December!!

Okay, I know you think that I forgot about the blog, but I didn't....promise.  It has been one very busy month!  Here is an overview of what we learned this month.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a ton of pictures because we were busy working on our assessments, and our program (which the kids did great at might I add). 
We learned about Polar Animals!!  We had a great time learning about polar bears, penguins, owls, and more.  We talked about where they live, what they eat, and how they live.  We talked about how penguins stay in packs, and when they move, the dads pack around their eggs on their feet.

We practiced this by balancing beanbags on our feet.  This was tough.  We can only imagine what it would be like with fragile eggs!  It takes some great balance to do this!

We made furry polar bears with coconut. 

                   We talked about different ice structures and of course had to build our own. 

We played mitten match.  The children are getting really good at matching games!  They love them.

We also talked about the eskimos and igloos.  We made our own igloos, but some of them didn't make it home because they were made out of marshmellows so they got eaten before they made it very far!

And, of course, we talked about the holidays this month.  We talked about some of the traditions we each have.  We made our own reindeer ornaments for our tree (out of puzzle pieces!), we talked about some of the different holidays celebrated at this time, and we made our treat countdown til Christmas.  We had a lot of fun practicing our program, and we finished learning the letters of the alphabet!!

I want to thank all of the parents that were so kind to come in and volunteer their time with us.  We enjoyed having visitors and I couldn't have gotten everything done without your help! 

We celebrated two birthdays this month.  Happy Birthday to Tyler and Zack!

Check out those grins!!  Cheese!

Hope everyone has a great holiday season!  Happy New Year!  Can't wait to see what it brings.  We still have a lot of fun things to accomplish this school year.  Can't wait to get started!

Dino-riffic!

So glad that everyone was able to "stomp" through the snow this week and join in our journey back to prehistoric times.  Dinosaurs are one of my favorite units because the kids enjoy it so much....even the girls.  We were even able to hatch our own dinosaur in each of the classes.

We put the dinosaur egg in some warm water on the first preschool day...........

And the next preschool day he looked like this!  This was a really fun activity.  I bought them at Lakeshore Learning for just a couple of dollars and the eggs break apart just like a chicken would hatch.  It continues to grow even a bit more after it completely hatches out of the egg.

We worked on the letters S and T this week.  For S we made slithery snakes out of playdough that would say "ssssssss" as they children formed them into an S.  And for T we made triangles out of toothpicks. 

The children were able to search for fossils.  We had our sieve shovels that they dug up the dinosaurs bones with, and then they were able to examine them and clean them with their brushes.  

We talked about what colors we thought the dinosaurs may have been.  We also used some different textures and did dinosaur rubbings to make our dinosaur skin.

The children made buildings and such for the dinosaurs to tromp on!

We practiced holding our scissors correctly this week.  We did this by cutting zigzag lines, which were our dinosaurs sharp teeth, and singing this song as we did so:

(To the tune of London Bridge)

Keep your thumb up when you cut

When you cut, when you cut

Keep your thumb up when you cut

And squeeze the blades together.

Dinosaur puzzles that helped us sequence our numbers from 1-10

We also talked about volcanoes this week and why they erupt.  We used baking soda and vinegar for our eruptions. 

We have started practing our program and the kids are doing great!  Can't wait for you all to see it!

We are also doing our assessments at this time.  I will have some paperwork for each parent to see how your children are doing by the Christmas break!

Dinosaur Song

                                                        (To the tune of I'm a little tea pot)

I'm a mean old dinosaur

Big and tall

Here is my tail

And here is my claw

When I get all hungry

I just growl

Watch out guys, I'm on the prowl!

Thanksgiving

This week we talked about all the things that we are thankful for.  You will like your children's answers :)  I wrote them down on a leaf cutout and will hand them out with the scrapbook at the end of the year.  We also talked about size comparisons this week.  We read a big book (literally, it is 3 feet by 2 feet!) talking about big and small things, and then we compared sizes with a game shown in the center below:

We also set the table for Thanksgiving dinner and had our own little feast.  The children were great at sharing and loved cooking for each other.

We also practiced our letter R this week.  I wrote some 'R's on the table and covered it with shelving paper (can't think of the name right now) and the kids were allowed to color on the table for a day.  Of course, they were very happy to do so as you see below:

We also talked some more about coins.  We have now been introduced to each of the coins, so the children had a veggie tray with all of the coins mixed up in the middle tray and had to sort them by coin in the different trays.  They may not remember the each of the names or the values so much, but even to have them differentiate between the different coins is a good start.  They remember more than we think though, we all know that from experience! 

And, you can't talk about Thanksgiving without giving the good ol' turkey some of the spotlight, so we each made our own turkey out of pumpkin and leaf cutouts. 

The Monday-Wednesday class had one extra day this week, and we talked about families.  We each named the members of our family and made popsicle stick puppets for each member.  We also talked some more about Thanksgiving dinner and how much time it takes to prepare (like growing the vegetables in advance).  We each cut pictures out of magazines and glued them to our "grocery list".  The children had some interesting finds for Thanksgiving feasting (a lot of goodies!).

I am surely grateful for all of your wonderful children and the time that I get to spend with them!  They mean so much to me.  I am thankful for my job and the opportunity that each of you give me to inspire, teach, and love your children!

P.S. Happy Birthday to Kylie this week!

Pilgrims and Indians

This week we had fun learning about why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  We talked about the letters P, and Q.  The day we talked about the letter P, we also talked about the pilgrims.  We talked about how they decided to leave their country for religious freedom and a better life and traveled by a boat called the Mayflower to come to the United States.

         We talked about what they wore and made our own pilgrim hats.

We talked about how it took a long time for them to travel, and we also talked about wind and how the pilgrims had to depend on the wind to get where they wanted to go.  They were the wind helping the boats travel.

                                           We colored pictures of the pilgrims.

We also made pinwheels that we took outside and watched them go around and around with the wind.

We also talked about the letter Q this week.  We continued to talk about coins, and talked about the dime and the quarter. 

And, we can't forget the Indians when talking about Thanksgiving.  We talked about how they helped the Pilgrims and showed them how to grow food. 

                                                  We made our own Indian corn.

And, to practice our letter Q, we used "cookies" (cookie crisp) and traced the letter on our cookie sheet to bake in the oven and then ate our "warm" cookies afterwards.

We also practiced our numbers with our number tree.  We placed the correct amount of leaves on each branch according to the number it called for, and then once the tree was full of leaves, we pretended to be the wind in the fall and made all of the leaves fall to the ground.
And, we also made Indian vests and headbands to take home to tell our families about the Indians.  We sang the Ten Little Indians song.

                                         Happy Birthday to Paige this week!

We also learned a song this week called the Number Rock.  It is one we will sing at our program and in it we count from 1-20!

5 senses continued........

We learned about the last 2 of the 5 senses this week.....touch and hearing.

We had some bags filled with different objects that we had to stick our hands in and try to find the matches by just feeling....no peeking allowed.

We learned about the letter 'O' this week.  We had fun with an O ring toss and making our cheerio O's.

We also learned about the penny and the nickel.  Here we are counting our pennies.

We learned about different textures this week.  The textures we talked about were soft, hard, smooth, rough, squishy and bumpy.

For some of our hearing object lessons, we had containers filled with different materials (rice, corn kernals, beans) and listened to the different sounds each made.

We also listened to story readers. Who doesn't love to read (and hear) a good book!

And, we made these wonderful quacking ducks!  (I know you love them :))

To make them quack, just dampen the sponge with water, and run the sponge down the string.

We also played with Mr. Potato head and friends.  We have now finished our five senses and what better than to give Mr. Potato all of his parts.....eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, nose for smelling, mouth for tasting, and hands for touching!

We learned our days of the week song this week.  We will begin practicing our program next week, so watch for your child's part to come home and please help them start to memorize their line. Thanks!!