Halloween preparations are in full swing, with lots of paper crafts to get ready for the party, a new song (The Addam’s Family theme song) and a vigorous new dance (The Halloween Stomp!). Is everybody getting their costume ready at home?

We’re enjoying using the library in Galaxy room when it’s available, and we read more than the usual number of books at closing circle time this week That’s because we took a break from Show & Tell to get used to our new table groups of four: *Shoemaker & FAMILY *CUSTOMERS *Black ELVES and *Red ELVES.

For our “CITIES IN JAPAN” unit, we had some excellent ideas for how to match and group the “City Places” and “Jobs” cards we used for last week’s SLAP! game, then we played one more time with EVERYTHING on the tables! Almost everyone is understanding how “Top hands lose, and bottom hand wins!” works now.

“Where do we find cities? Why?” became easier to see after we had TALKED about land (mountains, valleys, plains..) and water (seas, rivers, lakes…) when we studied a topographical map and could SEE these features in 3D.

“What does ‘hometown’ mean? Where is yours? How about your parents’ and grandparents’?” and “What’s your favorite place, and why?” are other questions we are exploring. We listened to the melodies of “FURUSATO” and of “Home, Sweet Home”, and will learn some of the verses of both, in English. Can you sing and talk about FURUSATO with them at home? Did you know that the poet who wrote the words in 1913 is from Nakano, Nagano?

We took a quick look at our planters; the beets are doing ok, but the caterpillars have eaten almost ALL the leaves off the radish plants.