Custodian Appreciation Day

Friday was "Custodian Appreciation Day"! We are lucky to have wonderful people taking care of our learning environment. To say thank you the children baked them some seasonal sugar cookies and wrote a giant card. 

The children were so proud to present our gift of appreciation!

Online Ten Frame Game

Here's a fun, free online game that helps children practice using ten frames to count. Check it out! http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3565

Mailing our Autumn Greetings

Thank you for sending in envelopes and stamps for us to use to mail our Autumn Greetings! The children were excited to put these in the mailbox outside our school this afternoon. 

Just as we were doing so, a Canada Post truck drove past, the driver honking his horn and giving us a thumbs up!  How exciting!

It's not too late! If your child has not yet returned his or her envelope we are planning on mailing more letters on Monday. 

Rolling and Recording Numbers

We invited children to practice identifying and writing numbers using a fun probability game. 

The children had to roll a number die...

...and then record their number on a tracking sheet. 

It was fun to count and see which number was rolled the most. 

Can you show?

We challenged our children to show us how they could represent 5 and 10. Look at their amazing ideas!

Texture Paintings

The children used texture plates today to create interesting designs in paint. They spooned paint onto paper and used the rubbing tools to mix and scrap.

Gorgeous!

Nature Walks

We went on a nature walk today and brought iPads along so the children could take photos and videos of signs of fall.  

Building with Mac Tac

We taped a large piece of sticky Mac Tac on one of our easels, placed a bin of pattern blocks close by, and were amazed by the creations of our children. 

Can you spot the owl?

Environmentally Friendly Puzzles

We put out puzzles today made from the fronts of cut up cardboard food boxes.

The children enjoyed the challenge of putting together puzzles without a picture or guide to help them with the finished puzzle. 

If you have any interesting food box tops to donate for this center please send them in for us to explore!

Math Catapults

Mini catapults are so much fun! Not only are they a great tool for encouraging mathematical exploration, they build fine motor strength and help children develop resiliency and perseverance as they are a difficult tool to learn to manipulate at first.

We made mini catapults out of clothes pins by hot gluing them to a block to use as a supportive base. The children were encouraged to try and fire mini foam counters into bowls in order to accumulate points. The person with the most points wins the game!

The children were eager to record the points they won using tallies.

The children realized that if they put more than one counter on a catapult they had a better chance of getting a point!

Mighty Oaks

A big thank you to Mrs. Tullio for thinking of us and collecting some beautiful oak leaves and acorns for our science center. The children enjoyed exploring them with magnifying glasses and tweezers. 

Families we are always interested in receiving objects from nature and your backyard! Thank you!

In our classroom this week...

Pumpkin Goop

The children have been interested in pumpkins since our trip to the store. We opened one up today and encouraged the children to use special tools to explore it. 

How much fun was that?  Goopy stuff is so much fun to explore! On Monday we are going to cook the pumpkin seeds and do a taste test!