*The leaves are falling because it's Fall!!* -Julianna 4

Our letter of the week is Bb and the Spanish words for the week are calabaza/ pumpkin and adios/goodbye.

Did anyone else see September? It was a bit of a blur on my end. I suppose that is what happens when you are having too much fun with your friends to notice. Last month we got back into a routine, created agreements that keep us safe in the classroom, and talked about what it means to be a good friend. We also made new friends! We’d like to welcome Leo and Gavin to our school!

October is one of my favorite months! We are talking about our bodies and the physical aspects of what they can do. My friends and I have been discussing our five senses. There are lots of fun experiments that we can try using our senses and we can’t wait to get to the taste experiment! Today we talked about how we use our skin to feel/touch things. We also made ink prints with our hands and used a magnifying glass to look at our fingerprints and the funny shapes they make.

You may have noticed some painted paper with your child’s name taped to their cubby. Sometimes I forget to check in about something that happened or something we were excited about so I have been writing small notes about your child’s day. I hope they give you a little insight to what’s happening at school.

I know that the afternoons have been a bit tricky as far as where your child is napping. Lately to maintain ratios and appropriate staffing it has been beneficial to combine for nap. We do separate classes for our morning lessons and social times. Providing your child with developmentally appropriate experiences is a priority for us and we do not wish to compromise that. Thank you in advance for your understanding and please be sure to check in with Stephanie or I if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading!

-Drea

SUMMER FUN AT SYCAMORE RUN!!

"Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language."~Henry James







What a terrific summer it was at Sycamore Run! The spring renovations gave us new floors, a new chalkboard wall, and fresh paint upstairs.

We were thrilled to have Gildy back in our school this summer, she took a break from her busy life as a High School Spanish teacher (in Vinton County) to play with us. She spent the month of June preparing for the first annual kids’ art at Casa Nueva show!! The exhibit included community canvas painting, "barn art" tiles, and several products of our photography day (thank you Jason Bash for photography instruction and support!!).

The art show was a tremendous success, thank you to all who showed their support. We plan to make this event an annual tradition, and are already looking forward to next July!

After the art show, Gildy helped the big kids make traditional Puerto Rican masks, thereby wrapping up a wonderful few weeks of artistic exploration. Science activities were also a favorite this summer, with each upstairs class experimenting with making and “erupting” volcanoes!

The garden grew beautifully again this year – we are excited to harvest and eat the popcorn we grew!! We have been harvesting and freezing tomatoes for our entry in the Chili Bowl Cookoff (coming this October), as well as drying herbs and garlic. And, lucky us, we already got to harvest pie pumpkins, and made a pie from scratch!!! Believe it or not, it tasted every bit as good as it looks!!

Everyone enjoyed participating in several walking trips to the library, including seeing a story teller, african drummers, and checking out books.

Though we all wish it could last forever, we bid a fond farewell to summer at Sycamore Run.

Stay tuned, as fall renovations include new paint downstairs and the completion of our snack kitchen!!!

Summer Field Trippin!!

The school age class enjoyed a GREAT ending to a terrific summer - we spent our last Friday before the new school year EATING!!!

A big thank you to CASA NUEVA (especially Sarah Slater) for giving us hairnets, a kitchen tour, and allowing us to make our very own quesadillas!! YUM!!

We went for a short walk uptown after eating lunch, and then went on to FLUFF BAKERY to decorate cookies and cupcakes! Thank you Jess for the tour and the super yummy treats!

Indeed, it was a most delicious end to a fantastic summer. Thank you to our friends for opening their kitchens and filling our bellies!!

Welcome Back

Summer is in session and we are excited to be back at school! Take a walk around to see all of the changes such as the new tile in the loft room, bathroom, and back door as well as the new paint jobs in the classrooms.

Timarie and I are looking forward to spending the summer with the younger school-age group. The summer’s curriculum starts with community so our first week is all about bringing our group together and learning a little about each other. Our first Creation Station project was creating a self-portrait puppet for our mantle above the block center. If you have a chance please take a look at them, they turned out wonderful! For future projects please take a look at the calendar board in the classroom above the book area.

We spent two hours outside early this morning hiking the trails, climbing trees, catching bugs and discussing building a bridge to cross the wetlands that border the back of our property. Our main goal this summer is to learn new things about our environment, our community and conservation. If you have any questions or concerns please check in with us.

It is very important to provide your children with the following:

*LABELED WATER BOTTLE

*Spare clothing

*Water Play clothes/Towel

Wish List

Bleach Wipes

Bean/Climbing Plants

Water Balloons

Slip-N-Slide

Again welcome back and we look forward to a fun filled summer!

-Timarie and Drea

*Make sure to eat your greens!*

The day is turning out to be quite lovely! These little snippets of spring are a real teaser huh? With a new season upon us now is the time for planting seeds to start yummy veggies, herbs, flowers, and fruits. Our garden is mixed with organic soil, worm castings from our own worm bins, and compost from our lovely left over lunch scraps. This year's garden might be the best yet.

Speaking of fresh gardens, all that we harvest here at Sycamore Run the students get to chow down on which might explain the incident we had today. After snack time I noticed something a little strange. My friends began to grow. I'm not talking about an inch or two, I mean they SHOT STRAIGHT UP! I know you think I'm exaggerating but I have proof. I grabbed the camera and instantly started to snap some shots of this incredible transformation!

It all started with Christopher. There he was playing with the trains after eating some snap peas then BAM! He grew as high as the tallest part of the window, but most impressive were his muscles!!

Then I turned around and there was Miles sitting in his seat relaxing after munching on some sweet carrots when he began to grow almost too big for his tiny preschool chair! Oh My!

Our school age friend Charles also fell vicitim to the epedemic. After chowing down a banana he almost went through the ceiling!

I was beginning to get nervous. Was this happening all over the school? I had to investigate. I went downstairs to visit the toddlers and to my surprise there stood Calla. "Hi Ray Ray!" she squealed as she crouched down to greet me after slurping down her berry smoothie.

Last there was sweet little Kai! Only he wasn't so little anymore. After devouring his fresh puree'd sweet potatos he grew as tall as the fridge. I mean look how he's handling that car he picked up from the road!! The next question is what am I going to do with them for nap time?! Surely the cots will not hold these healthy giants! :) Have a fantastic weekend friends and remember eat your fruits and veggies! -Drea

*Its a gerbil not a mouse Kitty Cat* Calla 2 years old

This post is pure cuteness for the end of your week. As many of you have noticed we have had a frequent visitor in our classroom, a cat named Le' Beef. He is not new to the school by all means we have had him since he was a kitten. He usually hangs out in the parking lot but he has become part of the room. He doesn't mind lovin' from the kids and its a great opportunity to teach about being gentle with animals. Most times he lays on our gerbil cage dreaming about who knows what. ;) It is very entertaining and the kids love when he comes in to see us :)

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Parker and his family for bringing us fun presents from COSI. Today we planted some Aloe Vera seeds. The kids were surprised at how small the seeds are.

Have a great weekend everyone! -Drea

*Increase the Peace*

*Here comes the mailman! Maybe he'll leave us some mails.*-Noah

Hello everyone. Spring is almost here can you feel it?? The last weeks of February were great fun. J My friends are still so interested in our writing center. They spend time writing letters, drawing pictures, stamping envelopes and constantly checking to see what "mails" have been delivered. We are hoping that someday the mailman we see out the window during lunch every day will stop INSIDE to check our mailbox. (Miss Drea is working on it :)

Speaking of mail, our classroom received a package filled with goodies from Jaxon’s Aunt! My friends were incredibly excited. Thank you to Jaxon’s favorite Aunt! We feel so special getting mail from you and hope you continue to read the blog.

We have been experimenting with ice it has been our favorite activity lately. We use eye droppers to fill ice cube trays and tongs to play with the ice and keep our fingers dry and warm. Using these tools during continue to help us with that pincer grip that comes in handy when using scissors, pencils and much more.

We even froze our arctic animals in huge icebergs and proceeded to save them by pouring warm water to help melt the ice. When the warm water approach proved to be too long of a process we brought out hammers and safety goggles. Let’s just say everyone made it out unscathed. J

We mixed more water colors to make ice cubes but this time we stuck popsicle sticks in the water before we froze them. Why you ask, well how else would we paint with ice and keep our fingers from freezing? We had fun testing out these colored ice cubes and the teachers had fun trying to keep them out our younger friend’s mouth.

As we are heading into a new season I would like to remind everyone to please send extra clothing to make certain our friends stay dry. Thanks for reading. –Drea and Timarie

Wish List

Seeds for planting

Soil

Bubbles

Sidewalk Chalk

Child Sized Broom

Outside Balls

*Increase the Peace*

*Skimaradinky dinky dink, skimaradinky doo, I LOVE YOU*

It’s our “Valentimes” party!

Our party was such a success I just had to post the pictures of our fun times! Thank you to everyone who brought yummy , healthy snacks and treats. You guys are amazing!!

Decorating our snack mats

Calla's Dad hung out for some party time!

Handing out "Valentime" cards

Awesome bag decor :)

Yummy Healthy snacks thank you everyone!

The kids really enjoyed themselves and so did the teachers! Thank you guys for all the donations and time!!

-Drea and Timarie

*Some of my best friends come to this school.* -Parker 3 y

Oh love! THURSDAY FEBRUARY 10 we will be having our Valentine's Day party. Please be sure to look at the white board above the shoe basket for the sign up sheet. It will be very helpful if you could please sign up by WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9 so that I know what I need to supplement for the party. I will also send a list of all our friends in the class and post it here as well. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION!

Names

Calla

Christopher

Cordell

Ian

Jaxon

Jonah D

Jonah V

Julianna

Miles

Noah

Parker

Zerrah

Better late than never.... right?

Hello friends! I know it has been quite a while since I last updated and I deeply apologize, but we are back. The class is growing and we are so excited to have new families! Welcome to the group Parker, Jonah V, Matthew and Marcus!

I smell change in the air, well in the classroom at least. The most popular change is our new writing center! My friends have been writing letters and recognizing that l-o-v-e spells love. Even our younger preschoolers have been dabbling in the word wall experience. The mailbox has been a hit as well and I am happy to see those recycled envelopes getting some good use. (p.s. If you don't know what do with those return envelopes that come with your bills please bring them by, my friends will be happy to have them :)

I’ve been reading a lot about Montessori classrooms and found a few ideas that I thought our friends would be greatly interested in. The center I introduced today is a marble balance activity. It works fine motor skills and gets my friends using the pincer grip. There were some great golf tee designs happening at the center this morning.

The messiest change of them all, the sand table is now the rice table hehe. The texture is fun to feel between our fingers and someone pointed out that it “smells kind of different huh? “ Don’t be surprised if your child has rice in their shoes and maybe in their hair. J

Please be sure to ask your children about these new changes I’m sure they would love to show you around. Thank you for reading.

-Drea and Timarie

WISH LIST

PICTURES OF YOUR HOME

Bleach Wipes

Envelopes

Fun Pencils

Heart Stickers