Winter is fast approaching.  As the dark has begun to encroach on the beginnings and endings of our days and the final leaves have drifted to the ground, we have been bundling up and staying active to keep warm in the cooler temperatures.  Bulls have been roaming our yard in search of food, pumpkin decomposition has been hastened, and travelers have been hopping, scooting, peddling, running, and riding around.Monday students learned about nutrition with Zeanny.  She introduced My Plate and the food groups, then read Bread, Bread, Bread and Nanette’s Baguette to teach us about grains.  We did some moving and grooving to exercise our bodies then each tried a plate with a piece of different grain products, including rice cake, pita bread, bagel, and baguette with some hummus and cream cheese.Monday was the monthly visit to the library with Susan and Tammy.  The children chose some new books to borrow, listened to a story, then spent time playing with trains, caring for babies, putting out fires, and rolling marbles down chutes.Stone Soup, an annual Sunnybrook tradition each November, was introduced.  We watched a video of the story of three hungry travelers knocking on doors in search of food.  When they are repeatedly turned away, they decide that they will cook for the hungry community.  They request a large pot and commence preparing a feast from a stone.  We will continue to read a variety of versions of the Stone Soup story in preparation for our Stone Soup meal on Wednesday, November 21^st.Nurse Heather visited to tell us about her work in the hospital.  She wore her scrubs so we could see what a nurse’s uniform is.  She demonstrated how to use a stethoscope to listen to our hearts, lungs, and stomachs to make sure everything is healthy and strong.  She introduced a sphygmomanometer to measure blood pressure.  She told us about the helicopter that sometimes picks up patients that are in need of special care and takes them to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.  The children had many questions and comments to share.  Nurse Heather learned a lot about us during her visit!During woodworking with Mr. Bond the children each had the opportunity to add another side to their pencil/note holders.  Another few weeks and they may be ready to go home.We continued to practice our Spanish colors, numbers, and body parts with Zeanny.  The children took turns placing colors and numbers when Zeanny named them in Spanish.  She introduced the festival of Los Posadas, and a song the travelers sing as they move from one house to another.  Zeanny told the story of an expectant mother and father riding a donkey in search of a place to stay, and how people re-enact this story by visiting houses in the community and knocking on doors, asking for shelter.  When they reach the final house, they are invited in to celebrate together.  Zeanny also introduced the merengue and we began to learn how to march and move our hips, clap our hands together with a partner, and move around the room in a train.  We will continue to practice and hope to impress you with our singing and dancing during the winter performance!Susan brought out the glockenspiel and each child had an opportunity to play along to the song Make New Friends.  As Susan conducted, the children watched and played their block when pointed to.  They are anxious to each choose a song to participate in and play along with for our performance in December.Friday students continued to learn about how healthy food helps our bodies.  We studied the digestive system and how our bodies use and break down, then eliminate, the food we eat.  We read some poop stories, Everyone Poops and Perry Poops, and a digestion story, What Happens to a Hamburger?  We munched some crackers in our mouths using our teeth and saliva, then swallowed them down into the esophagus, then into the stomach.  In conjunction with What Happens to a Hamburger? We used a masher and water to be the mouth chewing up crackers and mixing with saliva.  We then “swallowed” it and it travelled to the stomach bag where it was mixed with stomach acids and mixed some more.  We then used an egg shaker as food and took turns squeezing it through the intestines (a cut off leg of a pair of tights) then pooped it out the end.  We stretched out strings that had been tied together to represent the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus – 21 feet long!  It is pretty amazing that all fits into our bodies!