Feeling Thankful for November!

by Florence B

How is it November already?! I hope you all had a fantastic Halloween and didn’t stay up too late running on sugar! I loved seeing our Bothell Family Cooperative Preschool friends dressed up in costumes during our class party (ours was last Friday and the start of our Halloween fun), and I’m sure you all did with your class parties, too! The curriculum team did a spooky, fun, and AMAZING job with the Fall, pumpkin, and Halloween themes; I hope no one missed the giant spider web on the ceiling downstairs!

 
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Alas, wave goodbye to October and bring on November, the month that reminds on to give thanks with families and strangers as well as new friends and old. Curriculum-wise, this month we’ll see themes of food, traditions, thankfulness, and turkeys (because we can’t have November without these fowl friends!). Downstairs in dramatic play, get your pizza serving skills ready, because you’ll find a pretend pizza restaurant for our little chefs. Search around and you’ll find books by Salina Yoon, November’s author of the month!

Look forward to family and soup nights at the school! Each class will get together on a different night; the infant and toddler class will celebrate family night while the older three classes will celebrate soup night! For soup night, we’ll each bring 1-2 cups of cut-up veggies for a delicious soup to be cooked during class and then served later on in the evening. As a bonus, we’ll get to meet all the mysterious siblings that we hear about during class!

On the 16th, get ready for our November parent meeting! We get a treat with Ann Hollar, a wonderful speaker from the Center for Child and Family Well Being, UW. Her topic of discussion will be: “Learn about how cultivating a culture of mindfulness in the school and at home can help shift the parent-child dynamic to one of gratitude and self-compassion.” Here's a link to learn more about Ann Hollar. One of her answers from her FAQ caught my eye; when talking about what she has learned from her own mindful practice she says, “I have learned to listen more fully, react less often; be more curious and less judgmental.” I’m excited to see what she has to say!

Speaking of what people have to say, look forward to some class sharing. The 2/3, 3/4, and Pre-K classes will have the opportunity to decorate a turkey picture for the Turkey bulletin board at school. In the older two classes, keep an eye out for anything turkey that you want to share!

And continuing with our 3/4 and Pre-K friends, they get to go on another excursion this month! We all enjoyed visiting the pumpkin patch last month, but this time the 3/4s and Pre-Ks are going to see where many pumpkins and other veggies go. They’re heading off to the grocery store, but not in a shopping cart playing Grocery Search with a shopping list! These lucky kiddos will get to go behind the scenes to learn how a grocery store works!

We have so much to look forward to in November in class, but don’t forget to make note of the holidays so you don’t find yourself missing class or looking at a locked building. Class will be closed on Nov 10 (Fri, Veterans Day) and Nov 22, 23, and 24 (Wed-Fri, Thanksgiving Break). There will class the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week.

Here’s to a fun month ahead! Give a shout out in the comments or email me at blog@bothellfamilycoop.org if you have anything November-related you’d like to share! Any topics you want to explore? Just let me know!