Inside the classroom, the children enjoyed building and interacting with the shadow screen.   They created spooky scenarios that involved  bats and dangerous dragons.   Halloween messages and books, easel paintings, and puzzles filled out our day!

Pod B also had a fun and exciting Pajama Day!  The scale for the store broke today.  In an effort to fix it, the children found tools to take it apart.  There was so many examples of collaboration and problem solving as they tackled this! Here's some of the conversation as they worked :
   Fletcher - Did you know my daddy and my papa are good fixers?  They can fix anything that's broken.
    Oliver - I'm very good at fixing things with this screwdriver. 
    Fletcher - The spring!  It's loose!
    Grace - Maybe I could tug this down and put it in that way.
    Fletcher - Yay!  That's a good idea Grace!
   Grace - Is it supposed to go in there?  Could we borrow this (a piece of thread), boys?  I have a good idea.  Thread.  If we could hold it in place, we could fix it.
     Fletcher - We could put thread on this spring and tow it down.
    Grace - Pull this spring until I get down there.  Sorry, you need to pull it with 2 hands.  Fletcher, will hold this up?  It would be very helpful  for me.
     Fletcher - This might be the trick.
     Grace - I need light up there.  Let's do more surgery!  I think I see what's causing it.
     Fletcher - Maybe we could make an elevator down.... to there.
     Grace -We're gonna fix it no matter how hard.  Our plan is to get the whole jumble out of here, so we can fix it.
    
    

Here's what Cannon said while he was working on his pumpkin drawing:

At snacktime, teachers asked the children if they would be interested in making a "spooky movie" using stop-motion animation.  They were very excited, and came up with lots of spooky ideas right away!
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Fletcher: We could make a big monster that goes all the way up to space!
Grace:  Halloween ghosts.  What about a vampire?
Fletcher:  Then the vampire turns into a bat and then a human.
Oliver:  When a vampire flies, it turns into a bat.  When it lands, it turns back into a vampire.
Melanie:  If we had ghosts in the movie, what if they went on an adventure? Where would they go?
Aida:  They would go to Pluto.
Andy:  We'll put a ghost in the movie, then the ghost will turn dead and then into a bat.

Although we didn't have time to start 'shooting' the movie, we made two little ghosts out of yarn and prepared the background/setting (outer space) by finding a planet painting in Aida's portfolio.  We assembled some pretend 'candy' because we had the idea that in our movie, the ghosts might be traveling to Pluto to find the yummiest Halloween candy.  

Today Jen brought in her mom's anatomy book.  She shared it at meeting and children were fascinated with the drawings.  Children worked in two small groups with Brooke and Jen to further research the connections between leaves and the human body.  Children made observations and worked carefully on drawings. They were thrilled to have "Pam"  (a human body figure that the children worked with last year) back to support their work! Their big ideas included protection, blood circulation, and transformation.  Some of their ideas will inform future classroom experiences.

Recently, coins had been added to the cash register in the Tucker B Store.   Today children looked at coins from the United States, Canada, the Bahamas.  Children noticed that the coins depicted people and animals and were copper, silver, and gold.  Children then used drawing and watercolors to create their own coins.  A little bit of their conversation:
   Olivia - I'm gonna paint Gio (on her coin).
   Aida - What if we had a huge coin, as big as the sun?  (A little later) I made a Hop Hop coin.  I did my dad's coin.  And my mom's coin.  
    Children's work also featured a teddy bear coin, a 917 coin, and a coin with Abraham Lincoln and Grace!

Today was like Tuesday in reverse.  The children who preciously went on a leaf walk stayed in the classroom to make clay coil leaves.  While everyone's approach was a little different, children carefully measured which vein coils would fit in which spaces.

Last week, we learned paper sculpture techniques with larger paper strips... This week we applied that learning to create mini paper sculptures that will hang below our school photos in the hall.

Even though it was an overcast day, we enjoyed our time outside as always.  We jumped through hula hoops and worked on construction in the sandbox.  

Leaves where everywhere in our environment today.  Some children who didn't walk in the neighborhood worked on challenging clay coil leaves.  Each child took a slightly different approach and made different connections to our big ideas as they formed leaves.