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Fall is nearly here folks, can you feel it?? Here's our week in review. 

Classroom Happenings
Infant I: This week offered us some pretty amazing fall-like weather, with the added bonus of sunshine to enjoy. We've been taking full advantage of these days by getting the whole class outside as much as possible. This has been a week of witnessing many "firsts" from first time roll-overs, to crawling, and trying solid foods for the first time. All of these moments we are celebrating and noting, but we are truly allowing the children to navigate their new abilities at their own pace, and with the intentional creation of opportunities for them to discover autonomy and independence. 

Infant II: A book we have been really engaged with this week is called Blue Coat, Green Coat. The children laugh and laugh over the main character, a turkey who puts his clothes on the wrong way. When we're not laughing at the turkey, we're talking about each article of clothing and how it actually should go on our body. Thanks turkey. And speaking of clothing, the weather is certainly beginning to shift, so please do send along appropriate clothing and extras of sweaters, coats, socks and the like. We have been working hard at using gentle hands and giving one another space during play. We have been practicing using gentle hands with our puppets, another area of interest this week. We had a middle school volunteer come visit on Wednesday, the children enjoyed singing songs with her and tossing the balls back and forth. 

The younger children also took advantage of the sun by doing a large painting project one afternoon this week. As you can see they painted pallets, cardboard pieces, and well, themselves. Here are the results:










Toddler Room: It's been a busy, active week in the classroom. We're hearing an increase in communication among the children, stringing together multiple words at a time into short simple sentences. We're fostering this growth by helping facilitate conversations between the children. Examples of this include asking questions, waiting for responses and encouraging the children to ask one another questions. We continue to work on sharing play spaces with one another, and we are using our new found communication to make this happen. An exciting part of our outside play this week has been the addition of a new climbing structure. The children were thrilled to both see it and try it out, they are realizing it takes both strength and balance to use the climber.  

Preschool I: As we wrap up our second week of study on chipmunks and crows, we have been exploring these animals in new ways. As you know, we have been counting them and recording our results. This week we looked at a simple bar graph which showed our tallies from last week. We talked about graphs as tools to help us understand numbers better. We also used rulers to make straight lines and craft "graphs" of our own. These will be posted in the classroom next week. Indoors, we have the addition of sand in our sensory table, which has allowed us to dig chipmunk burrows, complete with acorns for the winter. At nap time, many children are being asked to be tucked into their burrows to sleep. Even using play dough seemed chipmunk-centric as the children made footprints in the dough.

On Thursday we looked at the calendar together and noted the official start of fall is just one week away. We are starting to talk more about the change in seasons and this will be reflected in our art and curriculum choices next week. We continue to work on kindness throughout the day in both interactions with each other and in how we treat the classroom environment and our materials. We also want to give a shout out to Melissa, who this month marks three years of teaching here at MVS. Congrats!

Preschool 2: A mammoth task this week was cleaning and caring for our fish tank. Bubbles deserves only the very best, and our class was determined to give it to her. At the start of the week, Bubbles left her building and rested in a new tank while we cleaned the walls, rocks and all of her accouterments. She is now sitting pretty. In circle, we are in the process of spelling each other's names in addition to just our own. Goldilocks and the Three Bears has been a favorite and often requested book. We are preparing for fall by taking out our fall shapes and using them in our play dough. We are also working on rolling out the dough in a careful way so the cookie cutters work more effectively. As the weather turns, we are back to working on zippers and putting on other clothing items. Please allow your child the time and space to practice these skill independently. 

Pre-K: This week it has been all about firefighters. There has been lots of dramatic play with our dress-up clothes, and practicing fire safety things like stop drop and roll, and crawling low under smoke. We are going to keep this up through at least next week or maybe longer since our interest level seems high. We are also exploring with magnets, estimation, and loving our new train table. We continue to get out and about in both the woods and the community. 


Also Seen at MVS




This was a large building project of a garage that took place on Tuesday morning.

OG is adding the flag pole for the front of the shop. 
OG was able to get the flag pole to stand up, HS and GM work on "lanes" for each section of the garage.
"I made pancakes for the workers."
"Pancakes!"

Inspection #10


Thanks for Reading
-Sam


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