"Fall"ing for Kindergarten

Things are finally settling down around the house. Quick update:

1. I'm done painting for now. Round 2 will begin in January, hopefully, with professionals taking care of what we can't do ourselves. 
2. Living room furniture should be in December 1. Cross your fingers people - we would really like to have it by then!
3. Paul is fighting a losing battle against the leaves. We knew we had a lot of trees, but these leaves are crazy. He does a great job clearing out the leaves, and a couple of hours later, there are more!

Now on to other fun things!!

Kindergarten is going great and we are learning all about fall and Thanksgiving. Technically, I'm only an assistant, but in the classroom, my lead teacher really considers me a Co-Teacher, which I love! We get along so well, and we work really well together. The kids are a mess, but I'm actually getting attached to quite a few of them (for those who don't know my teaching history, this hasn't ever really happened before).
Here are a few things we've been working on:

The kids colored in the tree, tore the paper "leaves", and then wrote the color words to make a poem. I got this idea from Anna.

We talked about apples, their life cycle, different ways to eat them, etc. Then I brought in a couple of apples, cut them in half horizontally so the "star" would appear, and we made apple stamps. The kids wrote a sentence to go with their stamps. 

We did turkey hand prints today to go with this sweet poem! The kids just think it's hilarious to paint their hands - they LOVE it! We'll add eyes and legs tomorrow to finish them.

In honor of Veteran's Day, we wrote thank you letters to veterans. We got everything from, "Thank you for saving us", to "Thank you for fighting for us", to "Thank you for killing the bad guys". And you can't see it real well, but I'm going to have to an art lesson on realistic colors again - we got some green and blue veterans here.

And finally - the highlight of my fall! I got a kidney table. For those of you who don't teach and may be thinking, "big deal, a table", let me reassure you - this is a big deal!! I was using one of the miniature, kindergartner size student tables as my small group table. It didn't work - at all!! So I asked my principal if I could just get a bigger table, and she asked if I wanted a kidney table. I said, YES! of course, but considering I'm only technically an assistant, I didn't want to assume I could get one. She said that she knew I was more of a co-teacher and that if I wanted a kidney table, she would order me one! It has made the biggest difference!! I can fit four kids around it for small groups, plus all our materials, plus extra room! It's the little things in life that makes us happy the most - isn't it!?

 

And finally, being the proud Tia Whitney that I am, I couldn't resist putting up a few pictures of my amazing nephew! Henry was a lion for Halloween, and is just ADORABLE!! I love this little guy so much!!

 Oh my gosh - my heart is melting! I love this picture!!

Happy Fall, Y'all!!

God Bless