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Monday, November 18, 2013

{Halloween} & {Pumpkins}

This is a late post, but better late than never because there are so many adorable things to share with you! For Halloween each year, the ECDC hosts a costume parade and each class makes their costumes at school. This year Pre-K 2 dressed as Smurfs:
Pre-K 1 dressed as scarecrows!
Molly also hosts an annual Pumpkin decorating contest, which is one of my absolute favorite things we do all year. Families bring the most amazing pumpkins and they are displayed all week long.
This year, the Very Hungry Caterpillar Pumpkin won 1st place, the gumball machine won 2nd place and the Nemo won 3rd place. We also had a facebook favorite, which was the salad man. Pre-K 1 & 2 families made some of my absolute favorite pumpkins this year, great work everyone!
 In Pre-K 1 we started our pumpkin week with some optional writing sheets. I LOVE this picture of my boys choosing to work on writing. They earned a Halloween ring for their efforts. Many times its the girls waiting to write, but how sweet are these boys working together?
And they did a FANTASTIC job!
Pre-K 2 carved a pumpkin in class!
They got to feel the ooey gooey inside of the pumpkin.
In Pre-K 1 we made this round pumpkins and filled in blank on the center which says, "A Pumkin is as round as..." They did great thinking outside of the box!
Pre-K 2 made these super cute pumpkin faces. Lots of painting, cutting, gluing going on here.
Pre-K 1 has embarked on a pumpkin project. We discussed what would happen if we filled our pumpkin with soil and allowed it to decompose. We hypothesized about what will happen to the pumpkin over the next few weeks. It's outside right now, and there has been a change! We will be taking pictures monthly to see what changes occur. When the pumpkin gets squishy enough, we are going to set it in a large pot of soil. We plan to keep it through the year!
 We read some great fall books. Here's a few:



Pre-K 2 learned about night time animals that live in trees and then they made these sweet paper bag owls.

We also read lots of books about seasons and discussed how trees change. Then we made fall trees at art. Here's one of Pre-K 2's trees.
In Pre-K 1 we read a book about fall leaves changing colors and why that happens. Then we group painted beautiful fall colors onto large white butcher paper. After it dried, I cut lots and lots of leaves out.  
I had some helpers!
 Next, we cut trunks and branches and glued them to paper. Then we added our painted leaves.
Each tree was well thought out and very unique.
I love how varied and diverse they turned out and watching all these different little minds at work.
Here's one finished product. Cute boy, cute tree! :)
 In Pre-K 2 they worked on making shapes from colored popsicle sticks.
Then they made their own.
Great spacial reasoning and shape recognition peas!
Then, Pre-K 2 made Ice Cream in their class for letter I. Super fun!
They had to shake, shake, shake their bags for a LONG time.
But it was well worth the effort.
That's it for now, we are well into November now and gearing up for Thanksgiving. Happy Monday!