WR Sunny Day

 We are sending home our latest Weekly Reader today!  We have learned so much about the sun. Not only did we discuss the sun......we sang songs and built a sun too!!  We used our cutting (and tearing)  and gluing skills to create our beautiful suns!   Next we will be talking about dophins, the color blue, and the letter "D".   If you have a book at home which relates to dolphins or the ocean....send it in.....we'd love to read it.  

Helper's in the house...

We started our "helper" jobs today! Exciting stuff...  

• Toy Helper - Waverly and Jack
• Book Helper - Reaghan and Kolbi
• Teacher's Helper - Charlie
• Light/Fire Alarm Tester - AJ (everyones favorite)
• Weekly Reader Helper - Lucy

Make sure to check your childs clip each week to see their new responsibility!!

We love worms...

This is so fun....we need more worms!

The worms should be arriving today or tomorrow! I am  quite anxious to see how this composting project will turn out.  The "worm" house is almost ready.  We are going to "make" and look for the bedding after nap today.  I promised Brooke and Jaylin we'd wait for them.  We will need to cut thin strips of newspaper and find lots of dry leaves/pine needles. 

It's rainy.....let's play with play-doh!!

We played with "white" play-doh as we made our very own snowmen (actually I made them for each child :-)!  They weren't into the snowmen as they wanted to hammer and cut!  Oh well....it was a good idea!!!

All about Pumpkins!!

Did you know that pumpkins can be RED and WHITE......not just orange!  This week we talked about all different kinds of pumpkins.  We "dug in" yesterday and discovered that the inside of a pumpkin is realllllllllly slimey and has lots of white seeds.   We cleaned out our pumpkin (with Ms. Heather) and then baked the seeds for our afternoon snack....SO COOL.  Check out the "flip" book we made....and yes that is a real pumpkin seed on the first page from our very own pumpkin.  We saved some to plant this spring....maybe next year we will have a pumpkin harvest.   The older children worked on their cutting skills by separating each picture and then worked on putting them back in the correct order before we glued them onto our book.  In Art we made a jack-o-lantern mosaic and painted "pumpkin patches" with our thumbs! Of course, we read alot of books about pumpkins and how pumpkins grow.  Mrs. Angie's favorite pumpkin book is about a lady who didn't like pumpkins.  One day a pumpkin fell off of a truck and busted all over her yard.  She tried to ignore them by not caring for them.  She even stopped gardening in her front yard but one fall day when she went out front....there were PUMPKINS EVERYWHERE!!  She didn't want to waste them so she brought all of them inside and made....pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cakes, pumpkin pudding, pumpkin cookies, and pumpkin pies. When she was finished she didn't know what to do with all the food so......she made lots of JACK-O-LANTERNS and set them outside soon the whole town came out to see what was going on at her house.  She served all the pumpkin foods and a good time was had by all.  When it was time to go home she sent a jack-o-lantern, bag of seeds for roasting, and a pumpkin treat with everyone!  Everything was gone except for a handful of seeds...those she tucked snugly into her apron pocket for safe keeping until planting season next spring.  I just love this book!  Enjoy the pictures of all the kids taking turns digging into the pumpkin....SO CUTE!
Next week we will be learning about Animals awake at night.

Mattie's SUNSHINE - Class of fall 2011

Left to Right:  Wyatt Irwin, Charlie Shuman, Lucy Paire, Addison Williams, Reaghan McHenry, "happy" Jack Sanders, and Jayce Crews.


It's not easy getting everyone to look at me when Jack is so happy!  I had to take the opportunity.......VERY RARE to have the whole gang together!!

Fall is upon us....

This week we have been learning ALL about Fall.  

• WR - Fall in the Forest was about animals in fall and we were able to see very cute pictures of animals in their habitats!  Also, we read LOST in the WOODS which has breathtaking pictures. We thought it would be a cool to make bird and squirrel feeders because they can't find food as easily in the fall and winter.  Heather came one morning and helped us make them!  And of course we colored some pictures of the animals in their environment.
• WR - Fall Fun was all about the different activities we can do in the fall like....picking apples, playing soccer, making pies, AND everyone's favorite.....playing in the leaves!! We read all kinds of books about leaves! Thank you ......Mrs. Christie for the loan!!  It was so fun making our reading sticks......they help us read our books.  We used our fall colors...red, yellow, orange, and brown to color FUN fall pictures.  Check out the one with the boy and girl walking among the falling leaves....we learned the song on the back it is sooooooooo fun....take a look and sing it with me. 

NEXT WEEK......we learn all about PUMPKINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out our Apples up above our heads!!!

Apples...RED, GREEN, and YELLOW!

This week we have been discussing and exploring apples!! We started off the week with our WR (Weekly Reader), "I like apples". We read a great book about apples by Gail Gibbons and of course....we read about Johnny Appleseed. We had a couple of painting projects this week. The first one is of an apple tree and it shows 3 different colors of apples. We made the apples with our fingers.....SO FUN. And then we put the letters of our name on the trunk of the apple tree...like a puzzle! Our second painting project was with a REAL apple. We cut it in half and then made a stamp out of it. After our paintings dried the older students took parts of the apple and put the seeds and a stem on one of them. (RRR in effect) They look awesome and we are so proud of them. Do you know what shape the seeds are in when you cut the apple in half?? Ask your little one (answer: star...just in case). We had a tasting of different apples and colored our apple to show which was our favorite. Check out what we thought about them...Mrs. Brandy wrote our description for us!! Enjoy the pictures share them with your children (and grandparents too)! Please take some time to read and go over their week with them...I am sure they will be happy to tell you all about it. Next week we will be talking about FALL. So happy it is finally here!

Seed to Plant

Well it has been 37 days and we have our first plant passing us in height!! We planted our seeds the 2nd week of summer vacation. After two weeks of watching them grow we decided it was time to move them into a more permanent home. Each child has been watering and caring for their very own plant. Today Addison's passed her in height!! We are so excited. We have been charting thier measurements each week. We are amazed.... they have doubled in size from last Monday's measurements!!! We will be on vacation next week and will be hoping for some rain showers while we are away. I cannot wait for the day we see a little sunflower "head" pop out.

What a great and exciting experiment this has been for all of us. Please take some time to check your child's plant out the next time you are here.