We took our Thursday free writing time outside this week. We were inspired by Peter H. Reynolds and his book ...ish with still life illustrations.

Mr. Hervey (Brendan's Grandpa) was our mystery reader this week. The children enjoyed learning all about farm life.

Thank you to the Roberd's family for donating a new game to our classroom. As you can tell it's been a big hit. 

This week we read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews and created pictures using ten black dots. Make sure to take a minute and check out our pictures hanging up in the cubby area.

We read Color Farm by Lois Ehlert and used this book as inspiration to create illustrations using different shape cut outs.

We read Germs Are Not For Sharing by Elizabeth Verdick and did a glitter germ experiment. We found that washing our hands with soap and water got rid of all the glitter (germs) on our hands.

Our First Mystery Reader in Honalee

Reed's dad was our very first mystery reader of the year in Honalee. He read the The Widow's Broom by Chris Van Allsburgh. The kids enjoyed the Halloween spirit of the book and loved finding out at the end what happened to the magical broom!

Honalee Update

Honalee has had a busy week!  We wrapped up our weather unit by discussing tornadoes.  We had a practice tornado drill and went down to the basement.   John was our Star of the Week and he shared some of his favorite books, family photos, and chocolate cake (sugar and chocolate are his favorite foods!).  Story telling has become a popular event during Free Play.  The students have been telling stories and then we writing them down.  After the children add illustrations we read them as a group.  The stories are available on our bookshelf to read throughout the day.  Feel free to come in and read them.  Some popular story topics have been zombies, ghosts, and vampires.  Can you tell that Halloween is approaching?  Next week we are going be getting ready and practicing for our Puff the Magic Dragon performance.   

Mason and Reed in the Animal Recue Center.  EVERYONE got to help sort all of our toys!

  

https://picasaweb.google.com/SCChildrensSchool/ThreeBillyGoatsGruff#

The older preschoolers in Roxaboxen acted out their version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  Click on the link above to see the video of their performance.

Three Billy Goats Gruff--Preschool style!

"And he rammed him once, twice, three times and splash into the water."

Who knew a troll could look so good?

This week in Wonderland!

We had so many great things going on this week it is hard to decide what pictures to post!

We read Little Blue, Little Yellow and tried mixing the primary colors to make up our own colors.  Do you know what colors to mix to make Green, Purple and Orange?

Ms. D led a group in a game of Transportation Lotto.

Miss Kristen read Freight Train and talked about patterns and colors.  The children all had a chance to make their own colorful trains.  They are hanging in the cubbies and out in the hall for you to enjoy.

The college students who join us on Tues. and Thurs. afternoons are starting to do some lessons with the class.  This week they were doing group games.  Next week they will be looking at lessons that involve Literacy.

Miss Sarah was our Mystery Reader today.  Thank You to those who have signed up to be a Mystery Reader.  There are plenty of openings if you would like to join us.

A Special Afternoon in Roxaboxen

Yesterday, our parameters students, Miss Sarah and Miss Cait, planned a fun activity for the children.  They sang a song about different animals that allowed the students to get up and move like them, too!  The children were then given different clues to help them find the different animals hidden around the classroom.

 Here, they are moving like snakes!

They are growling and crawling around like BIG BEARS!

They were excited about their scavenger hunt and found all of the hidden animals!

Elementary Buddies

Today in Honalee we were visited by Mrs. Clifton's literacy group! They shared some great nonfiction writing with us and the Honalee students really enjoyed learning about some new topics! Here are some photos of our Honalee students with Mrs. Clifton's elementary students:

Tornado in a Jar Experiment

This week in Honalee we made a tornado appear in a jar! You can do this at home with your child. All you need is: 1 jar with a lid
1 tsp. of dish detergent
1 tsp. vinegar
food coloring
glitter to represent debris

1. Fill the jar 3/4 full of water
2. Add the rest of the ingredients
3. Screw the lid on tightly and shake it up!
4. It will swirl around and look like a TORNADO!

Friday Afternoon in Roxaboxen

On Friday, we made our first trip to the library! The children got to explore different books, and they got to pick out a few to read.  Since we had such a good time, we are going to try and continue to walk to the library on a weekly basis!

Thank you to Connor's mom for being a mystery reader on Friday.

Places everyone!

This morning in Roxaboxen, we introduced Readers Theatre for The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  Like all good directors should, we made a few changes:  Mary May is the name of the littlest goat, Sienna, the middle-sized goat, and Pick, is the largest goat.  Troll got the name of Meany for obvious reasons, of course!

Pick makes it safely across the bridge after ramming (gently :) Meany off the bridge.

Wind Experiment

In Honalee we conducted a great and very simple wind experiment that you can do at home with your family! All you need is a fan and various objects of different sizes and weights. Ask your child to make some predictions about which items they think will get blown by the wind (or fan). Then try it and see if their predictions were correct! The kids will have a great time watching the objects that fly around and the ones that just wiggle a little! Ask your child about why certain things were blown away and why others were not. Encourage them to see the similarities (weight, size, material, etc.) in the objects that get blown away and those that don't.

Dante, Alyssa and Caleb experimenting with different objects in front of the fan

This Week in Wonderland

The children have loved the trains in the Dramatic Play area. They have also taken an interest to building an airplane in the Block area. We are taking their lead and will be looking at different forms of transportation over the next few weeks.

Thank you to the Jameson family for donating their dress up clothes to the preschool. As you can see there is a lot of interest in becoming different characters.

Ms. Sue brought in The Napping House by Audrey Wood for our Friday mystery reader. We made the connection that we have read other books by Audrey Wood including; Alphabet Rescue, Alphabet Mystery, and Alphabet Adventure. Look for the sign up sheet in the cubbies to sign up to be our next mystery reader.

Callie the Caterpillar!

Yesterday the kids discovered a really cool caterpillar on the slide. It was huge and bright green. We put it in a jar with some leaves and it immediately started spinning silk on the sides of the jar. Today, when I came to school, the caterpillar was nowhere to be found! Turns out, it had already made its cocoon underneath the lid of the jar! The kids named it Callie the Caterpillar and drew pictures of what the moth or butterfly might look like when it comes out of the cocoon. After the kids made their predictions, I did some research and identified the caterpillar as a Polyphemus Moth. Check out this site all about the Polyphemus moth!

The Cocoon

Roxaboxen joined us for the drawing activity



Chalkin' in the Rain

We took advantage of wet pathways today draw with chalk.

What happens when you put it in the water?  "It gets oranger!"

And we even had time to work in a rainy day puppet show! 

Tomorrow we plan to have popcorn along with the shows.

Wonderland Class Favorite!!!

Duck Duck Goose has become a class favorite.  The children really like to change the words to the song as they play.  For example we have had Teacher Teacher Student and Tiger Tiger Bear.

Honalee Scientists

Today in Honalee we did an easy experiment to create a cloud in a jar! Ask your child about it and try it at home. Before we conducted the experiment we talked about how we could possibly make a cloud appear in a jar. There was some great answers. For example: Reed thought we might need a very tall ladder. Alyssa guessed that we would need a net to catch the cloud. And Emily thought we could do it if we rode high into the sky on a butterfly! Here are the directions:

What you need:
1 jar
small ziploc bag of ice cubes that can be set on top of the jar
matches
hot water

1. Fill the jar about a third of the way with warm water
2. Light the match and blow it out. Wait a few seconds and toss it in the water.
3. Quickly cover the jar with the ice cubes.
4. A cloud should form in the jar. It's a little hard to see so you might want to put the jar in front of a dark piece of paper. If you don't see it, take the ice cubes off the jar and you will see the cloud escape!

The warm air in the jar rises and meets the cool air from the ice cubes to form a cloud!

Getting together with our Elementary Friends!

We spent some of our morning on Friday getting to know some new friends in Elementary. 

Mrs. Oestrich read I Stink to the whole school and then we broke into small groups.  The small groups had time to draw pictures of each other as well as learn some fun facts about each other.  After meeting in small groups, we shared our drawings and fun facts with the group.   Before going back to our classrooms, we headed outside for an all school picture.

Mr. Sean was our Mystery Reader today.  He let the children know he was feeling nervous before he read and we talked about him being YELLOW on our mood thermometer.  When he was finished reading we talked about how much better he felt.  He was GREEN on our mood thermometer.  It was great for the children to see that even adults get nervous, mad, sad, excited etc.