Happy Halloween!!!

Monthly Newsletter

The monthly newsletter will be coming home soon.  The three day class will bring it home Thursday and the two day class will bring it home Monday.  Sorry I didn't get it sent our earlier this week.  I have been very busy getting ready for the Fall Festival, Parent/Teacher Conferences and finishing up other tasks that need to be completed this week.  Letter Muncher will be eating the letter I next week.  The newsletter contains lots of information for the month of November.  Make sure to check the back of the newsletter for even more info.

Speaking of the Fall Festival, the two day class had so much fun today and I am sure the three day class are going to have just as much fun!!!  I will post more about the Fall Festival this weekend.

Pumpkin Nights

Pumpkins and "Water Marbles"

This week is full of fun science experiments!  The students got to play with and explore, what they called, "water marbles."  They about the size of a bb pellet.  When you put them in water, they expand and become the size of a marble.  You may see them in the stores and used with flowers.  Once the beads soak up the water, they go in a plastic vase and release water for the flowers.  I found them at Dollar Tree in Van Wert.  The students were in awe and loved playing with them.  They were very curious about how they soaked up the water and grew bigger.  There were lots of questions and some great vocabulary words were used to describe what they felt.  They also learned they had to be very careful because the filled marbles break very easily.  

To end our unit on the pumpkin life cycle, we carved a jack-o-lantern and I let the students scoop out the insides!  This lead to another great discussion about pumpkins, seeds, what the inside of a pumpkin felt like, and putting the steps in order when you carve a jack-o-lantern.

The finished masterpiece! :)

The students were also VERY excited that our pumpkin seeds sprouted over the weekend!  They are becoming quite the little scientists!  They love observing the pumpkin and reporting to me how much the plants have grown since the last day they were at school! :)

A bunch of turkeys!

Both classes helped me create art work for the large bulletin board at the front of the building by the office. November is my month to decorate the board and it is going to have bunch of little turkeys!  The students created hand print turkeys, one for the board and one to bring home. :)  After the paint dried, I added the parts to create a turkey.  

Here is the finished product!  They are too cute!  I will post pictures of the bulletin board when I have it finished at the end of the week.

Music- It's more than meets the ear

Here's an article about using music with children and how it teaches academic skills.

http://www.fci.org/pro-dev/september.html

One last "Music in Motion" article :)

Thanks again to Sheila Baltzell and The Parkway Independent for running the articles about the "Music in Motion" program.  Check out their website for my article and a few more pictures!  Scroll down to the fifth article under this weeks news stories.

 http://www.parkwayindependent.com/