We have been working toward our goal of making enough applesauce to sell as a fund raiser for the Missoula Food Bank.  This is a Community Service project we plan each year. We have already enjoyed an apple picking Field Trip (several frosty days ago) and as a result brought four very large buckets full of apples back to school. Along the way we "taste tested" several apples (to assure quality control, of course) and discovered that they were DELICIOUS!  Our next step was to peel, core and slice the apples.  Thanks to good old Yankee ingenuity (one of my Grandma's favorite sayings...) we had a machine which did all those jobs with just the turn of a handle.  So we turned and turned and TURNED until we turned those apples into mounds of slices (which, we discovered, oddly resembled Slinkies at first). We transferred the apple slices to a large crockpot and slow cooked them for most of the morning.  Our classroom smelled pretty good for several days, as quite a few of you noted. This week we are milling the cooked apples (more handle turning) and filling jars with some of the best organic applesauce on the planet (FYI - there is no added sugar to our applesauce).  We will also create labels which will be attached to the front of the jar.  While this project has lasted awhile, we have learned a great deal about apples - how and where they grow, the different varities and how they taste and about the various parts of an apple.  We have dissected apples, magnifying glass in hand, and have drawn a sketch of what we found inside.  Our drawings will be on display in our room soon so check out our scientific artistry (or is that artistic sciencing...?).

*PLEASE NOTE:  We need clean half pint-sized jars.  Please send any you can spare in with your child this week.  THANKS!

*IMPORTANT:  Our Applesauce Sale will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8th and Wednesday, Nov. 9th at 1:00 and 3:00 pm.  Look for our Sale table out on the playground.

*UPCOMING EVENTS:   After the Sale of our applesauce we will conclude our Fundraiser with a trip to the Food Bank.  We will purchase some groceries which can be delivered and will then donate any unused monies for the Food Bank to use according to their need.  We have tentatively scheduled a Field Trip to the Missoula Food Bank (via Mountain Line bus) for Wednesday, Nov. 16th and Thursday, Nov. 17th.  We need a parent helper from each class to deliver our bagged groceries to the Food Bank.  Each child will be asked to suggest a nonperishable grocery item which will then be add to a Class Grocery List.  Teachers will purchase these items and then have the children "bag them up" for delivery to the Food Bank.  Since attempting to deliver bags of groceries via bus ride with exuberant preschoolers has proven to be rather tricky we would so APPRECIATE helping hands with ample trunk space to assist with this phase of our Field Trip.  Let us know if you might be available.

Along with our applesauce focus we have also been enjoying an exploration of another fall time favorite - namely the Magnificent Pumpkin!  We have learned some new Pumpkin songs and fingerplays, enjoyed several pumpkin stories and fine-tuned our hand-eye coordination by hammering golf tees into two large pumpkins.  We have gone on two shape hunts to find food far a very grumpy and hungry pumpkin and are creating some very interesting pumpkin faces using torn construction paper. Our most interesting activities have been centered around exploration of actual pumpkins.  We have learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin from pumpkin to seed to flower to pumpkin again.  We closely examined a pumpkin from both the outside and the inside, scooped pumpkin seeds, saved some and cooked some which we enjoyed during our lunch time.  Recently we placed pumpkin seeds in a baggie and set them in the window in our science area to watch how they grow roots and sprout.  It is our hope that enough of our seeds will germinate so we can transfer them to the soil in a planter and watch the vines grow. This is definitely an experiment, but if it works we may be harvesting pumpkins in the spring!

Many thanks to all our parent helpers who help in the classroom and on our saunters, handle the laundry, refresh our paints, clean Spotty Bob's cage, prepare classroom materials, keep our books fresh, organize field trips, help display our art work and visit our classroom with important things to tell us about.  You make our school experience shine!

Debbie and Michelle