Spiders, bats, and pumpkin week, oh my!!

 We have had such a fun spooky week leading up to Halloween! There was a fun Spider craft,  a grab n’ go  made of goblin teeth( candy corn), witches warts( raisins),  ghost parts ( marshmallows), Monster scabs ( Chex cereal)!! The kids loved it and couldn’t wait to eat it on the way out the door and they kept talking about all the treats in the bag and what each thing was! Wednesday was bat necklaces that were super cute and Thursday was Halloween dress up day for both our kids and staff! There were lots of  awesome Halloween outfits, headbands, socks and leggings! Some friends even had matching shirts in their class which they loved.  Finally the big finale is the Pumpkin contest that each class participated in and the families vote on to decide their favorite. The class winner gets a pizza and ice cream party! What an awesome week!! 

Spider Craft! 

We loved making bat necklaces! 

Boo Mix for everyone! 

Ghost parts, Goblin teeth, Witch warts and Monster Scabs! 

Skeletons are our favorite!

Pumpkin shirts are awesome! 

Pretty girl! 

Baby skeletons are the cutest! 

Boo! 

Such a cute skeleton witch! 

Look we match! 

Who is going to win?!!

Fall Fest at AOFC

 Fall Fest at AOFC is one of  our favorite events and it gets us in the mood for all things Fall! We had pumpkin painting, pumpkin spice play doh, a leaf scratching station, train rides, a bounce house, frozen hot chocolate and face painting! Plus a visit from ACE and a fall photo booth to top off all the fun for the day. The kids loved talking about what they did and showing off their cool painted pumpkins they get to take home.  It was a great day and fall fun was had by all!! 

Pumpkin play dough is the best

Ace and friends love the train! 

All Aboard! 

Fall Fest decorations are the best! 

Falling Leaves

Pumpkin painting table is ready to go!

Pumpkin play dough smells amazing! 

Leaf scratching table

Frozen Hot Chocolate is so yummy!

Working hard at painting pumpkins!

Lots of action at the play dough table!

Uncovering the colors on the scratch leaves! 

A cute cheetah! 

A beautiful rainbow to end the day! 

Mother Goose Has Come To Play!

             Happy FALL! We love this time of year here at The Academy of Forrest Crossing. There is so much to look forward to, including a visit from Mother Goose. She always has fun, new songs to share with our friends here at school. And no show is complete without silly dances and a visit from her special animal friends- this time she brought her friend the owl! Mother Goose's visits are always so special and leave the kiddos laughing and giggling about what they learned all day long. During this visit, Mother Goose taught us about where pumpkins grow, how it's important to brush our teeth if we eat candy so we don't get mouth monsters, and she even taught our friends a new happy birthday song that we all got to sing to our friends who were born in October! We all had so much fun hanging out with Mother Goose and we cannot wait for her to come back! 

Mother Goose brought so many of her animal friends to visit us today! 

We loved meeting her friends owl and frog! 

We love clapping and waving our hands to all of the songs Mother Goose taught us today! 

Our favorite song was about a big, round, orange pumpkin.

Mother Goose is singing her song about the big, round, orange pumpkin! 

Our friends loved stretching out their arms as wide as they could to show how big they thought the pumpkin was.

We learned all about where pumpkins grow! 

They grow on the ground, in a patch, on a vine. 

Mother Goose joked, "Do pumpkins grow up in the trees?" 

Mother goose put on the very best Fall-themed show. 

Complete with songs about happy, sad, silly, and mad pumpkins. 

And songs about how pumpkins grow, how spiders weave their webs, and black cats! 

Mother Goose always keeps fun and silly items in her many pockets! 

She also brings along fun visual cards for when she sings her songs. 

It's all smiles and giggles when Mother Goose comes to town! 

We just have the absolute best time! 

We helped Mother Goose sing "Happy Birthday" 

to all of our friends who were born this month! 

Before we said goodbye, Mother Goose taught us a song about her friend the owl. 

We all made "hoo hoo" sounds like the owl. 

Learning baby signs at AOFC!

 Baby Sign Language is defined as: The practice of pairing American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary with spoken words to facilitate early communication with preverbal, hearing babies. At AOFC our Infants and Toddlers start learning signs such as, more, please, all done, mine and many more to enhance their communication skills.  Babies gross and fine motor skills develop earlier than their speech and they can use these signs to help express themselves. By using words and the signs it becomes second nature for Infants/Toddlers to use one or both to help them communicate! Watching as an Toddler figures out how to use the signs for the first time to express themselves is exciting for both the Toddler and the teacher! 

The Toddler 1 class uses this book to help them with their signs! 

This is the sign for More! 

The sign for Please! 

Saying and Signing Please for snack! 

Ms Shelby is teaching her friends the baby sign for Mom!

Signing Please!

An amazing resource book of baby signs for our teachers! 

Farm animal day at AOFC

 AOFC had some very special visitors come see us on Tuesday and everyone was so excited to see them! It was Farm animal day and there were goats, a donkey, an alpaca, a zebra cow and last but not least a bunny named Snowball! Everyone got to visit and say hello from behind the fence and watch the animals get fed which was also very exciting! It was clear the kids loved seeing the animals and I am pretty sure they felt the same way!! 

Loving the goats!

On their way to see the animals!

Wondering if he can take a little of it home!

Hi Zoey!

Goats, lots of Goats!!

Zoey is the coolest zebra cow we have ever seen!

Waiting patiently to see the animals!

The calm before the excitement!