It's Good to Be Back!

Group Meeting:  The children shared their holiday experiences as well as a few snow stories.  We will not be starting Christmas activities until next week.  This week, we will focus on what animals are doing to get ready for winter.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed below as well as the schedule for today.
Activity #1  (Red Group)  The children used small plastic bear counters and a balance scale to weigh a few school supplies.  They also used to the bears to measure the length of the school supply.  The answers were recorded on a paper.
Activity #2 (Yellow Group)  The children made a book about animals that hibernate.  They used scissors to cut the pictures and glue to fasten them to the book pages.
Activity #3  (Green Group)  The children listened to a re-read of The Letters are Lost and completed an activity with rhyming words from the book. 

Story:  The story for today was Bear Can't Sleep by Marni McGee.  Bear is ready to hibernate, but can't seem to fall asleep.  His animals friend are trying to figure out why.  Ask your child to tell you why Bear can't sleep and what his friends do to help him.

Large Group:  The children watched a video about hibernation which was the topic of a Let's Find Out Magazine.  The morning class had time to complete the back page, but the afternoon class ran out of time.  They can complete it at home with a little help from an adult.

Letter Learning:  For this time around, we are learning about the letters in alphabetical order.  The children will be using dry erase markers to form the letters on boards.

Snacks:  Due to the cancellation of school yesterday, we had several snack choices today.  The morning class had cheese sticks, carrot coins, crackers, and milk brought by Noah and Rory.  The afternoon had plantain chips, apple slices, and milk brought by Willie and Zenie.  Thank you, everyone!

Thank you to everyone who provided transportation for our field trip today.  Starting in December, we will collecting a monthly food item to be donated to the pantry.  This will be included in the December newsletter.

Group Meeting:  Today was birthday day.  We went right to Small Groups so that we could get the muffins in the oven in time for snack time.

Small Groups:  The children got into groups to make banana bread.  They mashed the bananas, cracked an egg, and added that with flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and butter.  They put it into muffin cups. 

Story:  The story for today was a re-read of Our Tree Named Steve.  The children enjoyed this story the first time around and were excited to see it again.  This will end our tree study.  During the next two weeks, we will be preparing for Thanksgiving.

Large Group:  The children learned about Veteran's Day with a Let's Find Out Magazine. 

Letter Learning:  The letter for today was Pp.

Snacks:  The children ate the banana muffins with milk followed by Birthday Brownies.