Waiting for Snow
The children in room 26 are waiting for snow and they are waiting and waiting and waiting! With the few dustings of snow that we have seen, has brought much excitement! We have also enjoyed watching the weather change from rain to snow flurries. With all of this excitement, we started reading stories about snowmen. We found several funny snowmen stories to read. We read Snowmen at Night, Snowmen at Christmas and Snowmen All Year. Our discussions about these stories led to students writing their own snowmen books. We painted snowmen pictures and created new covers for our folders.

Through our discussions on snow, we found the perfect book! Waiting for Winter is a story about a squirrel, hedgehog and bear that postpone hibernation to see the first snow. These animals think they find the first snowflake when they find a can, toothbrush, and a sock! This week we will be making puppets so that we can recreate this story. Ask your child what is “white and wet and cold and soft”? Hopefully, they will say snow. This was a repeating phrase throughout this book. In addition, we have started talking about opposites (wet/dry, hard/soft, etc.).

Squirrels
Last week, we explored further what squirrels eat. In our sensory table, we dug through the snow like squirrels and found berries, bugs and nuts. We graphed the number of each item that we found. We have started having communities meetings with the other classes to construct our large nest. The students have made a list of the items they need. We will be meeting this week with the requested items along with our sections of the nest to begin building!

Mr. Suter
Mr. Suter has graciously invited us the use the gym each day when we are unable to go outside. The children are enjoying their time in the gym and talking with Mr. Suter. Mr. Suter has led a few activities (Gingerbread baby game, balloon toss and a parachute.) which the children found so exciting.

A Look Ahead
• Making puppets so that we can recreate the story of Waiting for Winter.
• Mrs. Laura Peterson will be coming to our class to discuss squirrels.
• Constructing a nest using different materials.
 

Busy Little Squirrels
We have been busy little squirrels in Room 26! We wanted to learn more about a squirrel’s body so we created several art projects like; squirrel mosaics with beans, new folder covers (squirrel picture), tracing a squirrel’s body, and sketching squirrels using just circles. Through these activities we have discovered that squirrels have sharp teeth for eating nuts, claws to climb with and bushy tails to keep them warm in the winter. We have also found that squirrels can squeeze into tight spaces.
Mrs. Davidson, a kindergarten teacher at PVS, let us borrow a squirrel’s nest that one of her students brought to her classroom. We were very excited to see a nest up close and found it very useful as we created plans to construct our nest. After spending time looking at the nest, we started to wonder how the squirrels made their nest and how they got inside. We discovered that squirrels weave materials together. If we were going to make a nest then we would need to learn how to weave. So we started practicing weaving with different materials. Once we knew how to weave, we began creating our squirrel’s nest. We quickly found out that making a nest is A LOT of work and took many friends to help.

A Look Ahead
Each class is making a section of the nest. Once each class has completed their section of the nest we will have a community meeting to discuss how we can construct our nest using all of the sections. Through our research we also found that squirrels make more than one door on their nest and we are wondering how we are going to make the doors. Another question that we will be investigating is where the squirrels go when it snows.
 

Author Study
We have been studying several authors to learn how they write stories. We have read several books by Todd Parr. We have learned that Todd writes about one topic (i.e. The Mommy Book, The Daddy Book), he uses lots of details in his drawings and his use of so many colors. Even the background is a color! Another author that we have studied is Jez Alborough (i.e. Hug, Tall, and Yes). We have learned that he uses very little words but the pictures tell the story. We have found that there are three ways to read a book; you can read the words, read the pictures or retell the story. We have also been writing stories like these authors.

I am so excited to be back at school with all of my preschool friends. I have been on overdrive getting to know new friends, learning a few new routines and completing fall assessments. I am looking forward to meeting with you during conferences to share all of the great things your child is doing!
 

Squirrel Project
Over the last few weeks we have been on several nature walks. Along the way we have found many interesting things. On one nature walk the morning group found an area with tons of acorn shells. The afternoon group found the same area and when we started looking around to find out where those shells where coming from when we found a nest. We started to wonder who was eating all of these nuts. We had found a nest and started noticing squirrels run through the grass and on our playground. Could the squirrels be eating those nuts? We decided to write Mrs. Peterson, our Naturalist, to ask if our predictions were correct and she confirmed that we were right. Once we knew that squirrels lived in the nest and were eating the nuts we decided to go on a squirrel hunt. We started walking the trails looking for more nests. We were so excited to find four nests!
 

We have been watching the squirrels from our classroom windows. We even stop class sometimes to watch the squirrels which have led to several class discussions and numerous questions about squirrels. One student came up with the idea of building a squirrel’s nest in our classroom. Another student would like to build a squirrel feeder so that we could feed the squirrels during the winter. With all of these great ideas we have begun researching squirrels and squirrel homes.
 

Building a Squirrel’s Nest
We are in the process of building our squirrel’s nest and could use your help! Please look around your house for interesting materials that we could use to build our nest. Some ideas are: paper towel rolls, fabric (brown, tan, green), ribbon, brown paper bags, pantyhose, etc. Be creative! All donations are cheerfully accepted! 
 

Mystery Backpack
The mystery backpack has appeared over the last two weeks during circle. Inside we found the letter B and C along with toys that start with that same sound (i.e. boat, butterfly, Batman). We are looking forward to finding out what letter will appear next.
 

A Special Thank You
A very special thank you to Christine Burkle and Chelsea Snyder for planning our Fall parties. I greatly appreciate all of the parents that donated supplies and volunteered at the party. Thank you for making this day so special!