Halloween Eve

Emma Claire's class had their Halloween Party Friday and they invited us to join them (since Emma Claire is not there on Fridays). We went in the morning and back in the afternoon. What a cute bunch they are all dressed up! The toddlers paraded around the center and the church for trick-or-treating in the morning and then out to play. In the afternoon, they took the 6-seater buggy around the church in their costumes (since it was raining outside) and did a little playtime and singing in the church atrium. I was so glad to be a part!
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Class notes...
HAPPY HALLOWEEN (eve)!!!!
The Rock Stars had a great day today!
We had such a fun time getting all dressed up to go trick-or-treating this morning! We all had very fitting costumes :). We enjoyed trading our hats, wands, crowns, etc...
We went around to each classroom, with the bags we decorated for art this morning, and collected some delicious treats! We were also able to walk around the church and pre-k areas where we got to see other kids in their costumes too! Everyone did a great job staying together and listening so we didn't lose anyone! HOORAY After our trick-or-treating adventure, we came back into the classroom to explore our treat bags! We couldn't help ourselves from eating the goldfish crackers! We thought the circle time rug looked like a great place to have group picnic. As we were eating, and trying to decide what to do next, the sun broke through the clouds, obviously inviting us to go outside! We collected our small pumpkins, changed into our play clothes, and headed outside for some fun pumpkin rolling contests! It was fun to see how far they would roll down the hill, sometimes they crashed into the play equipment! UH-OH!
We are excited for our fun snack activity, and to see some of our moms, dads and grandparents that thought they may be able to make it!

The Rock Stars Daily News: Thursday, 10/29/09

Emma Claire had a lot of fun playing in the Haunted House this morning. She LOVED going down the slide! She'd zoom through the Haunted House door, do a belly flop up the climber and slide down the slide, face first! She was laughing the whole time...what a hoot!

Class Notes...
The Rock Stars had a rockin' day inspite of the drizzly weather. We had a lot of fun playing in the Haunted House and scaring each other as friends entered through its door. I was hearing alot of ghostly boos and shrieks! The Rock Stars had fun hanging out with Teachers Dana, Crystal and Nicole for a little bit this morning so that Teachers Rachel and Kelli could get some lesson planning done.
Teacher Nicole got to do art with them this morning and the kids created some awesome black and orange paintings. The kids got to decorate their paintings with tissue squares and glitter as well! The glitter was the best part and the children couldn't wait for their turn to toss the glitter into the air! When I got back Teacher Nicole and the children looked so festive and shimmery. I missed out on some good fun!!!
For a group time activity we took a little nature walk in between rain showers. It was nice to get some fresh and see what kind of autumn things were out and about. We headed down to the little pond and discovered four ducks taking a swim. We all got so excited and had to watch them swim around for a while. Then we took off for the walking path and found a worm working its way from one side of the path to the other. Everybody thought he wiggled kind of funny. Scrunching his body up and then straightening it out, a very interesting way to get around. We made sure to look up as well as we walked so we could see the shower of leaves that happened every time the wind blew. The leaves were so pretty blowing and floating around in the sky! What an amazing season fall is!
Tomorrow is our Halloween party, it should be a fun day of special activities and dressing up! Reminder that Calvary Church has a Carnival planned for tomorrow night as well. It is a fun night of food and games.

The Rock Stars Daily News: Tuesday, 10/27/09

Emma Claire had lots of fun exploring our pumpkin this morning. She was so excited about sticking her hand inside to feel all the slimy insides! She got a big fistful of seeds to put in our bowl! It was all so exciting!

Class notes...
The Rock Stars had a great day! The sun was shining and it was a most beautiful fall day! We are having a wonderful week learning about Pumpkins and Halloween. We spent the morning making Jack-O-Lanterns in art and at science time. We had fun talking about what makes a pumpkin a Jack-O-Lantern and how it only takes making a face! We got out the glitter paints and some foam shapes and created our own unique looking Jack-O-Lanterns. Some of us had triangle faces or circle faces or diamond faces! We had to talk about what kind of features we have on our own faces before we could put together our art projects.
Then we got our big orange pumpkin out and sat on the floor to explore its insides and outsides. We talked about the color of its skin and how smooth it felt. Then Teacher Rachel got out a knife cut off the top of it so we could look inside! We saw lots of pumpkin seeds and some slimy goop. We all got a chance to feel it and stick our hands inside the pumpkin. Then we turned it into a Jack-O-Lantern by carving a face into it! We had fun trying to decide how we wanted it to look. We made a happy looking Jack-O-Lantern!
At circle time today we read Trick or Treat Calico and My First Halloween. We also got out a flannel story and sang a song about a Jack-O-Lantern. We also sang our new favorite Halloween song, "The ghosts in the Haunted House". It was a very good circle time!
We are saying goodbye to our friend Ava C. today. She is going to move back home with her daddy who doesn't live in the metro area. We know she is very excited about it! The Rock Stars and her teachers are going to miss her very much and will keep Ava and her family in their thoughts and prayers.
Have a wonderful night!

The Rock Stars Daily News: Monday, October 26

Emma Claire had lots of fun doing art today. We made little ghosts by coloring aluminum foil. Emma Claire colored both sides to make her ghost very colorful! Then we ties a ribbon around it and Emma Claire took it on a walk around the room! A new kind of pet!

Class notes for the day...

The Rock Stars had a great Monday!
It seemed like everyone was ready to be back, because we wasted no time getting right down to business this morning!
Everyone seemed excited to start our new theme of "Pumpkins/Halloween". A few of us were so excited, we were opening bags and boxes quicker than we could make room for the new toys/decorations! Some of our new most popular additions were the pumpkin trick-or-treat buckets, the Halloween paperware, and the Haunted House. With the help of Nicole, we were able to turn our slide fort into a Haunted House for Halloween! Everyone had fun helping to put up the decorations, and even more fun going through it and down the slide.
For art today, we colored tinfoil ghosts! We enjoyed sliding the marker across the surface to make pretty colors for the ghost, but our favorite was probably the crumpling part, where we were able to crunch the tinfoil to make the ghost head. They are hanging in our classroom, come check them out, they are pretty spooky!
At circle time today, we learned some new songs. One was about Trick-or-Treating "I'll be Trick or Treatin'", and the other was called "The Haunted House" and we sang about the different things in a haunted house (ghost, steps, mouse, people) and the sounds they make. We also read two new books! The first was called "Trick or Treat?" it was about all the things we might see or hear on Halloween. The second book was called "Little Monsters", it was a fun pop-up book with silly looking monsters in it! By the time we made it outside, I'd say we had our fair dosage of Halloween and pumpkins!

BMGA 2009 Player of the Year

We're proud of Brad...BMGA 2009 Player of the Year!

The Rock Stars Daily News: Week of October 19

Monday, October 19-

Emma Claire had lots of fun playing outside in the leaves this morning! She helped rake them into a big pile before she plopped down into the middle of them and rolled around! She looked like a leaf fairy with leaves stuck to her hat!

Class Report:

The Rock Stars Daily Events for Monday, October 19th 2009-

Happy Monday! The Rock Stars had a great day! We got to play with our new toddler aide this morning for a little bit. Her name is Nicole and she will be helping us out in the mornings; playing with us, reading stories to us and of course giving us lots of hugs and attention! We are so glad she is able to be a part of our awesome class!!! We started our unit on "Apples" today and we had fun picking the felt apples shapes off of our big fabric trees. Some of the children filled up the big apple boxes. We also enjoyed playing in the "apple barn". It was fun to slide out of the apple chute! During art we looked at a red apple, yellow apple and green apple. We cut them in half to see what they looked like on the inside and then got out the paints and made some apple prints! It was fun to mix the colors up a bit with the apples and create some very "fallesque" looking apple prints.At circle time we learned a couple of apple songs and an action rhyme about a couple of apples winking at us from up in an apple tree. We had to "shake" the tree to get the apples to "fall" down so we could "eat" them. We also read "Dappled Apples" and then taste tested a few apples ourselves. We all liked that part the best, I think. Don't forget tomorrow is Picture Day and we will make sure to have a "clean" breakfast and clean art planned. Feel free to bring a set of play clothes in and we can change your child into them after our picture taking time is done.

Tuesday, October 20 (Picture Day!)-

Emma Claire had lots of fun making breakfast with Ava C. Emma Claire was in charge of making the eggs and Ava did the toast! Then they brought the babies over to the table and sat down to eat...Very cozy!

Thursday, October 22-

Emma Claire had lots of fun playing with the pull toys with Brennan this morning! Emma Claire pulled the puppy around while Brennan took an airplane for a walk. They made several stops along the way for toys and books. It was so cute to watch!

Songs

Emma Claire has been asking for us to "sing" the past few days. She loves songs and music. They do lots of singing at school and she every now and then surprises me with songs and hand motions she knows.
Her personal favorites: "Wheels on the Bus" and "Twinkle Twinkle", for each of which she is over enthusiastic with the hand motions. She is even trying to sing along now...getting some of the words right here and there.
At bedtime tonight, we sang Jesus Loves Me and Emma Claire surprised me by doing the sign for "Jesus" (pointing one palm and then the other with a finger). Amazing.