Each year around this time  Mrs. L never fails to excite the children with a special visit from her friend, “Witchypoo”.   With just a simple black hat she turns the library into a magical area where her fiction books come alive.

The children have a chance to mix a special potion of eyes, lizards, spiders, worms and other wiggly items into a unique soup.  While watching it foam red colors, it’s no wonder no one wants to try it except for “Witchypoo.” What a fun memory for all the children to share while wondering,  “Where is Mrs. L…..???”

We had a great party with lots of goodies to share.  We marched in a parade around the classes and enjoyed dressing up as our favorite characters.  We made big monster face pizzas which was lots of fun.  We used all kinds of great vegetables and colored cheeses.  Halloween is a fun time of year when everyone looks funny and sometimes scary. Thank you to all the moms and Amanda’s idea  which helped  make our party lots of fun.

Lillian brought her mom into class last week to make the most delicious pink cupcakes. After reading “Pinkalicious”,  the class was a little worried that we might all turn pink after eating them, but luckily we stayed our beautiful colors. We stirred, baked and decorated our own individual cakes, leaving the best part for the end when we ate them.  A big thank you to Lillian’s mom for a very special treat.

We finally had a nice day to walk to the firehouse.  We met  three firemen who reviewed all of our fire facts.  We “Stopped, Dropped and Rolled” and sat in the firetruck. The firemen dressed in his real equipment and had us touch his coat and boots so we would not be afraid. We went to the playground and made firetrucks out of cookies. Our first field experience was great.

Building off the excitement from the recent visit to the firehouse, students enjoyed learning how to say, fire (el fuego), fireman (el bombero) and fire truck (el camión de bomberos) in Spanish. They also tried their best to complete a puzzle to help put the fire truck back together again.

Every week we try to make  a sentence strip to  practice our “reading”.  Each student cuts, pastes and arranges pictures in a pattern. I then have them read the pictures back using their finger or a pointer proceeding from left to right. They should correctly say the word at the same time they point to the picture. The children love this exercise and like the assignment to put their patterns up on a wall at home and “read” every night before bed.

We danced, laughed, sang, cut with scissors, used glue, painted on an easel, touched a guinea pig, spoke Chinese and Spanish, played on our playground, went to the library, had a gym class in the BIG gym, poured my own drink out of a pitcher, had our picture taken a lot, made a pattern, listened to 5 stories, (favorite being NO! DAVID!!) washed our hands, used the potty, molded with play dough, used chalk and met nice friends.

Ask your children to sing our newest song “Green Speckled Frogs”!  We have been having fun jumping around the room and “eating some most delicious bugs”!  This song helps students with their pitch recognition as well as counting!

May continued to be a busy month in the garden. The PreK-3 students planted a salsa garden using the square foot garden technique. Tomatoes, habenara and bell peppers, cilantro and marigolds were carefully transplanted and watered. Other vegetables and herbs planted in late spring included Yukon Gold potatoes, cucumbers, three varieties of tomatoes, zucchini and basil. Many varieties of lettuce and D’Avignon and Easter Egg radishes were harvested for the kitchen as well as chives, sage, thyme, oregano and other herbs. At the end of the month, 5th graders weeded and mulched flower beds and the espalier pear tree. They also planted Taiyo, Autumn Beauty and Velvet Queen sunflowers along the corral fence. Many thanks to all of the students, faculty and staff for another successful year in the garden.

We learned about everything from owls to horseshoe crabs.  The favorite was the gray rabbit named William. I think that the children were the most surprised about the life of a bee.  We even saw a honeybee coming out of the cell for the first time right in front of our eyes. We ended the day with a blustery picnic outside enjoying the best hamburgers in the county.