Halloween Fun!

Busy, busy week in P4J!  We talked about Halloween, spiders, and things we are afraid of.  We had our classroom Halloween Party on Wednesday.  

 

We also began our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks this week.  We've been getting ready for writing by strengthening our hand muscles, and now most of us are ready to go!  We began this week by doing "aim and scribble" activities - just aim for the star, and scribble it in!  This sounds simple, but for young children with limited fine motor capabilities, it can be a huge confidence booster - "hey, I colored in the star!"

 

Whenever we work in our "green books", we encourage students to go slow and take their time to do their best work.  We encourage proper work  habits, such as sitting with our bottom in the chair, feet on the floor.  We use our "helping hand" to hold the page.  We've also been working on proper crayon/pencil grip.  We encourage students to use a "tripod" grip - thumb bent, pointer finger pointing toward the tip of the crayon, with the middle finger supporting the crayon on the bottom.  Also acceptable is the "modified tripod", where both the pointer and middle finger are on top of the crayon, while the ring finger supports the crayon on the bottom. Please encourage proper crayon/pencil grip at home when your child is coloring or writing!

 

We continued to work on our sorting skills this week by sorting different halloween trinkets.  We placed ghosts in one spot, goblins in another, and pumpkins in a third spot. 

We incorporated several 3-D art projects this week as well.  Students made a pumpkin out of clay (what great sculptors they are!) and then painted it after it was dry.  These are currently on display in our classroom.

 

 We also made some glitter pumpkins by painting glue on to a mini pumpkin and then covering it with glitter. Glitter is so much fun!

 

More math - students placed Halloween trinkets on a game board labeled with the numbers 1-6.  They then rolled a die and moved the trinket on the corresponding number up one space.  This is a very simple math game that improves a variety of math skills, such as counting with one-to-one correspondence, dot pattern recognition, number recognition, and it even develops beginning probability understanding!  The kids don't even realize they're learning - they just want to see which toy will win the race!

 Later in the week, we spent a bit of time learning about spiders and discussing things we are afraid of.  The students came up with quite a list!  Each child also drew a picture of something they are afraid of and were helped to write a sentence about what they drew.  These are hanging on the bulletin board in the classroom - take a look if you get a chance!  

We did marble painting to make a spider web.

 

Students also made some fun spider hats on Friday that they were pretty proud of.  

Of course, the highlight of the week was our classroom Halloween party!  We played some fun games, did some Halloween dancing, and a couple of simple craft activities.  

We used toilet paper to wrap each other up like mummies!  Some students were very excited to give it a try, others were happy to watch :)

 And what do you do with six rolls of unrolled toilet paper?  Throw it in the air and dance with it of course!

We also enjoyed all of the yummy treats provided for our party!  A huge THANK YOU to all of the families that signed up and brought items for our party - they were all wonderful!  If  you didn't get a chance to bring something this time, our Christmas Party will be here before we know it :)

A few important things coming up - please don't forget that our fundraiser packets are due on Monday with payment.  Thank you to all of the families that participated!

We are planning a Thanksgiving Feast for Tuesday, November 20 at 9:15 AM. Students may invite two adults to attend with them.  Please return the sheet that was sent home Friday with the names of the adult(s) that will attend with your child.  This is a really fun event for the children and we strive to have a special adult present for every child. 

Finally - save the date - our Christmas Program will be held Tuesday, December 11 at 6:30 PM.  We will begin practicing very soon and we hope everyone will be able to attend.  It is quite the production :)

I hope you have a good weekend and can't wait to see everyone on Monday!