Thanks for a Great Week!

This week was short and sweet and while we had many children out enjoying vacations we also had a good time with those who were here.

The nurse came back on Monday for the vision tests I told you about last week.  She will be visiting next week for make ups and double checks.  If you would like a copy of your child's form for any reason, please email me and I'll send a copy home for you to keep.  Otherwise the records will stay here at school.

After our terrific Star of the Week poster presentation, we heard about how the vision game would be played with the nurse and practiced together.  Then while students took turns playing the vision game with the nurse, we started our first project of the week with turkeys to hang on the refrigerator at home.  

We examined and learned about cranberries and after dissection, we learned what 'harvest' objects would sink and float and then we 'harvested' the cranberries the way they might in the real world.  

When it was time for math on Monday, we passed around pages with numbers and visual cues for the children to glue the correct amount of feathers to the page that corresponded with the number they saw.  

Today in math we counted and showed number recognition with Thanksgiving meal objects.



Pilgrims, Native Americans and the Mayflower were reviewed today as we looked at the history of Thanksgiving and then read a story about what Thanksgiving might look like in today's world.  

Since Thanksgiving is usually linked to family we sang Dr. Jean's "My Mother is a Baker" and practiced it a few times this week.  The children love it so get it and practice it at home!  You just may see it come graduation time!

Food and Thanksgiving are so closely related to each other that we couldn't just have one cranberry experiment this week.  We also talked about apples and how they turn brown when cut open.  The children were given pieces of apples and were allowed to manipulate them any way they wished (many chose to try to smash them and make applesauce.)  We broke them apart more, counted seeds, peeled the skin of the apples away and talked about what parts they liked to eat best.  We left some cut up apples out and watched them get more and more brown as the day went on.  I challenged them all to do the same at home and see what happens!

Lastly, we made centerpieces for your Thanksgiving tables that should be able to stand on their own this weekend.  I hope you all enjoy your time off and we will see you on Monday!

What's Coming Up?
We will be talking about Community Helpers next week and visiting our Palatine High School Media Center to hear from our librarians on Wednesday, the 4th.

Spring 2014 tuition is due Friday, December 6th  (for current AM preschoolers)  If I don't have it by then or haven't spoken with you about payment arrangements I will be opening up spaces the following week.