Welcome to a new month!! The Honeybees will say Goodbye October when we take down our calendar on Monday. We have counted up each day this month, and they are all looking forward to being the calendar kid. We’ll be moving towards the full moon on October 9.
I set up a nectar feeding station for our monarch that emerged on Friday. Saleh noticed it first and was shouting “butterfly, butterfly” There’s a wonderful video of us seeing the butterfly for the first time on our instagram. I think it will be sunny and warm enough to release it in the afternoon tomorrow.
This week we are diving deeper into fall and learning more about pumpkins and apples culminating in our fall festival day at Joe’s trees on Friday. I wanted to let you know that I’m happy to take family pictures while we are there. Just ask. We’ll make art with apples this week, taste apples with honey, and make our own applesauce. We always love the crank apple peeler and chopping apples. We also measure our long apple peels, and sometimes they are taller than we are.
We’ll learn a song about the pumpkin life cycle this week and play with pumpkin patch sensory bins. We’ll still be watching our painted lady chrysalis and creating some process art giant WINGS.
I love that the Honeybees are getting to know each other better and starting to trust each other. We are making a little family and building relationships. Some of the Honeybees are forging friendships with Friendly Foxes and even Bluebirds, especially those with siblings in those classes.
Here are some of the skills we are working on during the day. We are all learning how to help clean up our classroom so that we can move on to the next activity. We are also learning how to stay in our seats while we have food in our mouths. It is just safer and a good routine. We are sitting together for a few minutes after we finish eating to encourage conversation, and we can start adding in an extra book during snack or lunch time. If a child says they don’t like something in their snack or lunchbox, we have them put it back in their lunch so that it travels home and you’ll know they didn’t eat it. Please send a spoon with your lunch and snack. I can try to send it home to be reused. I don’t want to provide plastic or have to leave the room to go to the cubbies to get silverware.
It’s getting chilly!!! Please send a jacket, mittens, and a hat. Simple rain pants might be a good idea to stash in your backpack. We have extra jackets, but kids often don’t want to borrow ours when they are cold. Also, please do mittens instead of gloves. Imagine that you had 10 three year olds and had to get 100 little fingers into gloves. Of course, we’ll have an extra mitten basket.
