Happy Friday to you! Guess where I’ll be this afternoon? Here’s a hint: it’s the same place where you spend most school days. Right on—I’m spending my Friday afternoon at a local elementary school. I’m very excited!
A couple of months ago a teacher friend of mine—she’s actually my best friend—invited me to help her this fall during a school-wide event called Hawks Hobbies. (The school mascot is a nighthawk.) The event takes place over several Friday afternoons. Teacher and parent volunteers work together to offer a variety of hobbies for students to experience. My friend is very artistic—last spring her group created colorful banners which now decorate the school cafeteria. This fall’s project has something to do with an office wall, squares of canvas, purple paint, glue, and torn paper. Yipes! What have I gotten myself into?
What’s the next special event on your school’s calendar? Maybe a fall festival, a visit to the pumpkin patch, a classroom guest? You tell me what you’re looking forward to and I’ll report back on my school visit!
Have a great weekend!
Diane
We love the fall – the past few weeks and next few weeks are some of my favorite times of the year. We kick off with a pumpkin patch – I actually build a small one at the school, as we are never sure if they are ready for a field trip so instead of going to one one comes to us. Then for Halloween we dress in costume and parade around the school and have a party – very fun, as teachers we all try to dress in theme – this year our director is Cruella and the teachers all dalmations. Then we walk to the local library the following week cause we want to be like the scarecrow from the wizard of oz and get smart, then we get together with the other 4 year old classes and have a thanksgiving feast!
We are having a Halloween party, then a dental visitor as we are going to the Health Exploration Station. Lots of fun.
We visited our local pumpkin patch at the end of September while it was still quite warm here. Each child received a small pumpkin to take home. I’ve purchased two for our classroom,one white and one orange.We’ll estimate number of seeds,ribs,and weight
of each one. Comparisons follow, and then I bake the seeds the next day. Healthy snacks are an emphasis this year at our school,so these will be perfect! Our party will be the Friday before Halloween. We have a parade and play lots of games in the afternoon.
We went to the “pumpkin patch” at the church where each child got a small pumpkin to take home. We also got a bigger one to carve and explore. Thursday we will have our costume parade and trick or treat at the church offices. Then back to the classroom for our party/lunch. In November we will have a Thanksgiving Feast where the children will put on a program for church and families.
Our PTU has a family fall festival planned and one of the activities available will be trick or treating at the classroom doors. So each classroom is preparing their doors with decorations. My students are busy creating monsters for our “Monster Mash” door.
We have dad’s nights this month. Our 4’s invite their dads to join us for a typical class. The children make name tags for their dads. They are ties cut from construction paper and string painted. We add a string and glue on a picture of their child. We send out invitations, we make spiders from donuts for a snack. We make scarecrows as a group art activity during the evening. We have all sorts of activities for the dads and children to do together. We play Halloween bingo and we go on a spooky walk with our dads and we end by giving them a decorated wooden picture frame with a child drawn picture of them and their dad. The dads rave about this for weeks.
We have Literature Alive Day on Friday, Oct. 29. Instead of dressing up as scary Halloween characters, students can dress as book characters that day. I cannot wait to see what the kids wear!
I love hearing what’s going on in your classrooms and schools! Thanks so much for sharing! I wish I could participate in each of your events. Wouldn’t THAT be fun!
My Friday afternoon in the classroom was tops! Ms. Shelton, my friend, had everything so well organized that the current step in the art project went very smoothly. It was a bit sticky :), but we all had fun and the end result was quite striking. I’ll be going back in two weeks to help with the next step. And when the project is finished, I’ll be sure to post a picture for all to see.