Escalade!

The children of 94i had a very busy day last Friday. In the morning, we were invited to Marie T's class to hear the story of Escalade. We squeezed onto the carpet, along with Jyotsna's reception class and Marie T's pre-reception.




The pre-reception children were all dressed up in celebration of the day.




Marie T began the story, telling of the old walled city of Geneva many many years ago. She showed how the guards looked out over the wall and didn't see anyone.





What the people of Geneva didn't know was that the Duke of Savoy and his army were trying to attack the city. They wore all black and even painted their horses black so that no one would see them coming in the dark of the night.




The was an old Genevan woman, Mother Royaume, who lived near the wall and was busy making a huge cauldron of soup. She noticed that there was something going on outside of the wall, and yelled to warn everyone of the attackers.




Then she thought quickly and poured the boiling hot soup on the men who were starting to climb up the wall!





Because of Mother Royaume, Geneva was saved, and the city celebrates this occasion with big chocolate cauldrons called marmites every December. The tradition is to have the oldest and youngest children break the marmite open with a hammer. The broken chocolate pieces were then shared with all the children in the school.







What a good show! Thank you for sharing the story with us, Marie T!

A Sinterklaas Surprise

On Tuesday morning, Melody's mom came to visit! She told us all about the Dutch and Belgian holiday of Sinterklaas that happens in early January. She brought along a big coloring book with many pictures about the holiday.




She also read a story about Sinterklaas and the pepernoten that is a common treat during this holiday.




Then the children got a chance to taste the pepernoten and to sample a small piece of a chocolate letter- another traditional Sinterklaas treat.






Delicious! Thanks for the visit, Patricia!

The Joy of Parachutes

The parachute, to me, is almost magical. It's such a simple concept, but has universal appeal when children grab a hold of one. Somehow, waving this giant billowing circle of fabric up and down inspires such utter joy and excitement in every child. Considering that the parachute is also a good exercise in teamwork and great for our arm muscles, it was really the ideal activity for 94i this past Tuesday.

We started by making small waves with the parachute, then added one ball and bounced it around, trying not to let it bounce past the edge...









Then we added another ball to make the task more challenging...





Then we added a third!




In the next activity, Suzanne called the names of two children, who could go underneath the parachute and switch places while everyone else was still holding it.






At the very end, we counted to 3, lifted the parachute, then disappeared underneath!




Then we a little extra time, so we made different letters with our bodies.

lowercase a



uppercase A



and our letter of the week, C

The Little Engine That Could

Last week, Rose came in to read this classic children's story to the class. She has been keeping the EAL (English as an Additional Language) students very busy making a beautiful paper-mâché train with train cars and people to go inside, and wanted the whole class to know more about what they have created.







Here the EAL students are drawing pictures of themselves to go inside the train. While creating this craft project, the students are talking with Rose and gaining English vocabulary.







After the story was finished, the children stood up to say a word or two in English and present their work!





The train is now hanging in the central space, reminding us that we can do anything if we believe in ourselves. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

Leaves, leaves, leaves!

Autumn is in full swing and our playground is full of fallen leaves! Last week the children worked hard helping Cova to rake the leaves into piles and put them into bins, then dump them out in a giant leaf pile in one corner of the playground. Cova pulled out some sediment from the bottom of the pile, showing the class how the decomposing leaves make a rich soil that is good for future plants.

New play area at Pregny!

Over fall break, a new play structure was built in the forest! The class went out to explore the structure last week and, after rigorous testing, we have found that it's a lot of fun!



There are lots of ways to climb up onto the structure. One side is a mini rock climbing wall with a rope to hang on to.


Sliding from the top is always fun!



You can also climb up the ladder or the rope ladder next to it.



When you get to the top, there is a funny mirror!

Spooktacular crafts

With Halloween quickly approaching, we have been making some spooky, scary (or just happy) jack-o-lanterns and bats to decorate the classroom.





Some of the children also made masks to take home for the weekend.








Can you guess who is behind each of these jack-o-lantern masks???