This week we began learning about and using Tally Marks.  We talked about how Tally marks are used to represent a piece of information that you are working on.  They could be used to represent how many of a certain item you have or as an indicator or vote when making a choice.  We practiced making tally marks in small groups and using one to one correspondence to figure out how many tally marks we needed.  The children also noticed about the size of a tally mark, too long and they got in the way of others marks and tallys too short were hard to count.  Along with tally marks the children, spear-headed by Ethan, began talking about and noticing all the fire alarms and fire pulls around the classroom and in the hallways.  So, over the past few days we have broken up into small groups before naptime and taken Tally Walks around the corridors searching out first fire alarms then fire pulls.  The children had clipboards and markers and whenever they found what they were looking for they made a tally.  They were so excited about our Tally walk that we will continue next week looking for fire extinguishers and see what else they would like to search out.  This interest in fire alarms comes at a good time as will be making our way to the Fire House on the 21st of October.  We also had another fire drill, that went off right as naptime began (of course : ), but the children were able to get together and get out of the building.  They kept their eyes moving though as they noticed the fire alarm is white when it flashes and as we were waiting on the bench outside they were looking for and found the other fire alams flashing through the windows of the school.  The trip to the fire house should prove to be interesting and exciting. 

Today was applesauce day!  My family and I went apple picking a few weekends ago so it seemed like a good time to bring in some apples and do some cooking.  The children used an apple peeler/slicer/corer to prepare the apples.  And after tasting some of the peel (yummy!) brought the apple on over to the chopping table to cut them into bits to help the apples cook.  Then we used the 3 secret ingredients (water, sugar, heat) and boiled those apples down until they turned into applesauce.  As the apples were cooking and started to smell good, Grant commented, ‘It smells like applesauce, but I don’t think it is going to turn into applesauce.’  A few minutes later when Grant, Joshua, and Jeffon were using the potato masher to smush the apples, they all noticed, ‘It IS changing into applesauce!’  Check out the pictures here!

To see pics from the rest of the week click here!

Next week we will be continuing work with Tally marks, making choices, the fire house talk, and begin also talking about the presidential election.  Our children this year seem very interested in talking about who is going to be president and how and why we vote for one.  Have a great weekend and don’t forget NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY!!!