Scarecrows in the Park

 We've been working hard on our scarecrows for the Guilford Recreation Scarecrows in the Park event. Our pre-k scarecrows will be put up at the Guilford Playscape on Friday afternoon. We hope that you can go check out all the amazing creations down there sometime before Halloween, and vote for your favorite!

November 6th and 9th are district early release days for family conferences. Pre-k will still have a FULL day on Friday the 6th. More details to come about pick up times and details for the 9th. In the meantime, you can sign up for a conference here. 

This past week we've read some books featuring a wide range of families. Our new "story walk" kicked off with And Tango Makes Three, the non-fiction story about two male penguins at the Central Park Zoo who hatched an egg and raised a chick. We read Families, Families, Families, and will finish our week on Thursday and Friday with Julian is a Mermaid and Julian at the Wedding. Children love to talk about their families, and love having conversations about the similarities and differences amongst families. We would LOVE to feature pictures of children with their families on a bulletin board in our classroom. Please email or Remind me a picture or two of your family (include whoever you like!) and I'll print them out. Thank you!

Halloween is just around the corner. We've had a generous parent donate some treats that will be sent home next Friday with your child. We'll plan on making some fun COVID friendly costumes next week, so no need to dress your child up on Friday. There are many fun events happening in town on Saturday. Check out the newsletter from the Guilford Free Library attached in this Wednesday's Remind message for all the details. 

Enjoy some pictures from the week!

Last Thursday and Friday kids worked with a buddy to sort some leaves, then create some beautiful mobiles to decorate the woods. 

These buddies worked together to create fun textures on a giant piece of paper. 

The papers were used to create our "Kindness Garden" - ask your child about it!

A rainy Friday romp on the wood chip pile.

Some creative movement

These two spent a very long time using their sticks to chip away at this rotting log. Another student then used the wood chips to make soup!

Some more leaf sorting

Kristine worked with some kids to make a giant leaf pile.

Jumping in the pile is the grand finale of our obstacle course!

We encountered some dried milkweed during our expedition on Tuesday - so amazing to watch the seeds float away!

Working on the scarecrows has been a lot of fun. There are MANY creative ideas about how to decorate them. 

These kiddos worked on painting the big scarecrow...

...and this team worked on the head. They took turns drilling holes for twigs and milkweed pods - such crazy hair!

During one of our small groups this week we started to play with letters. 

Children used wooden pieces to play around making different shapes and possibly even letters. We'll slowly continue to introduce the concept of letters and letter formation over the course of the school year. 

In pre-k we introduce letters by first paying attention to letters we see a lot, like the letters in our names. Here students glue painted sticks on top of their names - we'll hang these up in the rain house and they'll no doubt trigger many interesting conversations. 

The leftover hay from the scarecrows was a desirable resource! These kiddos lined their "lion's nest", taking many trips across the woods with the wheel barrow. 

We love ending the morning with some time at sit spots. 

Deep peaceful breaths.