Crystals

Are your salt crystals growing?

January

We are well into the new year already! Time flies when you're having fun. This month we have been reviewing our letters & numbers. We have learned the numbers 1-4 and have been introduced to the letters D, Z, O, M, C, K, E, S, G, T, H, and N. We have reviewed our months (September, October, November, and December). WOW, we have learned a lot since September!

We added the number 5 to our list of numbers and the letters J, I, and W. January is our new month. We have begun learning sight words and are working on the sentence "I can do it". We know that in preschool, I can do it! We try our best in everything we do.

We have been talking about the season winter. Autumn, or fall is when the leaves change colors and fall from the trees. Winter is when it is cold and snowy. Winter starts with the letter W.

We have talked a lot about snowflakes in the winter. We got to play in the snow while it was snowing, which was a lot of fun. We have made snowflakes that cling to the window and snowflakes that hang for decoration. We also made crystals out of Borax...we don't taste them, only look and touch. We are learning about the process or the steps it takes to make something. We can put the steps of how to make our crystals in order.

First I wrote my name on a paper.

Then we measured and poured water into a bottle.

Mrs. Hammer poured the water into a pan and put it on the stove to heat.

We measured Borax into the bottle.

I chose a colored pipecleaner and shape.

We poured the water into the bottle, stirred it, then hung the shape in the mixture.

Remember our book orders are due on Tuesday, January 20. We can earn points for free books when you order.

As always, thank you for your kids. They are so much fun and are learning so many things. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

December

We welcomed the snow and had fun playing in it. What a fun time December is. We made snowman decorations and christmas tree ornaments among the other cool things we did. The gingerbread (graham cracker) houses turned out great. Your kids are absolutely AWESOME!!! Here's hoping you have a wonderful break and a Happy New Year! See you back the week of the 5th.

Thanksgiving

Turkeys, pumpkins, feasts, pilgrims, Indians...it must be Thanksgiving time! We have been talking about the first Thanksgiving feast when the pilgrims and Indians celebrated and had a big feast together. We have made turkeys, pumpkins, wreaths and more.

We haven't only been talking about Thanksgiving, but have been learning about magnets too. We made beautiful Indian corn magnets to take home and stick on our fridges. Magnets are very interesting. They only stick to things made out of metal. We will be doing lots of activities with magnets over the next few weeks.

We will all be meeting together on Tuesday, November 25, for a fun Thanksgiving Activity Day. There will be no school November 26-28.

An FYI: If you click on the slideshow, it will take you to a new page where you can just look at the pictures or click on slideshow there to view it in a bigger format.

Rember to check out the calendar. I have posted the days off for December. Also remember, sharing is the second day of each week. We enjoy seeing what the kids bring & hearing what they have to tell.

Halloween!

Tomorrow is Halloween! Can you believe it's already this time of year? We had our Halloween party today in school. The kids came dressed in their costumes & we had lots of fun playing stick the nose on the witch, bean bag toss, "pick" the pumpkins, and musical chairs. We made bats and even got to see how many seeds are in a pumpkin.

We made our own snacks today. Decorating cookies is fun, but eating them is even more fun!

Have a fun & safe Halloween. I'll see you next week!

November Calendar

For those of you looking ahead to next month, here is the calendar link again. October will probably come up, just click on the forward arrow to move to November. I haven't posted any activities yet, but the dates we won't be having school are posted. More to come, keep checking back!

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=theexplorationstation%40comcast.net&ctz=America/Denver

Pumpkin Land!

Today we went to the Vineyard Nursery and visited their Pumpkin Land. What a fun fieldtrip that was! We found our way around the corn maze, saw the animals, played on the toys, and saw the neat lights. And oh, so many pumpkins! All the kids got to choose a pumpkin to take home. There were a lot of kids there, but we had fun anyway. Thanks to Katelyn & Eric's moms for coming with us. We sure needed your help.

We saw goats, bunnies, roosters, turkeys, ducks, and other birds.

We had lots of fun inside the giant wooden jack-o-lantern.

WOW! Huge pumpkins!