It turns out, both are acceptable ways to pluralize “octopus,” and pluralize we did today at project time!  The Tugboats enjoyed a project designed by one of our curriculum developers, Kristy, in which they practiced math and fine motor skills.  Each child made his or her own octopus!  Everyone was given a half-circle (half of an O, perhaps?) as well as a page with squiggly lines dividing the page into 8 tentacles.  Armed with a pair of scissors, they set to work cutting out their tentacles.  Some of the children are already experts as scissor use and breezed through this step.  Others needed much more one-on-one help, which was easy to accommodate with our parent teacher, Liz, in the classroom.  For the younger children, today’s project was much more about process than product; as they begin to master using scissors, they tend to annihilate their practice materials.  Kristy was well-prepared for those children and provided extra pre-cut tentacles so that they would still have a project to complete.  Once the cutting was finished, the children counted 8 tentacles each and began to glue them on their half-circles.  For the final step, they selected googley eyes from an assorted collection and their octopi were complete!