Of course this time of year also brings Thanksgiving and in the classroom children made cranberry sauce to enjoy at home with their holiday meals. They measured, poured, and stirred and learned that Miss Barb's secret ingredient was orange zest! Careful grating yielded a beautifully-scented plateful of zest which went into the pot. The children were proud to be given the opportunity to use all of this proper kitchen equipment, and were interested in the smells, the look and the feel of all the different ingredients. Once it was ready each child got to take home a jar of the sauce to share with their families.

          ​

As well as being busy with these seasonal activities the children's play has been revealing a strong interest: construction. Since the start of the year the open-ended construction resources have been extremely popular, and the explorations are becoming more focused on buildings that have specific purposes. The talk as they are built and re-built is about what they are for: houses with patios and garages, zoo buildings for housing animals and zoo vehicles, tracks elevated in the sky and, recently, whole towns. The theme has extended beyond the blocks and lego as well with drawings of tall condos and conversations about underground parking lots! We will be supporting this interest more fully in the coming weeks with different resources and activities, but we began with a walk up to the huge construction site on Dunbar. We observed how deep the excavation is and wondered why the crane has a criss-cross pattern. We spotted all the shapes we could see and watched concrete being poured out of the huge pump. As well as the purpose of various buildings there seems to be fascination with their actual structure, wondering about how to make buildings stable and the steps involved as they go up.

This is such a rich area for exploration and we are excited to see which elements capture the children's imaginations, as we reflect on how to support and extend their thinking.

Prior to the GM we will be holding a tasting session with Gayle McLeod of The Soup Solution. Gayle will be bringing us two flavours from the fabulous Serious Soups range to try and we will then be offering these delicious, healthy, all-natural soups and sauces for sale as a new preschool fundraiser. Please join us at 6:45 at Crown to get a taste!

In the preschool class we started the year with some "All About Me" provocations. Booklets were sent home for families to complete about each child, and we encourage you to fill these in together with your children and send them back to preschool. We will begin reading them together with the children to support their thinking about their identities and place in the world, and to strengthen their relationships with one another. Stories, art and songs have also tied in with this theme. In the children's play we have noticed particular interests in family and food, and there has also been a recurring theme of size and height. We will be taking these interests forward by adding resources and activities to the classroom that will allow the children to explore these ideas further.

In October we are looking forward to another busy month which will include some more traditional activities for the season such as making cranberry sauce with Miss Barb for Thanksgiving, Halloween fun and observing the changes outdoors as fall sets in. We are excited to go on a field trip to the UBC Botanical Gardens to discover more about plants in the fall. Please see our calendar below for a schedule of October's events.

Thank you to all parents and carers for helping make gradual entry a success. We hope you have all settled into our new school year as well as the children! We are looking forward to a wonderful year together at Crown.

Thank you!

Miss Nina and Miss Barb

See you there!
Miss Barb and Miss Nina