Halloween at the Beehive International School

Today as we arrived at the school, everyone was buzzing with excitement, showing of their fabulous costumes, and taking pictures. There were beautiful princesses, devils, witches, frogs, teachers dressed up at bees, and even Spiderman and Zoro came to visit.


The students have been quite busy creating many different art projects that focus around autumn and harvest with this week's theme being Halloween. In the play group, students learned the colors orange and black, made pumpkin masks, and a beautiful picture of a black cat on orange paper.




In the preschool, students made beautiful paintings with orange colors in the background with a beautiful black tree painted on top. These were so good, I hope the parents will frame them and hang them up.

Below are some pictures of their artwork. Happy Halloween everyone!

The Preschool Buzz This Week

In the Beehive Preschool this past week, students have been busily working on many projects, such as matching colors, shapes, and objects, making bread dough, practicing counting, and phonics. The picture below was taken while working on matching colors, shapes, and objects.

The next activity students had the opportunity to experience was baking bread. This was part of the whole school interdisciplinary unit on Autumn and Harvest. First, the teacher explained what ingredients were needed in order to make bread dough. Flour (comes from wheat, which is harvested and then ground into flour) water, salt, sugar and yeast. The students were then able to use their sense of smell while pouring in the yeast and kneading the dough. Students were then asked the following units of inquiry:

• How many sausage like shapes do you need to form your name?
  
• Trace along the letter of your name, count how many pieces you need.
  
• Touch and form the dough into sausages by rolling it in between the palms of your hands and then form the letter of your name.
  
• Place the letter onto a baking sheet. The teacher then puts it into a hot oven.
  
• Students learned opposites such as the dough they just made is cold, and the oven is hot.

The students really enjoyed this activity. There is really nothing like the smell of bread baking in the oven and knowing that you created it yourself. Way to go preschoolers! Below is a picture collage of that activity.

Next, students spent time practicing counting. In circle time, they sang one little, two little, three little fingers until they reached the number ten and then did the same backwards. They were then expected to find three items that are in the classroom: acorns, chestnuts, and apples, for example, pointing to each object as they counted.

Lastly, students have been focusing on phonics. They practiced phonics by drawing numbers in the sand. Using their finger, they traced over the sandpaper number 3. Then, they tried to write the number 3 in the sand. Their vocabulary words this week were hat, horse, hair, helicopter, hedgehog, harvest and Halloween. The children had to put their hand inside Mr. Frog’s mouth, take out and name and the the item which Mr. Frog had eaten. Students were asked to name the item with emphasis on the “H”. They then were asked to trace along the “H” with their finger and then trace over the "H, h" on their worksheet. Here are some great photos of them hard at work.

Can't wait to see what they will be up to next week. I am sure there will be great photos from their Halloween celebrations.

Play Group Creating and Baking Apple Pies

Today the Beehive Preschool Play Group spent the morning learning how to make and bake apple pies as part of their thematic unit titled Autumn and Harvest. They then started out with singing a song about apples and reviewing the sounds apples make while eating them such as crunch and munch which are the some of the words they are learning this week. They also put wooden apples into a pan to practice counting.



The teacher then carefully explained the crust as she rolled out onto the baking sheet and pan. She explained how the baking sheet would help the apple pie so it would not stick to the pan. Each child then had the chance to feel the dough patting it as they sang:

Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Bakers Man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat and prick it and mark it with a B. Put it in the oven for the Beehive and Me.

Every child helped wash the table and then their hands making sure that they had a clean working surface. The teacher then showed them how they needed to peel all of the apples before putting them in the pie and demonstrated what this looked like.

They then put the sugar, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon into the bowl with each student having their turn to stir and pour in the ingredients. Once this was done, each child sampled an apple with the mixture on it. Some liked this better than others. They then hid the apples with the top of the crust while the teacher pinched the bottom and top together and putting slits at the top so the pie could breath.

This lesson used all of the senses such as seeing, feeling, and tasting and fit in perfectly as one of the fruits we eat during Autumn and the Harvest. The students really enjoyed this process, but I bet they will enjoy eating the final product even more.

Christkindl Market

The Christkindl Market will be held on November 21st from 1400 until 1600 at the new location where there will be many homemade goodies to sample and things to buy that the students have made. Mark your calendars, because this is something that shouldn't be missed!

Tea Towels

This year, the Beehive International School will be creating tea towels with the theme "This is Me." The older children will actually draw their self portrait whereas the younger ones will be using their hand print with each students' name below their creation. These are a wonderful keepsake for parents, godparents, grandmothers, and grandparents. They are wonderful for Christmas presents and of course memorable for the children. They also look great framed and put up on the wall.

Autumn Thematic Unit

Since the teachers and students have been back from holiday this week, the school has been buzzing with lots of work focused on their thematic unit: Autumn.



Students have been busy creating beautiful artwork that represent autumn like days in Switzerland.












In the playgroup, they created a picture that included a tree with grass and leaves falling, and fog in the background. Quite appropriate since we are experiencing lots of fog in the mornings and will continue into the month of November. They have been singing songs, reading poems, and reading books that deal with autumn as well as focusing on the autumn colors such as brown, yellow, orange, and green. They have also been working on the following words of the week: apple, crunch, munch, tree, apple pie, and leaves which are all associated sounds and sights in the autumn month.








In the preschool, students have created an autumn tree as well. They have spent time cutting out a tree and pasting it on the paper and adding leaves all around it.








In the kindergarten class, their artwork has been focused on Halloween where they have spooky spiders and ghosts to their picture. Later this week, they will be baking apple pies. The best part will be eating the apple pies they spent time making and baking. More pictures to follow on Friday.

Halloween Fun 2008