October29th-Novemeber 1st

Goodbye October, Hello November!

It was so great to see everyone at conferences! I hope you all enjoyed seeing how much your babies have grown.

We also made it through our first Parade of Fiction together! Everyone looked great.

The Dad Pumpkin carving was a success! We had a blast. I am so thankful everyone could make it. The kids were so excited. I hope everyone stops by to pick up their pumpkin TODAY if you have not done so already.

Although this was a short week, it was full of learning! They started a new unit on Tuesday and will finish that next week. They began the study of creepy crawlies with spiders. They will all go to 4 centers.

Centers are as follows:
1. Spider cookie- (oreo, pretzels and icing). They have to follow a recipe and then they are supposed to teach you the recipe when they get home sometime this week or next!
2. Spider web art- Spaghetti made into a web on black paper with a spider and glitter!
3. Nonfiction spider facts: They are supposed to draw a picture of a real spider and tell what they know about spiders using facts that they have been learning about this week.
4. Spider hat: Sentence strips with black paper to make 8 eyes and 8 legs!

They also made a spider web using yarn and black paper plates. These will go home today! This was great for our fine motor skills!

Literacy:
They added another reading strategy to their reading bank this week! The new reading strategy is getting your mouth ready and looking at the beginning sounds of words. When you are reading, if you get your mouth ready for that first sound it will help you get the words out! Even if you have never seen that word before. The more reading strategies we add to our reading bank, the less we will hear them say "I don't know" when they come to a tricky word when reading.

They played "Eat My Words" this week as well. They were given a site word and they had to read it, build it (out of alphabet cereal) and then write it. At the end they were allowed to eat their words! This is another great game to play at home. You can find the alphabet cereal at Target. Call out sounds or words to your child, have them build it with the cereal and then eat it!

To continue reinforcing our reading strategy we read Brown Bear Brown Bear and practiced getting our mouth ready while we read. We also made our very first big class book and it will get passed around to each child! Practice tracking the words and getting your mouth ready when it's your turn to read.

Math:
The kids learned two new math games this week. the first game was Apples to Apples. Ask your child the chant to this game. They play this game in partners. One partner picks a handful of cubes and drops them slowly one by one in the bucket. As they drop them in the bucket, the other person has their eyes closed and they have to use only their ears to count how many cubes are being dropped. At the end, the two players check their math and switch roles.

They also learned Handy Dandy. Ask your child this math chant as well! One player gets two handfuls of counters and places them behind her back (I used mini erasers shaped like pumpkins). The other player (without the counters) picks a hand and has to count that hand. The other player then shows the other hand and they count together to figure out which hand has more and which hand has less. They can practice "counting on" as well as counting starting from one for each hand.

Announcements:
We have children frequently forgetting their water bottles! We usually just fill a cup from the water fountain. We do not have any more cups! If someone would not mind bringing in a stack of small Dixie cups that would be great! These are perfect for kids who accidently forget their water bottle.

We will also be needing oatmeal containers and coffee containers (to make drums in a few weeks). If you can start gathering these and sending them in that would be great! No rush, it will be a few weeks.

If you can start saving ketchup bottles (the kind you squeeze) that would be great as well! We like to use these to fill paint. It is super easy to fill old ketchup bottles with paint and then squeeze the right amount of paint out when we paint. Start saving them and sending them in!

We have also started to label things around the room such as: door, bathroom, chair, dramatic play etc. You can do this at home as well! You can label toys in the playroom or drawers in their bedroom for clothes. This develops fluency and helps them learn to be organized! The more children see words the better they become at reading and recognizing those words in the world and in their books.

have a safe night trick or treating! Don't forget to brush your teeth! :)

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz