Welcome to October in Mixed Age!

Hello Mixed Age Families!!

We kicked off October with some new centers! Our play dough is now orange and we have a variety of tools and accessories for making some very spooky creations! Our pretend center is now a hibachi restaurant, and the children have been busy taking orders, cooking, and serving up delicacies all week. Our sensory table is filled with dyed dry rice, pumpkin buckets, spiders, silicone bugs and a variety of other spooky silly things! This has been a VERY popular place to be, and we are learning about teamwork and helping out when the rice inevitably gets all. over. the. floor. :)

On Friday we had our first special guest for Community Helpers Month. Lt. Nick Sheehan from the Attleboro Fire Department (and JJ parent) visited our classroom to talk about what it’s like to be a firefighter. He showed off all the gear he would be wearing if he ever showed up to help at our houses, and emphasized that it might look a little strange, but that firefighters are only there to help, and shouldn’t be feared. The children had some great questions for him, and really enjoyed listening to his stories. Ask your child about how Lt. Sheehan saved the baby ducks!

Here’s a recap of what we did this week, as well as some important reminders. Please read through til the end!

Discovery: At the discovery table we had test tubes with baking soda, and ramekins of white vinegar. The children learned to use pipettes to transfer the vinegar into the test tubes to make the baking soda bubble over the edge. Another approach I saw was simply dumping the entire test tube of baking soda into the bowl of vinegar, and let's be honest, that was a pretty exciting chemical reaction!

Math: We had brooms numbered 1-10 with spiraled pipe cleaners as the broomstick. The children counted the corresponding number of pony beads and worked hard to spin them down the broomstick.

Art: This week at the art table, the children were very busy decorating cards with fall stickers and dot markers. Our project for the week was painting paper plates, which were then turned into a variety of “spooky” creations. We had witches, sharks, dinosaurs, and monsters! These are hanging on our bulletin board in the hallway, along with the sunflower stamp artwork they children made last week.

Music:

Sit Down, Stand Up

Apples and Bananas

Bananaphone

Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar

Shale it Off

The Goldfish

Baby Shark

It’s Raining Tacos

Books:

Room on the Broom

Pete the Cat and the Magic Sunglasses

The Three Little Yogis

IMPORTANT REMINDERS - Like I tell the kiddos, teamwork makes the dream work!

- We are already seeing illnesses in the classroom. Please take the cautious approach and keep your child home if they are excessively coughing or have a runny nose that they cannot manage independently. An extra day at home snuggling can make all the difference both in helping them get better faster, and in keeping their friends and teachers healthy. Please refer to the Jack and Jill Handbook to review our sick policy.

- Please make sure your child has gone to the bathroom when they arrive at school. If your child is arriving in a pull up, please make sure it is dry when they enter the classroom. We have snack around 9:15, and it has become a daily occurrence that roughly half of the class needs to go to the bathroom during this time, either to go potty or be changed. If they are going when they get to school they *should* be able to make it until our scheduled bathroom time, or at least until we start centers at 9:40. When snack/lunch times are interrupted by bathroom trips it adds extra time to the eating and cleaning up process, which then takes away from everyone's time at centers or recess.

Enjoy your weekend, I look forward to seeing you all next week!

Thank you!

Katy Fyrberg