Goodbye October, Hello November!

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Pumpkin, Pumpkin

This week we have been talking a lot about pumpkins.  We read books (both fiction and nonfiction), weighed and measured our pumpkins.  We predicted whether our 4 pumpkins would sink or float.  Most of us thought the small pumpkin would float and the rest would sink.  However, ALL of our pumpkins sunk!  We explored the inside of the biggest pumpkin we had and put our hands inside.  We took out all the seeds and will be counting them on Friday -- there are so many!

We have also been learning about our bones.  We put together Sam, The Skeleton Man.  He is on display inside our classroom.  We learned some "scientific" words for different parts of the body.  In particular, we learned that the longest bone in our body is our femur.  The shortest bone in our body is the stirrup (some refer to it as stapes, but we like stirrup best!), and the bones in our toes and fingers are called phalanges!

Biggest pumpkin

Medium sized pumpkin

smallest pumpkin

  This week we discussed comparison words such as: big, bigger, biggest / small, smaller, smallest.

Red Light. Green Light. 1-2-3

Our classroom discipline plan helps every student receive guidance in making good decisions about behavior.  In doing so, our class is given the opportunity to learn in a positive, nurturing classroom environment.  It is an important skill for each child to develop self-discipline and good work habits, resolve conflicts peacefully and think independently.  Your child deserves the best, positive educational climate possible for their growth as a learner.

Our classroom "Bee"havior rules:
1. Follow directions the first time given
2. Be kind to our friends and teachers
3. Take care of class materials and clean up
4. Walk in the hallway and classroom
5. Use soft voices in the classroom

Positive Reinforcement:
In order to encourage students to follow these rules and make good decisions about their behavior, the class is praised for their efforts.  Consistent good behavior will be rewarded monthly beginning the month of November -- look for "hearts" which will be sent home monthly.  If your child is caught doing something good, a heart will be put on display in our classroom.  At the end of the month we will collect all of these hearts and send them home.  (The class is being introduced to this Tuesday and it will continue on throughout the school year.

Consequences:
The other part of our discipline plan involves logical consequences that occur when class rules are broken.  Today, we created a traffic light.  Every student has a clothes pin that remains on green.  Green means "keep going, you are doing a great job!"  Yellow, is a warning that something you are doing is not right.  After your child's first warning, their clothes pin is placed on red.  Red makes us very sad and we have to sit out of a fun activity for 5 minutes.  If rules continue to be broken, the clothes pin is removed from our traffic light.  This means that your child will be last to be dismissed and a parent meeting will be implemented after school.  Every day we start back to green.

Big D, little d. What begins with D?

This week we are learning how to write the letter Dd.  The entire class has so much enthusiasm about learning to write and everyone is trying so hard.  We read Peter Reynolds The Dot and illustrated our own pictures and signed our name, just like Vashti did in the story.

We had a very exciting Monday.  The Fun Bus came to our school today and we had so much fun!  We stretched, danced, climbed the walls (yes it's true!), did an obstacle course on the bus, went on swings, and we exited the bus on a slide!

Primary Colors

This month we have been so busy learning and reviewing primary colors.  We learned poems and discussed different objects that we often see as each color.  Thank you to everyone for bringing in cut-outs!  Enjoy your primary color collage books. 

Primary colors what are you?
I am red, and yellow, and blue.
Primary colors what can you do?
Mix us into colors new!

Baking

We had a lot of fun baking chocolate cupcakes this Friday.  First, we added all the ingredients.  Then, we each stirred as we counted down 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1!  We put our tins in the oven and when the cupcakes came out...they looked so different!  We added chocolate frosting and finally our cupcakes were ready to be eaten.  The chefs in Room 2 were so proud that our cupcakes tasted as good as they did, we even shared with our friends in Room 4.

Photography

Sponge painting our autumn tree

Show and Tell

Centers

We made bracelets

We sorted beads by color

We had fun glittering our own acorn

Nature Walk

We went on a nature walk and collected many items one can find in the fall.  We found every item on our Scholastic... except for a squirrel.

We had so much fun playing in the leaves!