Haunted houses hiding Halloween horrors....yes, "Hh" was the letter of the week.  Of course Luke said "Hummer" and Rory let us know that "horse" begins with "Hh."  It is great to hear that so many of you are brainstorming with your child so they can bring in a new word each day.  They love it!

We decorated H's, did directed drawings of houses, and made stuffed bats for our Nocturnal Animals theme.  We continued on our unit of shapes and learned that just about any drawing is possible using only shapes! 

Writing consisted primarily of our names, numbers and of course "Hh."  The children also learned to draw a witches' hat with Ms. Lindsi.  In Math we worked on another dot-to-dot and also coloring in the appropriate number of shapes.  Coloring has come a long way!

Because Halloween is near we spoke about all of the creatures of the night.  We learned the reason owls have larger eyes and the way bats navigate with sonar.  The kids thought bats were heavenly!  We also learned that raccoons should never be approached in the day since this means they are sick and can no longer hunt at night.

In Art we made boa bats and laced jack-o-lanterns.  We also colored a Halloween picture and practiced our circles and triangles.  Alot of art will be coming home Friday so you can enjoy the Halloween decor in your home.  The happy children are excited to show off their work.

Spanish has started and this week we worked on "hola," (hi) and "adios," (goodbye).  The kids are to now address Maestra Stacy in espanol when they see her so be sure to practice at home!  We also sang our "Buenas Dias" song.  Music is always a hit!

We are so excited and happy to have our parents participating in our class party Monday.  Please remember to wear your pajamas and not costumes to school. (that way they stay clean)  If your child is staying then bring their costume in a bag for a change later in the day.  Please ask the front desk for details.  The parents will be running the show Monday at 11am with teachers standing by so additional assistance is always welcome and the kids love to see  you in class!

Thanks again to all of the parents that met for conferences.  It was a pleasure!  Also, please don't forget that if your child is going to Kindergarten next year that a conference is mandatory.  Please speak to Ms. Stacy to make an appointment.  A big thank you to Jen (Charlie's mom) for all of the filing and book fair organizing you accomplished for our class and to Venice (Monica's mom) for the continued cutting.  We love you guys!!

Regards, Ms. Stacy and Ms. Lindsi

classroom notes 

Hip, Hip, Hooray!  This week's letter is H!  (just thought we'd start this letter off backwards this week!)  We have some happy kids in class whose names begin with H.  Hailey, Henry, and Holly, those kids are you!  We also have a holiday coming up that begins with H.  Yes, Halloween is just around the corner and the kids have been ready for weeks!  We have been singing our Halloween songs (the witches' brew song is a favorite), reading Halloween stories, and doing some Halloween art.  We read Inside a House that is Haunted (double "h"s there) and painted haunted houses.  We made heart covered "H"s and spent a lot of time making h sounds and figuring out words that begin with h.  Jack and Mason were great at this.  A favorite "H" word is hug so we made sure to spend some time giving hugs to friends.  (Ahhhhhhh- so much sweetness)  Ms. Sosanda gave us a book called Huggapotamus.  It was very cute and did a great job illustrating appropriate and kind hugs for friends. 
     This week's theme is "Night Animals."  The kids really enjoyed a lot of imaginative movement activity this week.  We pretended to be different nocturnal animals such as owl, bats, raccoons and possums.  We had to sleep while the sun was up and then have a lot of active time looking for food and running and flying around when the sun went down and the stars came up.  Colton thought is was very funny to be a skunk and spray the teacher with stinky skunkiness.
     We read some great books about nocturnal animals including While the World is Sleeping, Stellaluna and Wow, said the Owl.  We also read Owl Babies, which is a very quiet and sweet book.  One of the owls always said "I miss my mommy" in a little baby owl voice.  The second time we read it Asher was a step ahead of that little owl and used his little owl voice to say "I miss my mommy,"  very cute.  We made some animal skeleton books and then read them together as a group.  The kids were very excited about the interesting animal bones and it was really neat to have us all read the same book together.
     In art, we painted our hands black to make bat wings.  We used white crayons to add details to our pictures and Cannon added the cutest little legs and face to his.  We colored bat shapes, and made a lot of pumpkin art.  We practiced our scissors skills on foam stickers in Halloween colors to make foam collages.  Ellie F.'s scissors skills are improving so much.  We also worked in groups to make big paper bag owls.  The kids crumpled up newspaper to stuff a large paper grocery bag and then worked together to paint and feather our owls.  Every time I see them, I giggle.
     We are going to end this newsletter with parting words from Adam......"Bye, Batfriends!"