October - A time of daydreaming, imagination, a trip to the Farmstead and Halloween!

We took our first field trip to The Farmstead in Meridian.  We rode a hay wagon, picked pumpkins, rode a cow train, jumped on a giant inflatable pillow and "swam" through the corn bin.  Often the best kind of learning happens when you think you're "just having fun"!

We continued learning our letters and their sounds.  We learned Ee is

 for elephant and engine (we built fire engines from our snack foods).  We also discovered that Ee can say it's real name as in the word eagle!  We talked about how important Aa and Ee are because they are vowels and there's a vowel in every word we read! 

We learned Ff is for fall and fish and Gg is for ghost and gumballs and H is for Halloween and hippo and Jj is for jack-o-lantern!  We began singing songs about our numbers 0-10.  We use the DVD "Jumpin Numbers and Shakin Shapes" by Heidi Songs!  This helps the children to hear, see and move their bodies in association with the numbers. Click this link if you would like to see a sample https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=jumpin+numbers+and+shakin+shapes+number+8   

We do a lot of singing in our school.  We turn on "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" when it's time to clean up a project and move to another activity.  By the second or third week of school they only had to hear a few notes before they would all say "It's chicka, chicka, hurry clean up!"  We also sang songs and chants like "Baby fish, do do do do do do, baby fish do do do do do do, baby fish do do do do do do baby fish.  Mama fish....."  They sang "Five little ducks" when we were working on the letter D.  They sang "The Autumn Song" from Scholastic's Calendar Time and Flip Chart.  https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=jumpin+numbers+and+shakin+shapes+number+8  The lyrics are sung to the tune of "London Bridges"   Windy Breezes blow around, blow around, blow around, Windy breezes blow around in the autumn.  Autumn leaves come tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.  Autumn leaves come tumbling down On the ground.  Take a rake and pile them up, pile them up, pile them up.  Take a rake and pile them up And jump right in!"  They loved dancing and moving to this music as they learned that Autumn and Fall are two words to describe the same thing.  Their favorite songs during October were "I'm a mean old Witch" and "Five little pumpkins".  

We read several books about using our imagination like "Quick as a Cricket"   And "Where the Wild Things Are"    We also read "It's Not a Box" and then followed up with our own "imagination boxes".  

Of course we finished up the month with a Halloween party!  The kids wore their costumes and we played bowling for ghosts, Halloween bingo and ate spooky treats!

September 2015 - A new school year begins!

My darling AM class came in confident, excited and enthusiastic!

The first day they began by finding their names and practicing writing skills!

Playing with play dough was a big hit too!

Story time seems to be a favorite for many of them.

They love building a town with roads, cars and  buildings!

Getting to "play" on the computer is fun too!

September's theme was courage!  We learned a new song which is sung to the tune of "Bingo".  The words are "If you climb a tree even though it's high then you are being brave. B-R-A-V-E, B-R-A-V-E, B-R-A-V-E then you are being brave!!  If you try something new even though it's hard then you are being brave......."  This is an original by Miss Cindy :)

They took this song to heart.  They wanted to do lots of things that were new and hard.  In the first month we learned letters Aa, Bb, Cc and Dd.  We learned their names, their shapes, the sounds they make, and lots of words that begin with those sounds. We began making an ABC book by adding a page for every new letter we learned.  We counted how many days were on the calendar and started learning the names of the days of the week.  We painted pictures and learned to use scissors and how to hold a pencil correctly.   We jumped on the trampoline and climbed on the play equipment, blew bubbles and drew with chalk during the beautiful month of September!

These are the cute kiddos in my PM class.

We are off to a great start!!!