September has been a fun, busy month!  It has been great getting to know the kids.  We started off the school year with getting to know you games and crafts.  We did name games, a skittles question game, and a family shield craft.  The kids also made their "faces" which is a MAP tradition and can be seen hanging up in the room.  See if you can find your child's face!  The next week we did "What I love about. . . .".  We learned new board games in the MAP room, how to be a good friend, all about Medfield, and made an all about me book.  Since the first day of Fall was on September 22, we did fun Fall things that week.  We learned what happens when Fall comes: Leaves changing colors, the weather turning cooler, apple picking, and pumpkin carving are some of the fun things that we talked about.  The kids learned interesting facts about sunflowers…  Did you know the tallest sunflower was 30' tall?  We learned about the life cycle of an apple and did an apple tasting.  The kid’s favorite was the red apples!  The last week in September was DIY/Building Week.  We built towers out of cups and popsicle sticks.  We found out through experimenting that the tower's base has to be bigger than the top for the tower to stand tall and not fall.  They tried their hands at drawing spiders, ghosts, pumpkins, and bats.  We made our own bubble solution and had fun with bubbles, and learned about how to make bridges strong enough so things can go on them without breaking.

 October will be our month of science.  The kids will become scientists and do many experiments and learn how things work.  We will also be starting Alphabet activities.  Each week we will focus on one letter to practice writing, and see what words start with that letter.  

We have had such a wonderful month getting to know each other and getting settled into our MAP routines!  We started off with a week called Getting To Know You, during which we played all kinds of fun games to get to know each other.  We learned about pets, siblings, vacations, hobbies, and favorite foods.  We also focused our attention on learning each other’s names, as well as building the community and culture at MAP.

The theme for the next week was What I Love About….  We discussed what we love about Kindergarten, September, and MAP.  We also shared what we love about our families, and we made a mini envelope house with a popsicle stick family to resemble our own.  It was really fun to learn about the ways in which our families are similar, as well as the ways they differ!  And we rounded out the week with “What I love about Medfield” to prepare us for Medfield Day.  We made a snack and hit the road on our first walking field trip where we visited the Pfaff Center, checked out the progress on the Police and Fire Station, and walked by the Dale St School and playground.

Next was a week of Fall activities, and we rang in the new season in style!  We observed all of the changes that happen in the fall, talked about what we wear, what we do, and what we eat in the fall.  We focused on apples one day, and we learned how an apple tree grows, we did an apple taste test (Honeycrisp beat out Granny Smith and Golden Delicious), and we made apple donuts – yum!  We played a MAP original game of tabletop football, and then learned how to draw a tough looking football player.   And finally, we got up close and personal with some pumpkins – estimating, weighing, and measuring.  We also made some beautiful watercolor pumpkins that will hopefully decorate your house this season!

The final week of September was DIY, which left it wide open for us to explore anything we were excited about!  We kicked it off with a DIY photography day, and the children loved using their own MAP camera to capture some great shots.  The next day was devoted to DIY instruments, and everyone made one or two instruments to add to our MAP band.  We also thought The Little Engine That Could was appropriate for DIY week, and we had a lot of fun exploring different concepts with trains afterward.

It has been a very busy month, and we are really looking forward to diving into Science during the month of October! 

MAP is off to a great start and the children are having fun!  Outdoor play is a highlight for the children after spending many hours indoors. The weather has been beautiful and most of us are a bit thankful that the heat has subsided a bit.  The “monkey bars” and “spider climber” are great and the children love the challenges of climbing and swinging from each one.

 Some of the popular afternoon projects have included...  Felicity the mermaid showed up via the IPad to invite the kids on a mermaid/ pirate scavenger hunt -She asked them to find her "Shell" phone, pirate coins, old black pirate bones, mermaid money, Fool's Gold and more!   Fish ("o-fish-ally" first graders and kindergarteners), Fall Leaf Rubbings, Design your own PJs, Beadie Snakes, Rainbow Names, Metallic Leaf Printing, Fuse Beads, Rotini Sunflowers, and Friendship tree and handprints to name a few!       

The gym is also a great outlet for the children after school as they enjoy playing Foxes and Hunters, Battleship, Pin Bombardment, Kick the Can and Batman and Robin . . . be sure to ask them about it.  Looking forward to more sunny days and fun times spent with your children.

 The room is always bustling with activity.  Building with blocks and our giant tinker toys, games of battleship, taking care of the pets at the MAP Vet, and lots of attentions for our Guinea Pig Butterscotch!  The recycle art tables are always busy!  MAP welcomes the donation of paper that is blank on one side, paper tubes, and small boxes for creating.