Autumn breeze... changing leaves

Can you believe October is almost gone?! We've done tons of fun stuff in the past 2 weeks, so I'll get right to it:

As some of you parents may know, as an intern completing my Montessori certification this year (this is Miss Melissa), I am required to choose a topic to do a year long project on with the kids. I've gone back and forth on many different things that I'm passionate about and have lesson ideas on and have finally decided on: The Four Seasons. :) So excited to get going with the kids on this... I got right to it. I asked my dad up in Boston to mail me foliage, enough cool leaves for every child, and he did! Each child got the chance to choose their own leaf to press and in a few weeks we'll take them out to do an art project. Check it out:

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We celebrated Columbus Day, of course, learned a short poem, watched a short video, celebrated the discovery of our earth not being flat, and started to learn about a compass -- we've got a ways to go but the kids love working with our compass lesson and learning the directions:

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Not only did we celebrate Christopher Columbus, but how about Jack and Alex! Jack turned 4, and Alex turned 6.

Thank you, Jack for your book gift of The Polar Express. Can't wait to read that during our Christmas celebration! And thank you, Alex for The Giving Tree. A story that can be appreciated by children and adults alike. :)

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Halloween is very soon upon us! Did you all love our toilet paper roll monsters?!

and in the Halloween spirit, though most of you got to see during your observations this past week.. our Practical life area has transformed to all halloween activities -- the kids can't get enough :)

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Hard at work...

L to R, T to B: Aidan working with the colored beads, Maureen sequencing events, Sarah classifying magnetic and non magnetic objects, Brandon working with Miss Elizabeth on his number formation, Micaela & Sarah starting the endangered species puzzle, and Mikey practicing his violin.
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After all that hard work we do, we get a little hungry... this week we decided to make a delicious cream cheese fruit dip... mmm mmmmm

• 1 package of 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar (recipe calls for 1/2 cup but 1/4 was enough)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

And whisk away!

YUM! We sliced apples to eat with, but I'm confident it could be eaten with any fruit. Delicious.

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After eating, we got back to our chess learning... now that everybody is well acquainted with the positions on the board, we've introduced the pawns:

I'm starting to get a little nervous playing against these kids... they are really picking it up!!

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This upcoming Tuesday the firefighters will be coming to visit, so of course we've got to be prepared. We've been focusing on fire safety... did your kids ask you to make an escape plan for your home??

L to R: Miss Francina sharing our fire safety poster that everybody gets to color for themselves, Josie demonstrating how to feel a door to make sure it's not hot before walking through it, Aidan and Alex coloring their posters.
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Fun in the sun now! Show and Tell this past week brought us some puppies. They were surprisingly well behaved in the classroom all day, loved getting all the attention from the kids, and were exhausted when the day was over:

 & some everyday good times on the playground:

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Well, this post was somewhat of a test to see what happens when I skip a week of posting.... I'd say there's a lot of information to share!!! Hope I didn't keep you for too long and you've enjoyed.

Until next time... :)

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