I am terrible and did not get too many pics of the kids in their costumes. Primarily because many chose to take them off shortly after arrival! We had a pumpkin, bear, pig, Bluey, Bingo and Blippi! I will say, Blippi wore his  entire costume all day!   
The kiddos made a pumpkin using pasta.  

Today, we worked on the number 6, and they drew pumpkins on a vine in their journals. We painted pumpkins today! Each child chose a color to paint their pumpkin.

We celebrated three birthday girls in October!  Happy birthday Freddie, Malia and Asha!

This week we begin our new Unit, Transportation Station. Children begin to understand their world when they walk down a road or path. They may recognize an area by seeing a special tree, traffic signs, stores, parks or familiar homes. By exploring landmarks and finding them on a map, children increate that awareness of symbols. Visual-spacial skills help children process and understand where objects are in space in relation to their own body. To deepen spatial awareness as you explore roads, signs, maps, and bridges this week, we will use directional-vocabulary such as on top of, next to, around and under. 
A road or street is a path that people or vehicles follow. Roads are usually made of dirt, gravel, concrete or brick. We need to look both ways before we cross a street. Roads make it easier for us to travel from place to place. Some are curved, while others are straight for miles. During this Invitation to Create, the children made choices and decided what they wanted to tear, roll, cut and glue. They explored how to create roads using their own ideas and creativity. They used a foam brush to paint a path and added details to create a road. Through this process, the children learn that there are multiple ways to create art and that there are no right or wrong ways. 
We took a walk around the neighborhood to find street signs, addresses, mailboxes, cars.  Of course they were more interested in all the Halloween decorations! Which is completely fine, we still had conversations about everything we found.  When we came back we made a community map using a cardboard box and paint sticks. We used our names as street signs.  
​We used cars and paint to make tire tracks.

Squirrels are animals that can live in nests, hollowed-out-tree trunks or underground tunnels. Nuts are an important part of a squirrel's diet. They are omnivores and eat both plants and meat. We discussed what fruits squirrel's like to eat, which fruits grow on trees and that squirrels will eat just about any fruit they can find. They each had a squirrel maze and letter cube. They rolled their cube, and used the spoon (squirrel) to trace the path to matching letter. 
For fine motor skills they sorted upper and lower case letter I, used stickers to make letter Ii and used letter stamps. 

Raccoons are wild animals that can bite and carry diseases. These nocturnal animals sneak into the orchards at night and eat the fruit. They painted stripes on a raccoon tail and colored raccoon mask.
​We played sneaky raccoon, I hid the raccoon card under a number card.  They took turns rolling the number pocket cube, identified the number and looked under the card to see if the raccoon was hiding under the number they rolled. 
We also played "What's in Your Tree?" I placed game cards face-up, each child took turns so spin for a letter, then chose a card with the matching beginning sound to place on the tree. 
For fine motor practice, they used Q-tips to paint letter Ii and dot markers for eye hand coordination. They used scrap paper to make a red tree in their journals. 
I placed nature items on table for them to explore making a home for their raccoons.