We started the week celebrating our first Festival of Light of the season, Diwali. We read some wonderful picture books about Diwali, and painted salt dough diyas in the Cricket class. We practiced some bead stringing at the back table, to simulate the flower garlands, or Torans, that families hang around their homes. 

We love the variety of Harvest, new year, and celebrations of light that happen in these winter months. Diwali is the first of those. How fun to have so many reasons to celebrate during these short days! 

The children have been having a ball helping us rake and load up bins of leaves from the playground. Our older kids have been showing off their muscles helping the teachers to carry the bins to our compost pile across the parking lot. These kids love to be useful! Hope you are including them in your yardwork projects at home! 

We had no school on Wednesday in honor of Veteran’s Day. We know we have several community members who have served our country and we are so appreciative. Thank you veterans. We are grateful for all that you have done. 

Ladybugs

On Tuesday, we celebrated Diwali, listening to some fun Diwali music and working with bright and colorful beads to make bracelets.

We continued to work on our Holiday family gift this week, and we started our next Peek-a boo book, “A Turkey and Duck”. This is a fun finger play that we do at circle time during the month of November. 

We are adding something new to our special days calendar this year, as we plan to host a “Gratitude Circle” on Tuesday before Thanksgiving. During the last 15 minutes of class, we invite the parents to join us as we go around our closing circle talking about the things that we are grateful for. We have never done this with the Bugs before, but we are practicing each day in class thinking about the people and things that we are happy to have in our lives. We are pretty sure that some of our kiddos might not be confident enough to state their lists, but can be present, sitting on parents’ lap, as their list is read. 

Crickets

On Monday, we had a lovely time celebrating our first festival of light of the winter months, Diwali. The children came dressed in bright colors and painted their salt dough diyas that they made on Friday of last week. We read some beautiful stories about the Diwali celebration, and listened to some lovely Diwali music. 

Our letter of the week was “I” and we had fun sharing of insects and igloos, International Space Station, and Ice Cream!  The Crickets are moving their way through the alphabet with our “A, a, alligator” song which not only teaches the alphabet in ABC order, but teaches the sound that the letter makes and gives an example which the children learn to sign. Can’t believe we are all the way up to “I”!

Honeybees

Last week, our poem was a Garden favorite, “NO-vember”, and this week, we learned a new poem, written by last year’s Honeybee class, entitled, “YES-vember!” 

Yes brown mud

Yes grey skies

Yes rain boots stomping by

Yes squirrels

Yes geese

Yes leaves off trees

Yes-Vember!

As with last week’s poem, we learned how to sound out and read the word, “No”. This week, we learned to sound out and read the word, “Yes”. It is always a treat to look at the students’ faces as they realize that they are indeed reading! 

We continue to move through our “Body Rights” curriculum. Last week, we practiced the “Boundary” song, and this week, we read “Don’t Hug Doug”. During this time of year, there are lots of gatherings of family and friends and we are helping our students learn that it is okay to say “No, I don’t want a hug, but I’ll give a high five or a handshake, when I’m ready.” Our puppet friends, Impulsive Puppy and Baby Burpee, came down to circle and we watched as they learned to use a power stance, a firm strong voice, to say, “Stop That!” They didn’t giggle while they were saying it, or whisper, but used a loud strong voice to show that they mean business! 

We had a ball with some sensory exploration of shaving cream on a tray, exploring colors, scent, using our hands, using tools, and then adding corn starch for a different feel. 

Another great week in the Honeybee books! 

Have a great weekend, everyone!