Children add shoes, first letters of their names and faces to  pictures of themselves on the morning message.

 

Dear Families,

 

I hope you enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving with family and friends!

The children have been enjoying the addition of a morning message and small assignment when they come in.  They have been forming letters, finding their names and doing all sorts of interesting writing and drawing both on this board and on their own.  Everyone seems to feel a true sense of pride when their efforts become part of a large, public sign.

We continue to work with play dough and clay.  The children know how to make coils or ‘snakes’ and roll balls that can be flattened into pizzas and cookies and tall towering shapes that topple and  are squished into new shapes with rollers and hands.

The felting that began when we wrapped small pebbles to create Farmer Brown’s apples evolved into wrapping bare wintry branches with red wool.  The small woolly trees were planted in clay, and children pressed small objects into the ‘earth.’ “I’m putting this here so the grass can grow.” “The frogs live under here. They’re hibernating under my tree.”  Some children painted around their trees and used glitter to look like frost on the ground and branches. “I see this when I come to school. I see the sparkly ice!” 

As the children worked on these beautiful pieces of art, their stories evolved:

“That’s the baby way up there sleeping.  It’s me standing up at the top of the tree.  Look I’m a superhero!”

“There was apples in the tree and then they got covered by Jackie Frost and then they got out and then they were rescued and then the sparklies were on the ground!”

“Mine is a boat. A tree boat.  I put buttons sideways because I like them sideways.”

“There was green apples on the tree near my house.”

“Mine is a pond.  It changed colors around the tree.”

 

 

 

Making balls from play dough that become pumpkins of all different sizes.

 

Felting wool onto tree branches.

Another activity that everyone enjoyed in the sunny November air, was painting our little house with chalk and sponge rollers and paint brushes dipped in water. Seeing the chalky dust become brilliantly colored, drip and then disappear was endlessly fascinating

 

Painting our house with chalk and water.

We ended our two day week with  the experience of breaking bread and eating soup with our whole school community in the big hall.

 

Soup with kindergarten friends!

 

Soup!

 

BCD song.

We have so much to be grateful for!

All the best,

Sarah