The Elves are Watching!

A visit from St. Nicholas!

As we have begun our exciting unit on holidays around the world, the kids have been fascinated about the customs and traditions in Germany and Holland so far. For Germany, we made advent chains, learned about the glass pickle ornaments, Nutcrackers, and how we got the tradition of decorated trees and wreaths from Germany.

The children were very excited to put out their 'wooden shoes' on the eve of December 5th in hopes of St. Nicholas visiting and bringing goodies. They were thrilled Monday morning to find their shoes filled with special treats! We also got to see some real wooden shoes, which we find very uncomfortable!

The next few holidays we will be learning about are Santa Lucia Day, Hanukkah, and Los Posados.

Thanksgiving Feast

We had a wonderful time at our annual Thanksgiving Feast! The food was great and we enjoyed the good company. I have not heard anything yet about the slideshow but will try to let you know when it becomes available onour website.
Thank you to all those who helped make the day possible...parents, cafeteria staff, janitorial staff, friends, volunteers and administration!

Fall Parade

It was a great day for our parade and snack today. The kids really enjoyed our morning of fun and festive songs and stories and are so eager for tomorrow to come! Even though the track was in use, we really enjoyed parading through the building and then doing the short loop around the bus circle. The weather was cooperative (even though the 'big bad wolf was blowing around the three little pigs!) and I hope it stays that way for tomorrow. It seemed like the adults and visitors all had a good viewing spots along the circle and it made for a bit more time for us to enjoy our snacks in the classroom afterwards! Thanks to everyone who was able to join us and help out. The kids were great during our snack and a fun time was had by all!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween! Don't forget to turn your clocks back tomorrow night!

Fall Parade

Fall Parade Update: Our Fall Parade location has been changed due to the track sectionals being held at the football field/track. We will now be parading around the bus circle and parents/guests can watch from either the sidewalk area or the grass on the inside of the circle. See you at

Encore Classes - Week of October 19th

Monday - B Day - Art
Field Trip to Grisamore Farms!
Don't forget old shoes/boots - lunch - hat and mittens/glove and a warm coat!

Tuesday - C Day - PE and Music

Wednesday - D Day - PE and Library

Thursday - E Day - PE and Music

Friday - A Day - PE and Library
Book Day - Books are due!

Lansing Firefighters Come to School!

Last Friday we had a wonderful visit from some of our local firefighters! The rain held off and they did a great job explaining to the kids what they do, showing us their equipment and gear, and teaching the children what to do in an emergency situation. They set up a fun obstacle course where the children had to stay low and go to follow the hose and then they got to climb up the ladder. The highlight was definitely trying on the firefighter's coat which was definitely much heavier than expected! We then got a chance to take a look at the fire engine and all the equipment the truck carries. We got to go inside both the engine and the rescue truck and we even got to try to pick up the 'jaws of life.' It takes two adults to pick it up... amazing how heavy it was! We had a great time but most importantly we learned that the firefighters are our 'friends' and hopefully their fears will be a bit diminished if they ever come face to face with them in a true emergency.

Schedule for Week of October 12th

Monday October 12th- No School - Columbus Day

Tuesday October 13th- Lansing Library Visit
C Day- PE and Music

Wednesday October 14th- D Day - PE and Library

Thursday October 15th - E Day - PE and Music

Friday October 16th - A Day - PE and Library - Books Due

Today the kindergarten classes participated in Jumpstart's Read for the Record. Please click on the picture above to find out more. Our goal was to be a part of the largest shared experience ever by reading Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We gathered together in the hall and the children were great listeners! They enjoyed it so much they asked for it to be read again! We will keep you posted to see if we helped break last year's record of 688,000 people reading together.

It's Fire Prevention Week!

Have fun practicing some fire safety with Elmo!

The Lansing Firefighters will be coming to visit us tomorrow!

We had a lot of fun practicing how to dial 911 with some demo cell phones! See if your child can remember what to do and what to say.

It's B Week!

We have been introduced to Mr. Beautiful Buttons, learned our blue color word song, and are coming up with lots of Bb words! I borrowed this link from Ms. Martindale because we enjoyed it so much and the kids enjoyed exploring the Bb playlist at the bottom. They love the bubble song! Click on the big B or any b within this post to watch, learn, and play! Have fun!

Picture Day

Wednesday, October 7th is picture day! Check out the website for more information. We will be having our pictures taken first thing in the morning- not too much time to get dirty!

Two More Buttterflies ...... More Girls!

This little girl decided to come out before the kids got to school on Monday. It was a nice surprise for them!

We had been watching the darkening chrysalis all day Tuesday and all morning on Wednesday. Wouldn't you know it.... she waited to come out between the time I walked the kids to lunch and came back to the room- no more than 5 minutes! Notice how crumpled she still is- we watched her pump her wings and could see her wings get bigger and her abdomen get smaller. We have another chrysalis starting to darken.... tomorrow maybe?

It was an exciting day in kindergarten today (Tuesday the 29th)! Mr. Jack Little came and talked to us about the Monarch butterflies (He is the man who donated the caterpillars to us). He showed us how he tags the Monarchs and releases them. He raises them in his greenhouse. He tagged some of the butterflies from the kindergarten classes and answered some of our questions. We used the Elmo and we could see him put on the little tags...that looked like little stickers, on the wings of the butterflies. He kept track of the numbers on the tags, if it was a boy or a girl and also our release location. Locals in Mexico collect the tags and are paid 5 pecos per tag. We can't wait to see if any of our butterflies make it to Mexico!Keep your fingers crossed! Thank you Mr. Little!

A Baby Girl Butterfly!

This is what our chrysalis looked like during open house! We were so hoping it would come out then but it must have been a little shy so......

..... it decided to come out during the night!

We were so exited when we came in the next morning to discover it was a girl too! We can tell it is a girl because she doesn't have spots on her wings. She drank some apple cider from my finger and we all enjoyed watching her getting stronger throughout the day. It was a lovely afternoon so we decided to let her go so she could start her long journey to Mexico. Hopefully she'll make it! We still have 7 more chrysalises to go so maybe we will get to see one of them!

Monday, September 21, 2009 Pinwheels for Peace Project

We started our day today by placing our pinwheels in the lawn right in front of the school for the "Pinwheels for Peace Project." This was an art project that began in 2005 by 2 Art teachers in Florida and has quickly spread worldwide. September 21st is the International Day of Peace and the kids were excited to all the pinwheels the school had made. They were even more excited when ours actually started to spin! :) They all looked great! You can learn more about the project at http://pinwheelsforpeace.com

Monarch Caterpillars

We came in this morning very excited to find another one of our caterpillars in a 'J' and five of the other six caterpillars circling around the top looking for the perfect spot. We were really hoping to be able to watch it change into its chrysalis and kept a close eye on it throughout the day but it didn't happen. By the end of the day, two of the caterpillars were in their 'J' form and all the others were in what looked like their perfect spots, because they hadn't moved in a couple of hours. Guess they decided to wait until everyone left for the day because just as my daughter Kaitlyn and I were about to leave, one of them decided to transform into its chrysalis. It was truly an amazing sight and I immediately grabbed my camera. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture without the reflection of the net. Luckily Ms. Martindale and Mrs. Engels were still there and helped me open the net to get a few pictures. It was so cool! I guarantee by Monday morning we will have 8 beautiful green and gold chrysalises! Let's hope for a good outcome for them all!