This week, we focused on the story of The Gingerbread Man. On Monday, we read an original version of the story. We also learned the song “5 Gingerbread Men” and acted it out with props. Children made their own gingerbread men in the art center using felt cut-outs and decorating them with googly eyes, Pom-Pom’s, yarn, and gems.

On Tuesday, we read another original version of The Gingerbread Man. Students who were also at school on Monday were able to compare and contrast the two stories. They noticed that some of the animals were different, the Gingerbread Man’s chant was the same, and the ending was a little bit different. We also had fun playing with gingerbread-scented play-doh.

On Wednesday, we started our day with a visit from a goat named Donald! He was so cute and friendly! Later, we followed a recipe to bake our own gingerbread cookies! First, we all worked together to measure and mix the ingredients. Then, each child got a chance to roll out the cookie dough and cut out a gingerbread man using a cookie cutter. After they were baked and had cooled down, we all got to decorate our gingerbread men with frosting and sprinkles. After a long day of waiting and working hard, we finally got to eat our gingerbread cookies! We also read “The Gingerbread Baby” by Jan Brett which many students liked better than the originals since it ends more happily. Outside, we built a snowman with the little snow that we had, and the children named him Frosty Bob.

On Thursday, we read “Gingerbread Friends,” the follow-up to Jan Brett’s “Gingerbread Baby.” We also had fun with some of the new materials in the classroom, like the number spots (great for gross motor and mathematical development), and the giant farm puzzle.

On Friday, we learned about Saint Nicholas Day, a holiday celebrated in many parts of the world including Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. In many places, Saint Nicholas leaves treats, including oranges, candies, toys, carrots, and many other differing things, in good children’s boots. We made sure to be very kind on Friday, and after rest time, we checked our boots to find oranges and chocolates from Saint Nicholas! We spent a lot of time outside on Friday, sliding down our fun, icy hill and catching beautiful snowflakes on our tongues!

On Monday, we started working on our Thanksgiving writing/drawing project. Students got to choose from 3 writing prompts about Thanksgiving: what they are thankful for, their favorite thanksgiving tradition, or what they would make if they cooked thanksgiving dinner. We will put the finished products together into a Thanksgiving book. We also practiced our sign names and began collecting pictures of each students signing their name for our classroom sign names book.

On Tuesday, the weather was yucky. There was a mix of freezing rain, snow, and ice that made it so that we could not go outside (something that almost never happens). Since the gym was unavailable, we got creative! We went on a walk through the hallway, finding new and creative ways to move. We also had a long dance party in the classroom and discovered the joys of GoNoodle, a website with great videos for kids to dance/move with.

On Wednesday, children had a lot of questions about extreme weather (specifically tornados and hurricanes). This prompted us to take out the National Geographic Kids book “Little Kids First Big Book of Weather” and do some great scientific learning as well as some talk about geography. We also had fun with the mix of snow and water that we found on our playground.

On Thursday, there wasn’t too much snow left on the ground. However, the big kids had built a big snow structure with giant snowballs that was still standing. One of the giant snowballs broke off of the structure, and our students had fun rolling the snowball, putting it on a sled and pulling it up the hill together, and sledding down the hill with it! At the end of outside time, we took the giant snowball (which we had named Olaf) inside in our garden cart to find out how long it would take for a snowball that size to melt inside of our classroom. We started taking data on the snowball as soon as we got inside. We used our tape measures from the math center to measure around the snowball, we wrote down the day and the time of day, and we took a picture of it. At the very end of the day, we repeated that process and found that it was already 10 cm smaller.

On Friday, the snowball experiment continued. When we got to school in the morning, we found that the snowball was only 75 cm wide (compared to 115 cm when we brought it inside) and it was sitting in a pool of water. At morning meeting, we read the book “Water is Water,” a beautifully illustrated book that shows each phase of water. We connected what we learned from the book to our snowball experiment. Later, our sixth grade buddies came to our classroom! We read a thanksgiving story together, and they helped us make handprint turkeys! At the very end of the day, we checked on our snowball to find that it was nothing but water. It took more than a day for that giant snowball to melt!

This week, we started talking about what it means to be thankful. On Tuesday, we came to school late, but we had plenty of time to play outside in the snow! Some students also answered the question, “What are you thankful for?” Their answers were added to our thankfulness turkey.

On Wednesday, we read a book called “Thankful” which talks about the different things that people might be thankful for. This helped more students add their answers to our thankfulness turkey. We also had a visit from Ms. Karen who taught us all our new sign names!

On Thursday, we read “Feast for 10,” a counting book about a family preparing for their thanksgiving feast. We also talked about the word feast and what it means, connecting it to the dinner that many of us would be having later that night. In the evening, many preschool families got together for the Harvest Dinner. We had so much delicious food and everyone got to know each other a little bit better. It was a great night (so great that I forgot to take pictures)! Thanks for all your help!

On Friday, Ms. Rice was away, but Mr. Matt, Mrs. Sue, and Mr. Stever had fun with the students!

This week, we learned more about community helpers, specifically postal workers. On Monday, we read “A Letter for Amy,” a story written by Ezra Jack Keats about a little boy who tries to send a birthday invitation to his friend, but runs into some problems along the way. The students also helped me set up the post office in the dramatic play area. Each student typed their own name into the label maker to label their own mailbox.

On Tuesday, students enjoyed finding giant spiders (not Ms Rice’s favorite activity), playing tag, climbing, building, and exploring. There were a lot of pine branches on the ground from the big wind storm, so students had fun adding them to the fort as a roof. They also pretended to paint the fort using the pine needles as paint brushes. This inspired a real art project that we did later in the day. Students brought pine needles back from the forest and painted with them to see if they really would work like a paint brush! Without the imagination of the students, I wouldn’t have thought to use pine needles in such a creative way, but I’m so glad we did! It turns out, pine needles really are nature’s paint brushes!

On Wednesday, we read a silly story about the letters that a mail carrier delivered to fairy tale characters. We also had fun playing in the pretend post office writing letters/pictures, sending cards in envelopes, using stamps, and finding our friends’ names on the mailboxes.

(Sorry I’m so bad at remembering to take pictures on Wednesdays…)

On Thursday, we took a walking field trip to the town post office! We met the post master and got a tour of the post office, including the back room! We learned about the job that a postal worker does, and we saw all of the different kinds of mailboxes that can be used at the post office! When we got back, we played outside and Mr. Matt helped the students rake a giant leaf pile to jump into! We also emptied our rain barrel (before it freezes) and some students had fun learning which objects from nature sink and float.

This week was all about Halloween! On Monday, we used squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles to create our own shape monsters! Once the masterpieces were complete, students counted how many of each shape they had used. We also learned the chant, “Five Little Pumpkins” in spoken English and in sign language! When we went outside, the students found a lethargic butterfly that calmly stood on many children’s fingers. We got to get an up-close look at a butterfly, and learn about how cold weather can affect butterflies.

On Tuesday, we had another great day in the forest classroom! We played another huge game of hide-and-seek together, continued building our big fort, and played pretend with friends. Later, we read a Halloween story about colors, and then we went on a color hunt! Students were given a checklist with colors, a marker to check off the colors they had found, and a paper bag to collect their colorful items. We hiked up the trail, farther than we had ever walked, and ended up at a cute little bridge over a stream that was very exciting to walk over. Back at Samuel Morey, we each took our colorful treasures out of our bags and sorted them into color categories. Once everyone’s color hunt objects had been sorted, we counted and graphed how many of each color we found. Students helped to count the objects, and some students colored a bar on the bar graph. We found that brown was the most common color, and blue was the least common.

On Wednesday, we read “Room on the Broom” which many of the students were familiar with! Some students knew the story so well that they were able to tell the story along with me, word for word. Mrs. Karen, our sign language expert, also came to visit us and taught us some new signs, including Halloween words.

On Thursday, we celebrated Halloween! Many students wore their Halloween costumes when we walked down to the Fairlee library in what we called our “Halloween parade.” When we got to the library, students were surprised to find that Mrs. Samantha had transformed into Maleficent! She read us some special Halloween stories, gave us a delicious Halloween snack, we did a very cute Halloween craft, and played some fun Halloween games! At the end, she gave each student a goodie bag with treats, tattoos, and glow sticks! It was a very special day! Thanks Mrs. Samantha!

This week was short, but it was jam-packed with fun! On Monday, we started learning about firefighters and other emergency responders by reading “Emergency” by Gail Gibbons. We talked about different kinds of emergencies, the number to call in an emergency, and all of the different community helpers that respond to emergencies.

On Tuesday, we had so much fun in the forest! We wrapped newsprint around a tree to do some drawing, writing, and bark rubbing. We also discovered a new part of our forest classroom with a fallen tree, lots of branches, and a very cool notch in a tree that was the perfect size for children to sit or stand in. We played a huge game of hide-and-seek with almost every student and teacher and found out that the forest is an excellent place to find hiding spots! At the end of our forest day, we played “Squirrels in the Tree” and pretended we were baby squirrels gathering nuts for winter. We also read “Firefighters: A to Z,” an alphabet book with amazing, realistic illustrations of firefighters on the job. Back at Samuel Morey, the children connected their learning from the squirrel game by gathering acorns on the playground and wondering how many they had gathered and where they should put them so a squirrel could find them.

On Wednesday, we got to meet Firefighter Ken and see his fire truck! First, he came in to our classroom to talk with us about his job and show us his firefighter gear. He put on his boots, pants, jacket, helmet, and gloves, and he even let us touch and try on some of it! We talked about fire safety and Firefighter Ken answered all of our questions. After that, we went outside where there was a fire truck parked just for us! Firefighter Ken opened up all of the little compartments around the fire truck and showed us the tools inside. At the end, each child got to go up onto the fire truck and look around! We heard the siren and the horn as well. It was so much fun and everyone learned a lot! Thanks, Firefighter Ken!

This week, we started out with a forest classroom day! The students made their own fort out of big sticks, found more than one salamander (among other creatures), and started drawing and dictating their nature observations in our new nature observation journals! At the end of our time in the forest, we went on a walk up the trail and used all 5 of our senses to notice the world around us. It was another wonderful forest day!

On Wednesday, Ms. Rice had to do more preschool director work, so Mrs. Becka came back! They read “Sleep Tight Farm,” a story about a farm going to “sleep” at the end of fall.

On Thursday, we celebrated a birthday! We also opened up a pumpkin and put it in our sensory table to feel the insides and pull out the seeds. Once all of the seeds had been pulled out, we counted them! We grouped them into groups of 10 as we counted, and we counted all the way to 80! Mrs. Duvall came back again to teach music class, and we sang songs about farm animals!

On Friday, we went on a field trip to Newmont Farm. We saw big trucks and tractors, mamma cows and calves, cows being milked, and the trucks that carry the milk to a factory! We also got to taste cheese and chocolate milk, paint pumpkins, and ride in the cow carts! It was such a fun day and everyone learned a lot about farms!

This week, we learned about the ways that animals prepare for cold weather during the fall. On Monday, we read “Time to Sleep,” a story about animals that hibernate. We also learned a new song about hibernation called “Shh! They’re Sleeping” which we sang throughout the week. It was a very rainy day on Monday, but that didn’t stop us from going outside! We borrowed kindergarten and first grade’s rain suits and had fun splashing in puddles, making mud, and catching rain drops on our tongues!

On Tuesday, we had our first Forest Classroom day! Students had a lot of fun climbing up the fallen tree, and we were all amazed by how brave they all became throughout the day! We also had fun exploring the forts, finding bugs and salamanders, and playing pretend with friends! Later in the morning, we took a hike up the trail to a special place that Ms. Rice had found a couple of days before where amazing colorful leaves covered the ground. Once we got there, each student collected their favorite leaf to bring back to our science center. After a wonderful morning of play and exploration, we got to take a ride in a school bus for the first time! It was an amazing day, and I can’t wait to do it again!

Pretending to roast marshmallows

On Wednesday, Ms. Rice had Preschool director work to do, so Mrs. Becka came to be our guest teacher! They read “Every Autumn Comes the Bear,” a realistic fiction story about a bear preparing for hibernation in Autumn. Mrs. Karen also came to teach students and teachers some sign language!

On Thursday, we had music class with Mrs Duvall again! Our new favorite song to sing with her is “We Are the Dinosaurs.” Students also had fun using the moveable alphabet, counting with our fall counting basket, and creating art with a variety of materials.

On Friday, we read “Hibernation Station,” and we pretended to be bears in our cave while we sang “Shh! They’re Sleeping.” We also spent a large amount of our day outside enjoying the wonderful fall weather.

This week, we learned about fall’s tastiest fruit: apples! On Monday, we cut open an apple and talked about each of it’s parts: the skin, the flesh, the stem, the seeds, the core, and the star-shaped seed pod. The students decided that our apple’s seed pod looked more like a flower than a star. We also read the book “I Am an Apple” which describes how apples grow in a very preschool-friendly way. On Tuesday, we had our “practice forest classroom” day! We spent the entire morning outside, from drop-off to lunch time, just as we will when we visit the forest classroom. Students built amazing houses for animals, mixed all sorts of mud recipes in the mud kitchen, and found countless bugs! Later in the morning, we had a family volunteer come in to teach us about bees and beekeeping! The students were entranced when Mr. Eric revealed the plexiglass frame full of bees. We learned about how they make honey, how they “talk” to each other by dancing, and what each bee’s job is. In the end, students got to taste filtered and unfiltered honey. So sweet! On Wednesday, we made our own applesauce! We followed a recipe, and each student got a chance to use the apple peeler/corer. Once we had added all of our ingredients (apples, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg) we let it cook in the slow cooker for 4 hours. Our classroom smelled amazing all day! After rest time, our applesauce was ready to taste. Many of the students loved it, and they were all proud to have helped make it. On Thursday, we did an apple taste test to determine whether students liked red, yellow, or green apples most. We made a table and found out that red apples were the most popular. Students also had the opportunity to paint using halved apples at choice time. The finished products are beautiful! On Friday, we took a walking field trip to the Fairlee Library to have a fall-themed story time with Mrs. Samantha! We listened to 2 great fall stories, played 2 very fun fall games, played with apple-pie-scented play-doh, and made leaf prints by painting leaves and pressing them onto paper. Next week, we will learn about what different animals do in the fall to prepare for winter.

This week, we started learning about Fall! On Monday, we read a non-fiction book called “When Autumn Comes” and talked about the changes that the season brings. Outside, the students helped me set up our new rain-collection barrel which will allow us to have a water source for our mud kitchen! A couple of students found a little toad while we were outside, and we observed it in our creature catcher! On Tuesday, a student brought in a salamander that he had found at home! We had fun observing it in our science center all day, and at the end of the day, we let it go back to nature. We also did a reflective activity called “Shells Processing” where we sat in a circle, and each student took one shell out of a basket to hold. We all held our shells and reflected on our day, thinking about a time when we were kind. When a student was ready to share their example of kindness, they put their shell back in the basket and shared. It was a wonderfully peaceful activity, and it really helped us all understand and recognize kindness in ourselves and others. On Wednesday, we read the story “Leaf Man” by Lois Elhert. When we went outside, we collected fall leaves and other natural items, and some students made their own leaf people/creatures by glueing their natural items to paper. They turned out great! On Thursday, we started our new collaborative big book about nature play. I printed out pictures of the students collecting, observing, and holding bugs of all kinds. The pictures were spread out on the carpet, and students talked about what they saw in the pictures and what they remembered from those moments. I wrote down everything they said and we worked together to glue the pictures and quotes into the book. This will be a project that we will continue to add to throughout the year, and it is currently placed by the bookshelf for students and families to look at and talk about. On Friday, we read a story about a squirrel and a bird who are friends, despite their many differences. Afterwards, we went outside and played a game called “Squirrels in the Tree.” I placed “sit-spots” out in a circle as our nest, and I told them that they are baby squirrels and I am the mama squirrel. I said that it was autumn and we needed to collect acorns for the winter, but that there was a storm coming, so the baby squirrels would have to keep their listening ears out for mama squirrel to call them back to the nest. Students did a great job of listening and being safe during this game, and we all had a lot of fun with it! Next week, we will learn all about apples by cutting them apart, taste testing them, painting with them, and making our own applesauce! It is going to be another great week!