Pumpkins

We are all geared up for Halloween! 

Here are some pictures from our week of pumpkin fun.

On Friday, Mrs. Malon and I both carved pumpkins while the kids watched. 

Here's the finished product:

 The kids got to feel the stringy insides and the seeds.

On Monday, we'll roast the seeds and eat them! 

This week, we'll talk about Trick-or-Treating safety and dress up for Halloween.  See you at the party!

B is for Bat, S is for Scarecrow

The last two weeks have been filled with fall fun.  First, we learned about bats.  

We learned about what they eat, how they hear, and what makes them different from birds.  

This is the poster we used during circle time to label a bat's body parts.

The 4 year old class made these cute little black bats with magnets on the back.

Here's Mrs. Malon helping with the assembly of the bats. 

One afternoon, we took a nature walk.  Each student got a piece of paper on a clip board that had different objects they needed to find in nature. Some of the objects the children had to find were sticks, stones, red, yellow, and green leaves, bark, and acorns.  We did leaf rubbings when we got back inside. Here are the kids with their findings:

Another day, we practiced counting with candy corn.  It's way more fun to count when you get to eat the things you're counting with! 

The 3 year old class had their first experience with our rubber band boards the other day.  I was so impressed with how well they stretched those rubber bands and made interesting designs! All that stretching is great for improving fine motor skills.  

Every time kids work with play dough, they improving their fine motor skills, as well.  Here, they are also working on one-to-one correspondence by placing one "apple" on one blank circle on the tree. 

Last week was scarecrow week in preschool! We read these books and talked about what a scarecrow's job is.  We talked about what scarecrows are made of and how lonely they must feel out in the middle of the field. 

Each class made a scarecrow craft to compliment the week's theme.  Here is a picture of the geometric scarecrows the 3 year old class made.  

These are made out of shapes that we have been learning about in class. 

A couple of very popular centers in our classroom right now are the writing center and the sensory tub. In the writing center, the students use markers, crayons, stamps, letter punches, and many other mediums to write and draw.  Here, they are welcome to create whatever comes into their heads, with whatever tools we have available. 

You might see a paper come home with a little sticker that says "writing center activity".  This means that your child has been working on writing and drawing.  Soon, children will have blank books available to them. They will use these to emulate real books by filling them with pictures and dictation. 

Our sensory tub is filled with part of a real tree, fake leaves, tiny fake pumpkins and gourds, fake corncobs, and some little animals.  Students use magnifying glasses to discover all the objects up close. 

This week is all about pumpkins! We're looking forward to a busy, beautiful autumn week.

Apples!

Apple season is just about done, but we sure had fun learning about them last week!  

Mrs. Malon read the story about the little red house with no doors or windows and a star inside.  Click here if you've never heard it.  

 Here's the star inside the apple!

An apple counting/number recognition activity... 

 We also made cinnamon apples!

First, we had to peel and cut a bunch all those apples.  Fortunately, Mrs. Malon brought in a handy apple peeler that the kids could use.  

 We used an electric skillet to cook them.  They smelled so good!

 Here are some students enjoying the fruits of their labor!

 To top it all off, we also did marble painting on apple shapes.  

This week has been all about bats! We have enjoying learning what bats eat, how they find they food, their different parts, and how they are different than birds.  

Our Halloween parties will be on Tuesday, October 30 and Wednesday, October 31 (depending on which class your child is in).  I will have sign up sheets for volunteers and treats next week.  

Five Senses

Every day, students in our afternoon session focus on a skill or a specific topic, and do an activity related to it.  Recently, we were discussing our five senses.  Here are some of the projects we did to learn about those senses:

Touch

We explored our sense of touch by reading a story about a chicken and discussing what feathers feel like.  Then we practiced coloring and gluing skills while decorating some very colorful hens.  

 Sight

Some of our sight activities included this eye color graph

and these sensory bottles.  When using the sensory bottles, students are exploring mediums, looking for letters, naming shapes, comparing viscosity, and listening for differences in sound.

In case you're wondering, here are the contents of the bottles, from left to right:

*Orange dish soap and letter confetti

*Water, pony beads, glitter

*Hot water mixed with glitter, glitter glue, and corn syrup

*Rice and small plastic animals

Taste

After learning about our tongues and the different areas that taste different things, we did a taste test of salty, sweet, sour, and bitter foods.  

Although I forgot to take a picture, we made a graph about each child's favorite food from the taste test.  No one preferred the lemon, but the sweet marshmallows, the bitter chocolate, and the salty potato chips each got a few votes.  

Smell

I found an excellent recipe for Jello Play Dough here. It required only a little hot water from the microwave, so it was easy to make in the classroom.  

We mixed it up...

 and used lots of flour to make it less sticky.

 We used strawberry banana jello, and it smelled yummy!

 The kids got to play with it and then take their own ball of dough home.  

Sound

Mr. Schuman gave us a nice lesson on sound, and then let us use his instruments.  

We are busy in the afternoons!  

Every student is welcome to stay every afternoon!