WOW! TIME FLIES, HUH?

12/11/2020

We have been SUPER BUSY learning, working in the community, advocating for our friends who need a hand and a voice, and keeping up with strict COVID safety protocols in this "new normal" as cases rise throughout the city and the nation. Here are some of the things we have been up to since we last posted:

We Made Silly Masks

To get ready for Halloween (and decorate for our awesome Haunted House!), Mr. Halloween himself made some wonderful masks.

The Haunted House... 10/29/2020 and 10/30/2020.

Our Mad Scientist Haunted House was a ton of fun and a huge success! Guests were first treated to story time in our outdoor pumpkin patch. Friend Steph had tons of fun spooking random adult passerby pretending to be a real scarecrow! Inside, each family was temperature checked before having access to sensory items and activities, making their way to the main event: a spooky mad scientist lab complete with science experiments gone wrong and even a scary werewolf transformation! Each family member also received a goody bag with Halloween stories written by SYSS kiddos, candy, and fun little sensory items. Together we raised $53 in donations for the Autism Self-Advocacy Network!

First Pop Rocks Experience

One of our kiddos had never had PopRocks before. I totally couldn't let that injustice stand, so I decided to dig deep and pull out a lesson I hadn't used since I lived in Baltimore County. First, Miss SassyPants had to try the PopRocks...

Miss SassyPants had such a fun reaction that I had to take two videos to catch all the awesome...

After all that fun, it was time to write!

Exploring Numbers >10

W has been killing it in math...to the point that it can be hard to keep up! That kiddo has advanced more and demonstrated more mastery in the past two months than she has since the beginning of COVID. Here is a short peek at the beginning of our work identifying place value and groups of tens and ones:

We had a visit from a slug friend.

We studied rocks, minerals, and fossils.

In science, Mr. Halloween and W learned about rocks, minerals, and fossils, the important job geologists do, used rocks to make cool art prints, and used magnifying glasses and a microscope to get an up-close look at different rocks and minerals. Both kiddos had a lot of questions, like: