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Week 3 of Fall: Happy Halloween

Dear Spoede Pre-K Families,

Thank you so much for the wonderful Halloween Party and for all of the family members who were able to join us at the parade and during our celebration. A special thanks to Lani's Mom and Isaac's Mom for organizing the party as our Room Parents. The students had a great time and loved all of the activities and their goody bags. This week we finished up our Halloween theme with lots of great stories and some fun projects. In celebration of reaching our Dance-A-Thon goal, the teachers once again competed in an inflatables race and everyone enjoyed a popsicle! Thank you to everyone who supported and continues to support the SSA! Spoede Pre-K did not watch the races because our Art Time was a conflict. However, we will watch the video of the Race on Monday as a class. This upcoming week we will be focusing on Veterans Day and America theme. Remember that there is NO SCHOOL on Tues., Nov. 3 due to Mid-Term Election Voting and Teacher Professional Development.

Here's what we did this past week, including participating in the Red Ribbon week themes.

Monday- Dream of Healthy Choices (Pajama Day). We Started out our Monday with our group share all comfy in our pajamas. New jobs were assigned. In centers, we made handprint Spiders to add to our spider webs we made the previous week by tracing the web with pastel oil crayons and painting with watercolor. To make the spiders, the students hands are painted with purple paint, and they place the handprints to look like spiders on the paper. We also Dot Painting ghosts and made Coffee filter Monster bodies by coloring the coffee filters with markers and using pipettes filled with water to blend the colors to resemble tie dye. Once dried, we will make them into monsters by adding arms, legs and a face. Students also began work on 5 Little Pumpkin Book which has the words from a Song/Poem/Book we learned.

Tuesday - Team Up Against Bad Choices (Jersey Day.) Lots of different jerseys we used in a quick round of What's My Rule. In Centers, we Cut out our handprint spiders and glued them on to our spider webs. We added arms, legs and Googly eyes, and faces to our monsters. Look at all those creepy eyes. We learned how to make the Letter Oo and then worked on the letter Oo in our Handwriting Without Tears Workbooks. We also dot painted the letter Oo. Finally, we had a great time in music with Ms. Li. We used scarves to move and sing like ghosts and bats. We used drum sticks and drummed to beat to the song, Witches Brew. Each students added their scarf to the cauldron and pretended it was a strange ingredient.

Wednesday - Give Bad Choices a Boot (Western Day). We made ghost with painted footprints. We will add faces when dry. We made spooky skeletons by gluing Q-tips and Q-tips pieces onto black paper to form the skeleton bones. We also painted and decorated mini-pumpkins, adding glitter, mini pom poms, and other fun craft items to create unique looks. These mini-pumpkins were donated to our class and we thank you.

Thursday - Hats off to Being a Role Model (Hat Day). We made our This is my Letter Oo Books. We sponge painted candy corns using white, orange and yellow. The sponge pieces were held by clothes pins and emphasizes good fine motor grips. The students also learned about negative space in art, by making Ghosts. We taped a ghost onto a white piece of paper and then we painted the outside, making sure we painted over the edges of the ghost. When dry and we take off the ghost template, the background will be colored and the ghost area will be white (negative space). We will add faces this week.

Friday - Say Boo to Bad Choices (Halloween Costumes). In the morning, we greeted many costumed characters into our Pre-K room, including.... a Lion, a Penguin, a Pterodactyl, Disneys' Woody from Toy Story, Princess Peach from Wreck It Ralph, Jasmine from Aladdin, Elsa from Frozen, Snow White, a Policeman, a Mailman, Spiderman, and 2 Batman's. Our TAs were twin Disney Belles from Beauty and the Beast and I was a Disney Halloween Jack-o-lantern. Bathroom breaks turned out to be an adventure. We probably redress 2-3 times throughout the day. We also helped remove some costumes at Art time. While waiting for Art, we played singing and dancing games. Ms. Ayres led them in a singing and dancing game and I led them in "Who Stole the Cookie from The Cookie Jar " while Ms. Courtney helped Ms. Tara set up the table for the art project. In Art, we painted apples with red and white paint, creating a "tint'. The apples will be used next Friday in a continuation apple art project. After lunch at recess, we enjoyed eating popsicles as did the whole school. In the afternoon, we participated in the all-school Halloween Parade, seeing all of the cool and spooky costumes. Finally, we enjoyed a wonderful Halloween Party, which started with a whole group Halloween Bingo, with everyone a winner! We were provided three centers, including making paper plate ghosts, stringing colorful and glow-in-the-dark beads on pipe cleaners to create bracelets, and a coloring center, using markers on a super cool Halloween banner we are going to enjoy working on for several days. We will be sure to share a picture of the completed project on the Blog when we are done. All in all, it was a very busy and exciting day!

Please feel free to share with me your pictures from Trunk or Treat and/or your child's trick or treating on Halloween Night. I will add them to my Blog.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Tues., Nov. 3 Voting Day: No School for students. Professional Development for Teachers

Wed., Nov. 11. Veterans Day Parade and reception 2:00 pm. Everyone Wears Red, White, and Blue. (See details below)

Mon., Nov. 16 Fire Drill 2:50 pm

Thurs., Nov. 19 Assembly, 4th Grade Musical. 2:00 - 3:00 pm.

Encore 4th Grade musical 6:00 - 7:00 mm

Tues., Nov. 24. Kindergarten Alphabet Parade. 9:30 am

Wed., Nov. 25 No School, Thanksgiving Break

Thurs., Nov. 26 No School, Thanksgiving Break.

Fri., Nov. 27 No School, Thanksgiving Break

Fri., Nov. 27 Daphne's Birthday

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Holiday Happiness 2026

From Danielle Green, Ladue School District Social Worker:

Many of our Ladue Schools families experience stress and worry associated with the added financial burden of the holidays. The Holiday Happiness program is designed to fulfill the holiday wishes and needs of those families so they, too, can enjoy the holiday season. Ladue Schools is teaming up once again with its Parent Associations, local businesses, and municipal partners to brighten the holiday season for families in our school community through the district's annual Holiday Happiness gift-sharing drive.

Participation in this program will be kept confidential and shared only with your child's school counselor and Danielle Green, the Ladue School District Social Worker.

If your family needs additional support this holiday season, submit your information using this Google Form by Tuesday, Nov. 3, or contact Ladue School District Social Worker Danielle Green at (314) 983-5339 or email dgreen@ladueschools.net.

Thank you for allowing us to help make your holidays bright.

**If you would like to contribute/help fulfill wishes, please be on the lookout for a SignUpGenius that will be shared later in November.**

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Our students and staff are excited to celebrate this coming Veterans Day (Wednesday, Nov. 11) with those who have served and/or who are currently serving our country! Please share the invite below with any military individuals you may know so that we can honor them in our Veterans Day Parade.

Please make sure to RSVP via the link immediately following (also linked on the flyer that is attached to this message).

LINK RSVP HERE

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Spoede Night at the St. Louis Blues

Join other Spoede families, all while enjoying discounted tickets, to see the St. Louis Blues in action against the Calgary Flames!

Sunday, January 3 | 6:00 PM | Enterprise Center

Purchase tickets through the dedicated Spoede link here: https://www.gofevo.com/event/SpoedeSchoolFundraiser

$5 from each ticket sold will go back to Spoede Elementary School!

All tickets must be purchased by December 27.

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We hope you enjoy the pictures from Red Ribbon / Halloween Week!

Monday

Making Handprint Spiders to add to our spider webs.

Making Coffee Filter Monster bodies with washable markers and sprinkling water from a pipette to make the colors blend together,

Making 5 Little Pumpkins Book

Tuesday

Morning Routine - Alphabet Chanting

Cutting out and adding Spiders to our Spider Webs

Finishing our coffee filter marker blended monsters. First we cut slits around the coffee filters. Then added arms, legs, and faces with marker and Googly Eyes.

Dot painting the letter Oo and creating own pictures.

Music with Ms. Li

Dancing to the Song, My Ghost... Floating in the wind with scarves.

Singing and Flying Around like little bitty bats with scarves.

Learned another new song, Witches Brew with Drum sticks keeping the beat while singing the song. Each student takes a turn adding their own ingredient (scarf) into the cauldron. The student mixes the brew with the drum stick while everyone sings the ingredients in order from the newly added ingredient back to the original one.