R is for Red Rod Fishing

Even though we have a short week with the pumpkin patch visit on Wednesday, we opted to do a letter of the week since we didn't have one last week. Without further adieu, our letter for the week is "R". Following the introduction, we celebrated with our Big Event. The children got to go fishing with a Red Rod to catch Red fish. Each was made of foam and was labeled with either a captial (big) R or a lowercase (little) r. We had some fun when the kids were "catching" their fish. We decided they would have a good supper at home tonite if they caught a "big" R. And, might have to order out if they caught a "little" R. Ask your little one if the fish he/she caught was big enough to feed the whole family! Btw, EVERYONE did a super job identifying upper and lower case letters.

As we do every Monday, we visited with Madame Smail today. She is still working on these words: beret, jaune (yellow), rouge (red), bonjour (hello), au reviour (goodbye), and others that I truly can't recall at the moment.

Tis the season to talk pumpkins. So we did a little project on the dry erase/flannel board today as a group. Mrs. Eastman posted pumpkins in various sizes and asked the kids to take a minute to review the pumpkins in the "patch". We had posted two pumpkins of each size (smallest, small, medium, large and biggest). We were looking for kids to (1) identify that they were different sizes, (2) "describe" or "name" those sizes and (3) discover that there were two of each size. Boy are these guys on the ball! So they came up and tried their hand at arranging them. We are entering a new mathematical phase in the purple room. We just finished studying spatial relationships and are moving into classification. And although arranging in order of size comes later, we kind of wanted to "test" the waters. Get an idea of what to expect. While classification is grouping according to like attributes, it's sometimes challenging to NOT introduce the notion of ordering. There was another project we did with ordering today. It involved practicing cutting, too. The kids cut out varying sizes of construction paper pumpkins then were instructed to arrange them in order of biggest on the left and smallest on the far right side of the page. About half the students performed well. This does not concern us in that the notion of ordering is a little more complex at this age and comes with time. On the other hand, we were amazed that ANY of them got it right. Hats off to mom and dad for working with your children.

On that note, the scissor cutting skills have improved dramatically. Very few children required assistance today. Aside from getting tired (which is expected), everyone had a good hold and was determined to "do it". We love seeing this!

Our number of the day was "1". We took this opportunity to teach the kids about "tally marks". Believe it or not, this is a standard that the state indicates children should master prior to kindergarten. Personally, we think it's a bit complex. But, this is a bright group of kids. They had fun practicing their "tally" marks on the dry erase board.

One little gal visited a relative's farm over the weekend and got to ride on a combine! She brought an ear of corn in and shared it with the group. She was so excited to tell the class what she learned about corn. She told us the combine picks the stuff in the garden for you. She told us this one picks corn and beans. And, she told us you can get cereal from the corn. Wow! Impressive all that she learned. Feel free to talk with us about having your child (or you and your child) visit the class with similar experiences.

With beanbags in tow, we had fun singing and dancing along to a "listening" song. The kids listened to the music as they were instructed to place their beanbag in various places like their elbow, their shoulder, a table, their neck, their knee and under their foot. It was so much fun they wanted to do it again. We ran out of time. Will do it again another day.

Finally, our science experiment involved the concept of sink or float. Mrs. Eastman began the lesson by asking the children if they knew what the term "float" meant. One little girl said it best when she replied, "it's when something sits on top of the water and doesn't go underneath". Are you hearing these great descriptive words? I don't think I could have said it better myself! We asked what word do we use when it actually DOES go under the water? They were stumped (finally, we stumped them!). After our discussion, we got out a bucket of water and a pumpkin (works with a much bigger pumpkin, too). The kids each got a piece of paper with a sketch of a bucket full of water. They also got a pumpkin sticker. They were asked to make a prediction as to whether the pumpkin would sink or float. They were instructed to put their sticker on TOP of the water if they thought it would float and UNDER the water or at the BOTTOM of the bucket if they thought it would sink. These came home today. What do you think happened?

This Friday, October 21st we will be walking to the Worthington Library for story time. We have three parent volunteers (thanks) to manage the crowd while we walk. If you want to join us at the library, you may. We still need a permission slip signed if you meet us. On that note, we are still missing about half the permission slips so please be sure to bring them on Friday am (since we will be at the pumpkin patch on Wednesday) or your child will have to stay with Cathy in the office while we are out. :{

One last word (this is a long post). Our fall festival is approaching. Just an FYI regarding the morning. Please send your child to school on Friday, October 28th IN their costume. We will take a little parade around the school at 9:20 ish. Then, we will stop on the steps to the door of the church and take pictures. After that, the parents may leave and go about their day. We will go to Kilbourne Hall (upstairs) for games at our normal gym time which is 10:40.

See you at Miller's in Delaware on Wednesday ... rain or shine.