

We now have our first class book of the year. Our own Rainbow Fish book has some photos of the children painting a huge ocean mural and photos of our sharing-the-scales activity. It also has the actual fish each child made in art. Each page is laminated and all are bound with rings. The kids have loved pulling it off the shelf and reading it. The funniest part is that I didn't really "introduce" the book - I just stuck it on the shelf and lo, and behold, they discovered it themselves!

Outdoor Excitement

Our new play structure is finally complete and the Bunnies enjoyed exploring it from top to bottom. The rope wall was very popular and challenging, too. We will have many glorious days to play on our new equipment. Whee!

The photo of Audrey on the slide fell victim to the humid air and my foggy camera lens!

Puzzled

Our class puzzle pieces are starting to arrive in the Bunny Rabbit room. We really love seeing each one and hearing how each child decorated his or her piece. It won't be long before we have a huge puzzle our whole class can enjoy solving.

Shapes = Geometry

Are you one of those adults who struggled through geometry in high school and college? Perhaps you needed preschool experiences like these! Making and manipulating shapes is the foundation of geometry. For preschoolers, experimentation through play is the only way to learn geometric principles. Jessica used playdough tools to create shapes by stamping impressions. Sofie created shapes on a geoboard using stretchy elastics. A geoboard is a super way to learn about sides and angles.

It's never too late, grownups. Sit down and play with playdough with your child!

Dictation

Dictation is a significant component of our literacy curriculum. Young children have plenty of ideas, but can't record them on paper yet. Teachers are great scribes!

Almost every week, we have a "Question of the Week" in the Bunny class. We ask each child throughout the day to answer. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Check out last week's dictation:

"What plants can you eat?"
corn; raspberries, strawberries; an orange; strawberry; peanuts; green leaves, carrots; strawberry; blueberry; salad; carrots; corn; I eat it at my house.

As you can see, we got a variety of answers. Some were direct recall from the book we read the day before (yea!) others were clearly from family experience. Sometimes we get answers we don't anticipate - that's OK, too. I frequently post the dictations in the window. Look for them!

Book Orders

I have submitted our book order to Scholastic. It should arrive in about 2 weeks. We will not have any more book orders for a while. Instead, you'll be able to shop for great books at our Book Fair next month. Please let me know if any of the books you ordered are to be gifts. I can keep them from little eyes.

Bird Sanctuary

This week on our small block table we had these super cool tree-house blocks. The pieces look like logs and planks, and it complemented our learning about plants. Recently I also purchased a set of exotic birds. We had one small red macaw in our enormous zoo animal bin and it was a highly desirable toy. (You just never know...) Now, we have plenty of birds. Look how the tree- house blocks and the birds mixed and mingled. When I introduced these two separate toys into the room, I never envisioned a bird sanctuary as a possible outcome! I love it!!

Autumn Leaves

Today Mrs. Magee brought a huge box of leaves. We spread them out on the rug and had fun. The children made some comparisons - big/small, curly/straight - and they crunched them up to hear the sounds dry leaves make. Then we picked up leaves and sang a song with them. You can sing it at home, too.

Autumn Leaves - to the tune of London Bridge

Autumn leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down,

Autumn leaves are falling down all around you.

Some are orange and some are brown, some are brown, some are brown

Some are orange and some are brown, watch them all fall down.

Some are yellow and some are red, some are red, some are red,

Some are yellow and some are red, leaves fall on my head.

As you can imagine, this song is big fun to act out. Sadly, I didn't take a picture of the millions of leaf bits left behind.

Half Dressed? - No Problem!

In the last couple of weeks, a few children have arrived in various states of dress (or undress as the case may be). Parents generally apologize profusely about this. Let me tell you - this is no big deal! Here's a secret. In the minds of small children (with somewhat irrational reasoning abilities) they believe that if they refuse to get dressed, they don't have to come to school. After all, Mommy wouldn't dare take them without clothes, right?! WRONG!

No worries - we're a come-as-you-are operation. We can coax them into their remaining clothes pretty quickly.

Clever Girl

Sofia and some other friends spent the morning in our kitchen taking care of babies. After a while I saw Sofia head over to our science table and put half of a coconut shell on her baby's head. Those of us nearby laughed at that clever example of problem solving. Everybody knows babies need hats!!

Outdoor Intrigue - Week 2

Our new structure is complete! It looks like so much fun - BUT see that red tape in front? That's right, we couldn't try it out today. Some final turf replacement and securing of our bench still needs to happen. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!!

Plants

This week we will be learning about the plants God gave us here on Earth. Here's a funny thing about three year olds - they know what plants are, but they don't think you can eat them.

When we talk about plants, they think of house plants and trees and grass. They never think of fruits, vegetables and herbs as plants. This week we will be talking about edible plants. You'll have fun talking about them at home, too.

Good News Travels Fast

I hear that our new playground structure is finished. Now the landscapers must return and re-sod the area around it. I suspect by Monday, the new structure will be ready for kids' feet! Stay tuned for photos.

Last Call

If you wish to order books from Scholastic, please turn in your order and money on Monday at school.