I can't belive it is Friday already and Halloween is around the corner. Let's hope that Frankenstorm doesn't hit us too bad and that everyone has power. The last thing we all want or need is a replay of last Halloween. Speaking of Halloween, our party is still scheduled for Wednesday, as long as all is well and we have power. The a.m. class will be celebrating with light snacks and pumpkin decorating, at 10:00. You are free to take your child home with you after the festivities. Our morning class is also welcomed to join us for the school parade at 1:45. Please have your child in our classroom, for line up by 1:40. After the parade, we will bring your child back out to you, in the front lobby. For our p.m session, after the scheduled 1:45 parade, we will regroup in our classroom for light snacks and pumpkin decorating. For those of you that are bringing in snacks, please be sure to follow the school guidelines of nut free snacks and no candy. Also, Tuesday will be picture retakes. If you would like your child's photo retaken, please return the ones you don't want.

We had a wonderful Red Ribbon Week and our preschoolers enjoyed being part of the school wide activities. We met real heros, from our community, on Wednesdays. the kids even got to check out a tank and ambulance. Today, we were joined by some of our 8th graders to work on our Red Ribbon activity. Of course, the 8th graders loved being in our classroom. Why wouldn't they? We do have a lot of fun. We graphed with ghost marshmallows, we made handprint bats, tissue paper pumpkins, Halloween wood masks and dressed our paper bears as pumpkins, all in one week! It was another wonderful week. Be safe and let's hope Sandy plays nice!

Mrs. Gilberti

Aren't the colors around us so beautiful? This week, the kids and I enjoyed looking at the leaves, comparing sizes and colors. We went on a leaf hunt and made beautiful collages with the leaves and hung them in our room. What was most interesting was learning that different tress have different leaves. The kids filled my room with maples leaves that they picked up before coming to school but as their teacher, I was so proud when they identified what type of leaf it was. We learned about the letter P, practicing the sound and how to properly write the letter P. The children loved coming up with words that start with the letter P. We enjoyed painting brown paper bags orange and turning them into jack-o-lanterns using shapes. It was great to use the jack-o-laterns to indentify emotions by looking at their faces. Practicing patterning with pumpkins was fun too. In our art center we enjoyed leaf rubbing. The computer center was very popular this week. The children really are doing a great job moving the mouse around on their own. Please remember that next week is red ribbon week. Monday will will kcik off Red RIbbon Week by wearing red. On Tuesday, we will all be wearing camouflage in the fight against drugs. Also, picture retakes will be Tuesday. If you would like your child's picture retaken, please return the unwanted photos. Next week, I will send home information about our Halloween party. Thank you to those who volunteered as classroom Mom. Have a great weekend. Mrs. Gilberti

I'm sorry that this blog entry is coming to you a little late. I was having trouble getting in to blog but luckily was able to get it fixed. Last week was an awsome week. It was fire prevention week. We learned so much about our heros. We learned about the letters F/L. We had fun creating our letters in different ways. We finger painted them, we snipped and glued paper to form our letters and even used confetti leaves to create the letter L. We learned about sharing and being a kind friend while reading, The Rainbow Fish. Wait a second! Fish! That word starts with an F. The kids had so much fun idenitfying words that start with the letters F/L. Thank you to all that sent back the conference forms. This week, in your child's folder, you will find information about Pumpkins for your Pumpkin. The kids just love the surprise and they are only $1 each! Mrs. Gilberti

We had a very busy week being creative and learning about our letter B! We started our week off by introducing the letter and the sound it makes. I'm sure you all have heard that every letter makes a sound! We searched around our room looking for items that start with the B sound. We read, "Who's There Fuzzy Bear?" Wait a second, bear????!!!! There is that B sound again! We liked the book so much that we made our own Fuzzy Bears using blue, brown and black pom poms! We also had fun reading about The Little Boy Blue. The best part was using our shapes to create our own Little Boy Blue. Attached to our craft, we have our little story which everyone had fun reading while filling in the blanks, by looking at the pictures. Try this with your child at home. It's great to see them engaged in reading. Books and bears were all around us this week. Everyone loved "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" We all loved it so much that we made our own books! As a teacher, it's the most awsome feeling to see them resite and recall the story, all by themselves, using the pictures as prompts. Speaking of pictures, we worked on position words this week too, using our own pictures! I have the color copy in our room to work with but have placed a black and white copy for all of you to enjoy and practice using the words with your children. As usual, there was so much more explored and a lot of fun was had by us all! Mrs. Gilberti