This year we celebrated Halloween with games throughout the day! Some of the games we played included pin the spider on the web, ghost bowling, and monster bean bag feeding. Some friends dressed up at school before trick or treating. Fun day! 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this day include: 

• Drama & Theatre Arts: The portrayal of events, characters, or stories through acting and using props and language. 
• Cooperation: An interest and engagement in group experiences. 

Who knew that learning about "the importance of hand washing" could be so fun and engaging? Nurse Pam came to talk to the preschoolers about invisible germs and why it is so important to wash our hands before and after certain activities and life events. She read us a book that explained germs, their invisible nature, their ideal environment and how we can protect ourselves and be as healthy as possible. Then we did a hands on activity with pretend "invisible germs" and practiced hand washing, to later find out we missed most of the "germs" under the black light! This was an eye opening activity for the teachers as well, we all learned we need to scrub thoroughly for thirty seconds before rinsing the soap off. 

Some of the Colorado Early learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this workshop include:

• Health Knowladge and Practice: The understanding of healthy and safe habits and practicing healthy habits. 
• Book Appreciation and Knowledge: The interest in books and their characteristics, and the ability to understand and get meaning from stories and information from books and other texts. 
• People and the Environment: The understanding of the relationship between people and the environment in which they live. 

P was our letter of the week and "pumpkin fun" really gave us a whole lot of opportunities to practice the letter P. We played with pumpkin guts on our new sensory table and we also painted our pumpkins to decorate our classroom for halloween. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines for these activities include:

• Fine Motor Skills: The control of small muscles for such purposes as using utensils, self-care, building, and exploring. 
• Phonological Awareness: An awareness that language can be broken into words, syllables, and smaller pieces of sound. 
• Art: The use of a range of media and materials to create drawings, pictures, or other objects. 

Thanks to Ms. Kathy, a volunteer from our community, we had the amazing opportunity to spend a fall fun morning at her home. We explored her property and learned about the Elk River, the cycle of a rock, and the amazing ecosystem of the willow trees. Also, we had the fortune to scavenge for pumpkins hidden in her from yard. What a great day to spend at Preschool. Thanks Ms. Kathy for sharing with us! 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted during this experience include:

• Gross Motor Skills; The control of large muscles for movement, navigation, and balance. 
• Receptive English Language Skills: The ability to comprehend or understand the English language. 
  
• People and the Environment; The understanding of the relationship between people and the environment in which they live. 

Fall is in the air, snow has made an appearance, and it's time to harvest potatoes and onions! Today we worked as a team to dig out potatoes from our potato tower and onions from our outside garden. Both of these spaces required a lot of hard work and several generations of preschoolers participated to make them what they are today. It is so wonderful to see how our gardening project has brought such life to our program. Getting our hands in the dirt is always a pleasure. We found so many worms today and we discussed the important role worms have in our soil as well as played with the wiggly creatures. Next step will be cooking up our harvest and nourishing our bodies with preschool-grown organic produce! 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines we worked on with this project include: 

• Gross Motor Skills: The control of large muscles for movement, navigation, and balance. 
• Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy: The perception that one is capable of successfully making decisions, accomplishing tasks, and meeting goals. 
• Conceptual Knowledge of the Natural and Physical World: The acquisition of concepts and facts related to the natural and physical world and the understanding of naturally-occurring relationships. 

"Transportation" was our theme of the week and today we got to build a massive train track in such spirit. The students worked on collaborating with each other to come up with a plan, and then each one of them got to input something special and unique to the over all activity. We had some leading the construction efforts, some engineering safe bridge crossings and tunnels, and others learning how the pieces even fit together in the first place. No matter what level each child is in their learning process, we are a community of learners that scaffold together to work on any given project. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines targeted include: 

• Initiative and Curiosity: An interest in varied topics and activities, a desire to learn, creativity, and independence in learning. 
• Cooperation: An interest and engagement in group experiences. 
• Drama and Theater Arts: The portrayal of events, characters, or stories through acting and using props and language. 

Throughout the last couple of weeks, the students have been showing a lot of interest in the story about "The Three Little Pigs." We have read different versions of the story, from the perspective of the pigs, from the perspective of the wolf, and even a narrator. It has been really interesting to give them different versions of a story and see how they conceptualize what "really happened." They get to come up with their own opinion and decide how the sequence of events affected the characters of the story in different ways. Bellow are pictures of some friends working on the three structures involved in the story and how each home was built with different materials. This part of the story lead to discussions about structural integrity and what building materials are more suitable to last long terms, and which ones will not. 

Some of the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines include: 

• Book Appreciation and Knowledge: The interest in books and their characteristics, and the ability to understand and get meaning from stories and information from books and other texts. 
• Art: The use of a range of media and materials to create drawings, pictures, or other objects. 

Today we discussed the importance of compost. Some of the ideas include: creation of new fertile soil for our greenhouse and garden, to recycle food waste, and feed our worms! The later seems to be the most important reason for our preschoolers of why we compost. 
Some of the Colorado Early Learning & Development Guidelines include: