Dear Families,

I apologize for the late blog post! We had some fun activities this week!

On Monday, we read our Big Pumpkin story, and planted pumpkin seeds, just like the witch in the story!  We started out by talking about the book, and exploring all of the items we were going to use in our science experiment, like "pumpkin", "dirt", and "seed".   The barnyard Buddies practiced visual tracking and bilateral coordination as we poured cups of dirt into our bowls.  Then we used our pincer fingers to hold on to a pumpkin seed and push it into the dirt.  We finished by using our hands to squeeze a water bottle.  Vraj wasn't here this day, but Josh and Ryan wanted to be good friends, so they planted an extra pumpkin seed for Vraj so that he could grow a pumpkin too!

On Tuesday, Josh was the only friend who came to school!  So we had a special day in the Busy Bee and Spunky Monkey classrooms!  

On Wednesday and Thursday, we had rainy days.  We decided to use our gait trainers in our indoor playground!  Well, although everyone was very happy about being in the middle of all the action in the "Big Room", we were a little lazy about walking!  It seemed we preferred when all the other kids would come up to us to play.  So Miss Shannon worked us very hard to get our legs moving!  I think, once we get used to all the action and friends, it will be a nice motivator to get those gait trainers moving!  

So far, we haven't had a chance to get our "library" day going on Thursdays.  I haven't forgotten!  But what I would like to do is send home manipulatives and ideas for you to use with the books in order to get the most out of reading time.  Please keep in mind it is not mandatory to read the books we send home on the weekends.  Weekends are often very busy times.  It's just an extra activity for you to do with your child, or for a sibling to do with them if you have some free time.

Everybody seemed a little tired on Friday, (maybe from all the rain) so we had a little lazy day on Friday.  We worked on using buttons and touch screens to play and access our storybooks.    

Don't forget, this Thursday is our Halloween parade!  I know on the note it says send your child to school in their costume, but I think it'd be easier to send your child in in their regular clothes and send the costume in their backpack or a bag.  Thank you, and have a great weekend!

-The Barnyard Buddies