Hi Everyone,
I wanted take this opportunity to thank Joni, Katherine Yudkin, Ivy Cote and a number of our BCD community members for their help in the Pre K classroom this week. Knowing that your children were in good hands helped me to a speedy recovery. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone next week.
I would also like to thank you for taking the time to join me for Parent/Teacher Conferences. It is nice to be able to sit down with you, listen to your questions and share my observations of your child’s experiences in the classroom environment. Please let me know if you have any further thoughts or concerns you would like to discuss. I will be happy to do so via email, phone or by organizing additional time to meet with you.
Joni will be sending you a blog about this week’s activities. Following is the newsletter I had been working on last week, before taking ill. Better late than never! I’ve also included an up to date calendar. Please be sure to check the school-wide calendar on MyBCD.org.
October 30, 2009
We have had a very tricky and spooky week in Pre K! All week long the children have discovered things around the classroom that are a little bit different. Last week, when we were talking about the Letterland character, Eddy Elephant, we brought out some plastic eggs to play with. This week, the children were surprised to discover that tiny treasures had magically appeared inside the eggs! On Tuesday, the children made colorful masks, using Craypas, to disguise their silhouettes. Now, we don’t know who is who! Since there has been a lot of discussions surrounding the idea that we see and hear about ghouls, monsters and goblins around Halloween time, we also talked about the fact that these things are pretend and that they are not real. They also designed a class goblin, whom they named “Boo!” As they suggested various features, I did my best to draw them on the white board. At the end of the morning, when it was time to clean the board, I replicated Boo onto paper and made copies for everyone to bring home.
On Monday, the children made spooky ghost pictures using dark paper, ghost stencils and chalk. They also used the Craypas to add colorful details, such as trees, bats and flowers. On Wednesday, after our Peer Readers left, we carved a jack-o-lantern. We voted on what we carved for it’s eyes, nose and mouth. In case you have not yet had the opportunity to see it, it has triangle eyes, a rectangle nose and a mouth with sharp teeth.
Our Halloween parade and party was a howling good time! Thank you to all of the parents who joined us on the parade, contributed food and other items and helped us to set up the treats. Instead of our usual students, we had a jaguar, a ladybug, a pilot, Thomas the Tank Engine, Freddie from Scooby Doo, Indiana Jones and Snow White. I had a ball pretending to be Mother Goose all morning. At Morning Meeting, we sang all of our Halloween songs and recited all of our Halloween fingerplays. We paraded through the upstairs hallway, out and around the courtyard and down the hallway of Peterson Hall. We even peeked in on Mrs. Heady at the gym. While parents were setting up the treats in the Pre K room, we played in the B3 room with glittery witch’s brew, which was a cauldron filled with frogs, snakes, spiders, glitter and green water; played a jack-o-lantern match game; a toss the skull into the pumpkin game and we played with glittery play-do. The children were thrilled to see our Pre K room transformed into a Halloween Party. Everything was bootiful, not to mention tasty!
Dates to Note:
Wednesday, November 11th, No School, Veteran’s Day.
Thursday, November 19th, Preschool and Kindergarten’s Friendship Lunch
Friday, November 20th, Pizza Lunch
Tuesday, November 24th, BCD’s Annual Thanksgiving Soup, dismissal at 1:00pm
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, November 25th-27th, No School, Thanksgiving Break
Have a Nice Weekend!
Ellie
