What a fun week we had at The Garden! We had extra days with our beloved substitute teachers staff, Matt, Cari, Fio and mom Honeybee mom Jazz helping us out throughout the week and we introduced a brand new Special Day to our Garden calendar! Every special day that we now have and cherish as a memory making event started as a new celebration for our students. On Tuesday, we had our first “Stuffy Spend the Night with Belleamie” in our Ladybug class. How wonderful it was to greet our little Bugs in their pajamas on Tuesday, as they each brought a stuffy that would spend the night with Belleamie! They had a fun with Belleamie in the classroom, the Bugs tucked their stuffies in and kissed them goodnight, and were greeted on Thursday with a book full of memories of all the sweet activities that happened with the stuffies on their spend the night. We just know that this will be another classic Garden special day.

Brook and Emily left Wednesday morning to attend an NAEYC conference in Los Angeles. NAEYC stands for National Association of the Education of Young Children, and Brook and Emily were really excited about reserving their spaces at several seminars offered throughout their time there They will return tomorrow, Saturday, and we are excited for them to share all that they learned.

Our Halloween décor has come down and we are now celebrating the season of gratitude and thankfulness. We will be asking the students throughout the month about what they are grateful for, or what do they absolutely love to have in their lives. It’s a wonderful conversation for you to continue at home.

Read on for class news:

Ladybugs
On Tuesday, the Ladybugs had a fun Pajama Day at school! The children arrived in their jammies, and brought a stuffy that was going to have a Spend the Night with Belleamie! We interviewed the Bugs about their bedtime routines, danced with our stuffies at circle, woke up our stuffies bodies, read bedtime stories and sang lullabies to our stuffies and then tucked them in and said goodnight to them as we said goodbye and left them for their fun Spend the Night.

We celebrated Isla’s 3rd trip around the sun on Tuesday and enjoyed a fun birthday circle with she and Parsley Flakes. The Ladybugs are really doing so well, learning to find each other’s eyes and ask for a turn, invite someone to play, and to say please and thank you. We are impressed with these kiddos.

On Thursday, our Bugs were very excited to be reunited with their stuffies. They were greeted with a special memory book of their time with Belleamie, and a sweet handsewn lavender pillow with a bedtime message from our beloved mouse.

Crickets
Oh! How our Crickets love having Matt, Cari and Fio in our class! They love to chase Matt on the playground, snuggle up with Cari in the classroom and listen to Fio read stories!

Our focus in the Cricket class has changed from Halloween to Fall and Thanksgiving. We read a wonderful story called “The Thankful Book” by Todd Parr, and practiced a ‘Gratitude Circle’ where we go around the circle saying “I am thankful for _____ because______.” We then turn to our neighbor and say, “What are you thankful for?” This is a wonderful practice to continue at home around the dinner table.

We had a wonderful sound basket about the letter I from Koa, and we worked on our November calendars and our ‘First Week of November’ portfolio page. We finished a beautiful Autumnal Art Piece for the Spring Art Show, and had fun making “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” peek-a-boo books. Everyone had the opportunity to read their Spooky Stamper Books at circle time and should have brought those home to read to you!

Have a great weekend! No school on Monday for Veteran’s Day.

Honeybees
We had a great week in the Honeybee class, learning another couple of sight words, Or, and For, and are starting to write our Thanksgiving sentences, “I am grateful for……”. We have begun having Gratitude circles at school, where we each say, “I am grateful for_____, because_______” and then turn to our neighbor to say, “What are you grateful for?” This is something that we will do at least 2 or 3 times each week at circle time, and we encourage you to continue this practice at home.

We did our November calendars, we all got a star for our November poem, and we completed our “First week of November” portfolio pages. Now that we are waking up our skeletons, using bone names rather than body parts, we are learning the names of the bones in our body. The Honeybees did a skeleton puzzle and labelled a human skeleton with the bone names. We learned some fun body movements to act out the new “Squirrel” poem, and started working with simple ABAB patterns to frame the poem.

Rylie brought in a wonderful “R” sound basket, and we then went around the circle and thought of 10-15 more things that start with the letter “R”! Emily finished a beautiful salmon inspired art piece for the Spring Art Show. We can’t wait for you to see it.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend. No school on Monday for Veteran’s Day.