How Many Legs Does a Spider Have?

8!  That's right Jane!  

This week we did lots of activities involving spiders . . .

We drew them . . .

And we made them out of puff balls and pipe cleaners.  We found out that spiders have more than two eyes!

It took some coordination and patience to glue our legs onto the spiders.  Below, Jane helps Summer.

 

Above, we made spiders out of peanut butter playdough and counted out 8 pretzel sticks for the legs.

We made a giant spider web, too, and practiced "capturing" bugs to eat!

We colored a new batch of play dough orange and decided to make our own 5 Little Pumpkins to take home!

The kids had a nice time all together while Bridget made us all "dinner".

On our weekly walk we noticed more and more yellow leaves and the leaves completely off of one of our favorite trees, above right.

Everyone found a very BIG leaf on the ground to bring back and noticed our long shadows on the sidewalk . . .

 

On an especially windy day we played a game with a pingpong in the hallway.

We decided to make long snakes with another batch of playdough.

On Friday we had some fun with our vehicles.  Nabil made a train and Noe and Bridget like to spontaneously line up and order the cars!

Then we had an "orange snack" of cheese toast and orange juice!

And, the pumpkins were still having fun, riding around in our toy jeep!

Five Little Pumpkins, Sitting on a Gate . . . 

We learned this seasonal rhyme together (copied for you at the end of this post) and further ingrained it in our minds as we created gates out of blocks and "mini-pumpkins."

Below, Jane recites the rhyme to her friends using our sequencing cards.

This story was good for counting (below) and sequencing (above).

A wide variety of "gates"were constructed during the week!

Noe are you tired of me taking your picture?  Great gate!!

Bridget made 5 sets of 5 pumpkins sitting on gates!

Orange was a popular color to mix this week.  Below, Colin has fun using his hands!

After reading the story, Two Little Witches, we began drawing our own monster.

Later in the week we added to it by gluing on hair, eyeballs, etc.  We named him Avery and wave good bye to him when we go outside to play.  Look how great the kids are working together here, by the way...

Watercoloring has become a passion in the classroom!  We began at the easel, with me letting the kids freely explore the medium on plain manilla paper.  Great lines, Anders and good Halloween colors, Jane!

As this week progressed, I brought out real watercolor paper and gave a little instruction on how to use the watercolors . . . 

The kids endeavored this activity with zeal, focus and longevity!

Just look at the amount of beautiful art they produced!  We need to have an art show!

After we talk about our day before it is time to go home we usually do one more thing together.  Below, this day we experimented with a white (red) board and markers - the ease with which the markers glide is very attractive to the children.

I am observing wonderful growth in the children's abilities to play together and communicate productively and conversationally!  Really great for the age of 3ish!

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh my it's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "I don't care!"

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"

The fifth one said, "It's Halloween fun!"

Aaaand..Crash went the thunder and OUT went the lights and the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

Potions, Pumpkins and Leaves

We began our week with a Halloween-inspired (also science-inspired, by the way!) activity of making "potions"!

We began with very specific instructions to take just one spoonful of each ingredient and mix it with another spoonful to see what happens.  The children also needed to ask each other to pass the "ingredients" to each other.

Pretty soon, we needed to see what happened when we combined out potions . . . 

This was pretty fun - the kids exclaimed things like, "Look what's happening now!" and "It's turning a different color!"  What natural scientists they are!

One group ended up making "pancakes" out of their potion!

We read the fun Mem Fox story, Hattie and the Fox and playacted it throughout the week with plastic farm animals . . .

The fox hides behind a big bush and Hattie first sees his nose, then his two eyes, two ears,  etc.

There was something gooey in the kettle at the round table one day . . .

What is that?!

Awwww . .  it's  Green GAK!

Jane enjoyed reading books to the plastic animals.

We played house under the table again . . .

Bridget was "sick" so Jane took good care of her!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Noe!

We have been taking walks to observe the fall colors and bring back treasures for our treasure boxes!

Jane brought some Halloween-themed books and "read" them to her friends . . .

We played Find-the-Pumpkin.

 and read books together.

We are learning how to use water colors.

We also did a lot of sorting this week!