As we entered the month of November, it struck me how quickly the holiday season seems to come up, once Halloween passes. Suddenly, quicker than one can blink, we enter November and the excitement of upcoming Holidays can be felt in the air! No matter what holidays your family chooses to celebrate, you can certainly see and feel the excitement when the children come in.
 
November felt like it just flew by, partly because there were so many days away from school! We started the month off by learning about different Bodies of Water, our Curriculum Theme for November. We began by introducing the children to a variety of Land and Water Forms, from a bay to a peninsula.  Throughout the month we continued this exploration of Bodies of Water by having each child create a body of water through the use of clay.
 
This month, our school was lucky to have a special visitor. Margaret Read-McDonald came and read stories to the entire Early Childhood program! It was wonderful to see the children so enamored with her storytelling. In our classroom we celebrated Thanksgiving by eating lunch all together at one large table. The children helped prepare a tablecloth for these tables by decorating a large piece of butcher paper.
 
We tried something new this month during our circle time. We began to learn the lyrics of The Beatles song, “Yellow Submarine”. The children picked up the lyrics very quickly and have really enjoyed singing it! I often hear them coming in singing Yellow Submarine.
         
Coming up in December, we will be collecting items for the charity organization, Mary’s Place, which helps homeless families.  Our class will be collecting gloves, hats, scarves and jackets. There will be a box just outside of our classroom door if you would like to donate. During the month of December, our Curriculum Theme will be Music around the World.

 It has been a busy and fun month here at MCH and in our classroom! From learning about Farm Animals to learning about Bugs, October has been filled with fun and interesting activities. We began our month by making a farm on our wall, with children helping to make different farm animals for our farm. As we continued our education of Farm Animals, the children explored what Farm Animals do on a farm. We discussed what the Animals provide for us, from milk from cows and goats, to wool from sheep.


This month was the first Parent-Teacher Conferences of the year. Ms. Ilyoun and I truly enjoyed getting to chat with you all about your children! We also had our first class family outing with children and parents to Oxbow Farms this month. It was such fun to see all the children playing together.


Our specialists, Ms. Amy, Ms. Sonja, and Ms. Michelle continued with Music, Spanish, and Art. Ms. Amy had the children join her in a variety of songs about October, and the Fall season. Ms. Sonja has been introducing the children to colors, body parts, and some animals in Spanish. Ms. Michelle has brought in pieces of Nature and combined it with some lovely art projects.


We were lucky to have another special visitor this month, from Mad Science! The children got to learn and explore all kinds of bugs. They discovered the difference between an insect and an arachnid. Harvest Fest was celebrant school this month as well! Children got to come to school with their families and participate in a variety of fun games, crafts, and activities. We finished off the month with Picture Day.


Coming up in November, we will be learning all about different Bodies of Water. Also in November, there are a few days with no school or childcare: November 11th and November 23rd-25th.

This first month of school has just seemed to fly by!  Ms. Ilyoun and I have had a wonderful time getting to know all your children this month.  As a class, we have been spending a lot of our time on Grace and Courtesy.  Some of these Grace and Courtesy lessons have consisted of:  how to walk around work rugs, how to push in chairs, and how to give our friends a message safely.
 
We have started exploring different sounds as a class with our Sound of the Week.  So far we have explored the following Sounds: “c”, “l”, and “p”.  A few children have even brought in objects that begin with our sound of the week; leaf, and lime were brought in during our “l” exploration.
 
Our theme for this month is Our Bodies. We have read a few books about how our bodies move and how our five senses work.  Ms. Ilyoun has been guiding the children in a few projects about our bodies.  She has introduced the children to body tracing, and tracing, coloring, and labeling different body parts.  Ms. Ilyoun has also guided them in an activity in which they look in a mirror, and based on what they see, glue different features of their face (eyes, nose, hair) onto a plate.
 
This month we also had the start of Music with Ms. Amy!  The children have really enjoyed singing along with Ms. Amy, and seeing her puppet, Miss Piggly-Wiggly.  Along with the start of Music this month, we also had our first Fire Drill!  While the loud sound startled a few children at first, they recovered quickly and did a great job of getting to the Playground quickly.
 
Coming up next month, we will be studying Farm Animals! We are lucky to have some Farm Animals so easily accessible to our classroom.  Aldo coming up on October 13th and October 14th are Parent-Teacher Conferences.  Please sign up if you haven’t already!  I look forward to talking to each of you about your children!
 
Ms. Sarah & Ms. Ilyoun

April went by in a jiffy. It's around this time of the year when you can really see the whole picture and be amazed with how much children develop and grow.

Our unit study for this month was endangered species. When I decided to go ahead with this topic, the only thing in my mind was to let the kids know on a small scale what endangered means. When I first introduced it to them, their curiosity about it make me dig deeper and we talked not only about what it means but also why it's happening and how we are responsible for the cause and what the consequences are. Young children matched the pictures of animals that are in danger and kindergarten children did research to find out how they can help. It was a great unit to go along with Earth day.

Thanks to our parent volunteers who came in for cooking and doing science experiments with the children. We made apple crumble and did an experiment with baking soda and vinegar to blow balloons.