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.