They cut strips of orange paper and glued on pumpkin template.   The older kids cut out pumpkins for their names.  
We practiced a spider directed drawing!  Monday will do final. I used butcher paper and drew colored ghosts, they sorted random letters and objects by color.  Great activity to get kiddos moving!  

We teach children daily about being kind.  We read and talk about being Bucket Filler’s daily. I can attest the children in our care are learning from some of the best, very thoughtful parents and grandparents how to be kind.  I don’t have the words to express how much we appreciate the acts of kindness that have come from parents and grandparents over the last few weeks.  A few weeks ago a grandparent picked up their grandchild from school, she brought a bouquet of flowers and said, "I just want to thank you for taking such great care of my grandchild!"  This made my day!  The flowers were gorgeous and put a smile on my face.  
A parent gave us hand made Halloween cards with a Starbucks gift card, thanking us for taking care of their child.  
This week a parent dropped off a care package and hot dinner because she knew I was not feeling well.  A well thought out act of kindness which truly made my day.  Her timing could not have been better for our family.  
Thank you for the effort you all put into bringing flowers, care packages and a hot meal.   I know you’re busy, and it means a lot that you took the time out of your busy day to do this for our family.  Random acts of kindness can truly turn someone’s day around!  THANK YOU!

Today we completed our final pumpkin directed drawing!  The kiddos did such a great job.  We also drew a pumpkin patch in our fine motor journals.
For name craft they counted out the number of letters in their name, the older kids cut out their pumpkins.  They are all doing such a great job using scissors and it is still early in the year! 

I created a pumpkin patch and the students were encouraged to find the letters of their name to fill their wheel barrow.  This activity got the kids up and moving! 
They used mini pumpkins to find and cover letters. They also traced lines in the pumpkin patch. 
We did a practice directed drawing of a pumpkin today and they turned out great!  We will do another tomorrow!
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Mud is a mixture of liquid and earth matter.  It feels wet, slimy and soft to the touch.  Today we made mud pies and let the pigs play in the mud (play dough)!   They squieshed and squeezed play dough, pressed the pigs and veggies in the mud and then made mud pies!  
We talked about what pigs like to do in the mud.  We read "Stuck in the Mud", by Jane Clarke.  We discussed when we get hot, we sweat, but pigs don't sweat and must roll bin the mud to cool off.  
They traced their name with mud (brown paint).  I wrote the number 3, they were encouraged to trace the 3 with paint and create three mud piles.  
We played a game, Muddy Phonics, each child took turns placing pig game pieces on the mud puddles with the same beginning sound and matching upper case and lower case letters.  
We celebrated one of our friends birthday this week!  Happy 3rd birthday! 

On a farm, there are many things that can create tracks like a horse or a tractor.  Tractor tires are unique because they are able to move through mud and dirt without getting stuck.  Tractors are vehicles that help do work on the farm.  They are driven by one person.  They help farmers plow, till and plant their fields.  During this Invitation to Create, children became creative engineers by assembling their own tire treads.  

We played Tractor Math, roll the dice and put that many animals in the tractor.  

Worked on letter Ii, we used plaid and candles to make lines.  The plaid was used to show them the straight lines going down and across, the candles have the dot (wick) on on top with a long line!  We sorted letters L, I and E.  
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As a group they took turns matching puzzle pieces with letters and sounds.  

Silos are narrow structures, similar to a tower but with dome-like caps.  They are used to hold grains and to keep them from spoiling. We made a silo shaker today!  They used corn to scoop into their silos.  They were encouraged to decorate the outside of the silo and we used a soufflé cup for the top.  They played in the farm sensory bin and I added random letters for literacy!  
This month we are working on numbers 3 and 4, the older kids are starting to create number lines with numbers.  

A barn is a building that can be found on a farm, that offer shelter for cows, pigs, sheep and horses.  Barns are mostly used for housing animals and storing farm tools and food.  Barns are traditionally painted red.  Today they created a barn matching game and built barns with sticks.
For fine motor practice, they cut squares, used dot markers and used confetti to create letter L.

Cows are mostly raised for their meat, milk and coats.  They are herbivores that eat grass, corn and plants. They have four stomachs to help digest all the food.  Cows are social animals and gather together in herds.  We discussed what cows need to survive, such as food, shelter, water and exercise. We painted a cow using a pom pom and clothes pin.  When they were done painting they clipped on the legs (clothes pins).  Each student picked the color of cow they painted.  
We read the book Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin.  The students were encouraged to paste letters on paper to pretend they were typing.  Some chose to spell words, asking how to spell and finding the letters.  
For fine motor we used Q-tips to paint and used stickers to make a square.
 As a group, they sorted fruit and vegetables by color!

Horses have been around for a very long time.  They are mainly used for transportation.   Horses graze and love to eat foods such as grass, hay, apples and carrots.  There are over 300 different breeds of horses.  Horses are unique in color, size and in their types.  Horses with multicolored patches and coloring, for example, are called pintos.  We discussed the colors and shapes they noticed on the Inspiration photo.  During this Invitation to Create, students explored their creative spatial skills by rotating and turning shapes.  They experimented  with different placements of the shapes to create their own horse image.  As part of this process, children discovered that there is not a right or wrong way to create their art. Process-based art helps children gain confidence in their own decision making.  
For fine motor practice they cut paper (confetti) and glued to paper.  We worked on letter Ll puzzles.  
The older kids picked a card, and they were encouraged to draw the same image in their fine motor journals.  The shape this month is square, color is blue and working on numbers 3 and 4.  They used blue squares to build their names.