Pumpkins, pumpkins all around us! We have enjoyed our little friends dressed up and our parents carving beautiful Jack-O-Lanterns. During the week the children baked and prepared yummy pumpkin treats, and our kindergarten class helped to prepare them for sale. Thanks to our generous parents and staff, our carving event and rummage sale yielded over $170, which the PTO will use to purchase playground and classroom material:)

Our annual visit to Von Thun Farm is always an exciting day! Who is happier than our children to explore the farm with both the teachers and parents:) We are grateful for our parents who took the time to attend and make some memories with us. Fall season is here, enjoy the nice weather and colors around us before the winter chill arrives!

Thank you to all the parents who visited our classrooms to enjoy their child’s work environment.

We are truly an international community at our school! Thank you to everyone for sharing their cultures, traditions, talents and food!

Plentiful of round pumpkins, carving supplies, children in costumes, parents ready to carve and scoop, decorations and Halloween treats... that was the setting of our First Annual Carving Event! It was wonderfully organized by Ms Sue and the teachers, and it raised over $400 for our Playground fund! Thank you to all who participated and helped with setup and clean up. Look at all the fun we had and we hope to see you again at our carving event next year!

On Thursday we have participated in the Theatre for the Very Young program!  It is grant-funded by Kean University: the Students Partnering with Faculty initiative-- an opportunity for college students to work along-side their faculty mentors on research or creative projects.  The performers this year are all Kean students who are getting certified in Early Childhood and/or Theatre Education. This program was a wonderful addition to Mindfulness activities already implemented in our curriculum.
First the children were engaged in a craft project--  coloring the paper leaves that were later on hung on bare trees as part of the scenery.
Then we altogether practiced 5 Mindful Movements (from Thich Nhat Hanh's Exercises for Well-Being) before traveling through a rainbow of hoops to the performance area. There we sat on the floor pillows, and did mindful breathing using a Hoberman sphere as the model.  We also listened to a quieting poem (from Thich Nhat Hanh's A Handful of Quiet).
A very special puppet show version of Kathryn Otoshi's book ONE was presented next. The theme of ONE is in itself mindful-- a story of standing tall, rejecting bullying, and being inclusive. The play completely stole everyone's attention and the children even got to touch and see puppets up close afterwards. They have also played with Hoberman sphere and retrieved their leaves from the trees. The leaves were sent home on Friday.

Although our school has been hosting Chick Hatch Project in collaboration with Quiver Farms for many years now...it is still the most exciting experience for everyone involved. Children seriously take on the responsibilities of Chick parenting showing care while turning the eggs, and then providing food and water to baby chicks later on. Of course hearing baby chicks for the first time or seeing them run around from one friend's hands to the other...is priceless and meant to stay in memory forever!