STEM Family Outreach Activity

What a fun time!  We really enjoyed our time in the STEM lab.  There was so many different things to do.  Look at some of the fun we had!

Once Upon a Time...

We enjoyed being royal this week. Monday we read about The Knight and the Dragon and created a dragon of our own. 

We worked hard on our fine-motor skills when we had to color in the lines with colored pencils to decorate a knight’s shield.

On Wednesday we made fancy crowns featuring a three-part pattern.

We wrapped up the week on Thursday with our Royal Tea Party that we dressed up in royal attire. We created a castle picture frame and put in a photo of our class in royal clothing.

Little Foodies

food·ie  /ˈfo͞odē/ n.   a person with a particular interest in food; a gourmet.

We enjoyed our short week after our extended weekend. This week we talked about foods around the world. We have three restaurant play areas in our classroom: Mexican, Italian & Chinese.

On Wednesday we made a place setting to kick off our week of food.
Thursday we made a shape taco. We like using fun ways to reinforce colors, shapes and numbers!!

Next week we hope to be back to our regularly-scheduled 4 day, Monday-Thursday week. We are looking forward to our Royal Dress Up day next Thursday

Arctic Animals Week

The weather this week certainly reflected our theme of Arctic Animals! We hope you enjoyed the five “stay home” days we had. 

Wednesday we learned about husky sled dogs and made a husky puppet. It required lots of parts and direction following. 

Thursday we made an eskimo, this also required lots of parts and direction following. We wrapped up the week on Friday with a penguin project using our fine-motor skills to tear paper. 

 Our dramatic play area was transformed into an arctic area. We had an "igloo" that the kids could read in and a fishing hole as well. The kids seem to really enjoy using their imaginations in this area.

Some of our favorite books this week were: 

Count Alaska's Colors by Shelley Gill
Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester

Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester
Alaska ABC Book by Charlene Kreeger
Three Cheers for Tacky by Helen Lester

The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett

Please continue to send all winter gear because we will go out whenever it’s above zero degrees.

Tree Farm Trip

We had a great time at Hann’s Christmas Tree Farm today!  We got to see trees of all different sizes. Some were cut down already, and many were waiting for families to come choose them and cut them down. We took a wagon ride out into the fields to see the trees. We also saw stumps from evergreen trees that were previously cut down. We learned that trees that our about our height are also about the same age as us. The trees that are ready to be cut down to be used as Christmas trees are 8-10 years old. We saw how they make wreaths from evergreen boughs too.  Thank you to the chaperons who joined us and to those who generously volunteered but were not selected to come. You can see more photos on the the photo gallery page.

AM Class

PM Class

Stop, Drop, and Read About Our Week

This week we talked about fire safety and when to call 9-1-1.

Monday we painted a firetruck with watercolors and these are now decorating our classroom. We also made our fire truck snack. Mrs. Fox showed us how to use a knife the right way, never, ever like your knife (even if it has yummy frosting on it)! 

Wednesday some of the Edgerton Firefighters came to visit us. The firefighters talked to us about fire safety and we watched some fire safety videos during snack time.  Check out more pictures from our EFD visit on our Facebook Page .

 Fire safety week was a great time to review our "School Fire Plan." Ask your kid what they should do if they hear the fire alarm here at school. They should be able to tell you how we get out and where our "Safe Spot" is outside of the school. 

Does your family have a fire escape plan? If not, take the time to make one with your family. The fire plan should be practiced at least once a year

We made ourselves some firefighter hats on Tuesday. We practiced using scissors correctly and cutting on the lines. These were sent home in our backpacks.

Thursday we had some tummy time during project. It is hard work to lie on our bellies and complete projects. Our muscles weren’t the only things we worked on; we also worked on drawing circle and coloring them in for our Dalmatian project. This project came home in our backpacks. 

 Here are some fire safety items we talked about: 
• Are your smoke detectors working? —check monthly! 
• What is an emergency? When to dial 9-1-1
• Don’t run! STOP, DROP, AND ROLL! 
• Have fire extinguishers available 
• Crawl on the ground, smoke rises 
• GET OUT & STAY OUT!! 
• Have a meeting place outside where you can meet safely. Practice your plan. 
• NEVER play with fire, matches, or lighters
• NEVER EVER, hide from fire fighters! Yell, I AM HERE! I AM HERE! 
 

Picture proofs were sent home in the red folders today. Please be sure to return the entire form by Monday October 24th.

Have a great weekend!
~Mrs. Fox & Mrs. Dutcher

Fall is Here!

This week we talked about pumpkins and how they grow. It’s a new month which means that we have a new dramatic play center and a new sensory bin! This month our dramatic play center is a pumpkin patch. The kids have had so much fun pretending to grow and pick pumpkins! Our sensory bin is filled with pine cones, leaves, and gourds. 

We read the book “Spookley the Square Pumpkin” on Tuesday. Pumpkins of all shapes grew in this book, “…some were cubes, and some were rectangular. Some were flat, and others triangular.” The project was patterning our shape “pumpkins” (triangle, circle, & square). This project came home in our backpack; did you see our hard work? We will have many more patterning projects this year, but it never hurts to practice this at home. 

On Wednesday we worked on our October book page. Each month the kids draw a picture of themselves along with writing their name. At the end of the year you will see these drawings and watch how their pictures have improved over the year. We also took our school pictures. It was a pretty crazy day as you can see.

Thursday’s project was labeling parts of a pumpkin. We learned that a pumpkin starts as a seed and grows into a vine that sprouts flowers. Did you know pumpkins are green when they start to grow? Your 4K-er does, ask them about it while you look at their pumpkin project that came home today.

We hope you have a great weekend!!
-Mrs. Fox & Mrs. Dutcher