A is for Appleseed

Fall is here, and what a better way to welcome it than by learning about all things apples? Including, Johnny Appleseed! Isn't he a keeper?!

 

Our math center was filled with apples for us to put on the apple trees. We put the corresponding amount of apples on each tree, and then counted them as we picked them and added them to the basket.

This tree had a bunch of apples ready to be picked......26 to be exact. Each uppercase letter leaf had a lowercase apple counterpart that belonged right next to it on the tree. 

They did a great job matching them up!

We traced our letters this week by starting our lines at our "green go" dot, and stopping at the "red stop" dot.

We discovered what types of items we use/need for the different seasons with these miniature look-a-likes. 

We did some counting.

And, some balancing/measuring.

And, we built some puzzles for each of the 4 seasons!

Dinosaur discoveries

I hope that your kids came home with lots to say about dinosaur week! It is always a favorite amongst us all. During circle time, we talked about the different types of dinosaurs, what they ate, and how there were volcanoes back with the dinosaurs too. We each took a turn creating our own volcanic eruption! The kids got so excited each and every time!

We dug for some dinosaurs bones in the sand table. We talked about how a paleontologist is one who studies fossils. I know that they have already forgotten that big word, but they sure had fun pretending to be one.

And made this dino bone craft.

We also made our own dinosaur fossils!

Our math center this week was a color graphing game. We took turns pulling colored dinosaurs out of our mystery bag, and then filled in a square of that colored column. Which color will win? This was great for color recognition, along with practice in coloring in the lines.

We worked on matching our uppercase letters to our lowercase letters with these alphabet dinosaur puzzles. 

And, we searched for the letters of the alphabet that we have learned so far this year in this dinosaur hidden letter picture.

We also had our letter builders out for the uppercase alphabet. We built letters with our straight and curvy lines. 

We practiced recognizing our numbers 1-10 by sight with these dinosaur strip puzzles. 

And, we had a center full of trees, volcanoes, and DINOSAURS! Let the exploration and imaginations run wild!

What a roaring good time we had this week!!

Fire Prevention week

I apologize for my lack of posts lately! I could come up with a million excuses, but I will just do my best to get caught up so that you can see the cute pictures of your kids. We are doing great in school! I have super easy-going, cooperative kids this year. Thank you for all of the work you do at home to coincide with what we are doing at school!

We were lucky to have a special visit from a friend this month. Firefighter Tom came to our school to inform us with some fire safety tips and show us all of his gear. We prepared for his visit by learning some fire safety tips, and even did our own fire drill. I'm sure you heard about us climbing out the window.

This math center helped us with our number to number correspondence up to number 10. Each fire dog had a number on its fire hat, and we added that many spots (chocolate chips) to his coat. 

Another math center that we had fun with were some red firetruck printouts. Each firetruck had a number on it, and we filled the truck with that many firefighters.

We talked about what emergency vehicles look like, and what sounds they make. We learned why we move over when we hear their sirens, and we built up our own vehicles with these block puzzles.

We talked about the letter H this week. Fires are hot! And, we put them out by punching holes in our letter H's.

And, we had to dress the part, of course! 

We even took a short walk to find the nearest fire hydrant on the street. We know not to park in front of one, and what the firefighters use them for when needed.

And, Tom came to visit too! He taught us to stay low, and go! Once we get out, we stay out! And, to not hide, go outside!

He showed us all of his gear, how it worked, and all of the sounds it makes. Now we won't be scared if we ever need help from a fireman.

Name that shape!

What did we cook up in preschool this week? Some shapes, of course. And, our shape chefs helped us distinguish each shape from each other. This batch of cookies were shaped as pentagons, ovals, and diamonds. Didn't they turn out cute?!

And, then we cooked up some shapes ourselves. We traced some shapes with our cookie crisp, and after we traced the shape, we tried out those yummy cookies!

Our math center this week helped us recognize numbers 1-10 by sight. If we weren't sure what a number was, we added some pegs to our numbered peg board, and counted them up!

For our writing center, we traced some shapes on our Sammy the Scarecrow. We had fun finding and counting all of his shapes. 

This center was perfect for our little fingers. We had the game perfection, with a bunch of shapes. We put them in their correct spot by looking at the outline on the board and adding its yellow shape. But, we had to hurry quick, before our time ran out. If not, the shapes popped out, and we had to start over again. 

And, we got so excited when we beat the timer!

These shape pegboards were fun for our little fingers! And, helped us associate our big and little shapes.

Our bean bag toss was a great hand-eye coordination activity. 

And, we had our water table out this week filled with some turtles. These turtles were missing their shells. But, no fear, we were able to find their shapes by matching the shape on the top of the turtles back, with the same shape on its shell. 

My daughter, McKenzie, has been off-track the last 3 weeks, and it has been so fun having her help in school. Here she is reviewing shapes with all of the kids! The kids have really grown to love her and can't wait until she is off-track again! (Me either, she is a big help!) :)