Happy Fall everyone! We have a lot of fun and exciting things planned for this month.

     Fall Festival is coming up. On Wednesday, the 10th of October, we will be going on a trip to Layman's Orchard and Pumpkin Patch. On Thursday, the 11th of October, we will be joining some of the older classes at Camp Bethel. There is no fee for the students (the fee is coming out of our activity budget that you paid at the beginning of the year), but the trip to Layman's Orchard and Pumpkin Patch is $6.00 for any parent that will be joining us. Camp Bethel is free for parents. We will be leaving school at 9:00 both mornings. Please be sure to arrive at school no later than 8:45 so that we have time to move car seats around.

     For both trips, please be sure to pack a lunch, a snack, and two things to drink. If your child usually gets milk from school, be sure to pack an extra drink as we will not be providing milk. We should return to Community School between 1:00 and 1:30. If you and your child wish to leave for the day at that time that is fine with us, but school will remain open until usual dismissal time at 3:15. There is no After School Program on those days. If you are interested in coming on one or both of these trips, we still need people to help with transport and would love to have you join us! If you are a driver for these trips, the office will need a copy of your car insurance before the day of the trip.

     During the month of October, we will be talking about apples, pumpkins, and signs of fall. We will also be reading about Johnny Appleseed. New this month, we will be combining our two classes on Wednesdays and Fridays after Fruit Break Recess. This will be for literacy work. This month, we will be working with the letters L, F, and P.

     At the Gathering in September, sign-up sheets were out so that parents could sign up to wash our Quiet Rest bed sheets. We still need volunteers to wash the sheets. Volunteering for this would mean taking the sheets home on Friday afternoon, washing them, and returning them on Monday morning. We have asked each volunteer to sign up for a month. If you are able to do this for us, please let us know.

     This year, we are having a Halloween party in our classrooms. We are asking parent volunteers to coordinate this party with each other. It is nice to split the party planning between a few parents. One could organize a snack, one could organize a game, craft, or story, and one could provide plates, cups, and napkins. If you are willing to help out with this party, please let us know. The party will be from 10:00-11:30 on Halloween day. We are asking the parent who signs up for snack to provide a healthy (but still festive, spooky, Halloween-ish...) snack that will be served as Fruit Break for the students.

     Finally, we have been blogging about our daily activities on the Community School website. You can find the blogs on our teacher pages. We hope that everyone has been reading it. We find it is a good way to let you know what we have been up to. If you do not have internet access, we will be happy to print out a copy of the week's blog for you on Friday afternoons. Please let us know; we want to stay connected to you!