Farm animal fun!

This week was full of farm facts and fun! We learned that cows can drink a bathtub full of water everyday, that a chicken is related to Tyrannosaurus Rex, and that you can learn a horses age by counting its teeth! And, we made some of THE cutest farm animal crafts this week, if I do say so myself! Check out our letter h horses below! I found this craft idea here.

These baby chicks were so much fun too. The kids loved getting those toes tickled as we painted their foot. Add a wing, an eye, a beak, and some feet and voila, our little chickadees!

Our sensory table was filled with bird seed this week. It has a great texture and is so fun to play with. Hidden in the birdseed were many different farm animals. The kids found the animals and moved them down to the farm where they belonged.

We practiced counting with our little piggies this week.......our toes and these pigs below. Each piggy bank had a number on its belly and the kids counted out that many pennies to put in their bank.

We strengthened our hand muscles with our holey letter H this week! We used the hole punches to punch holes in our letter H, and made the letter H "hu" sound as we did!

We sorted these farm animals by color, size, mouth or beak, walk or fly. 

We did some spelling this week! And, of course, every word that we spelled out was something that could be found on a farm!

We even had an "udderly" good time practicing our milking skills. This center had some latex gloves with with water. The three middle fingers on each glove had a small hole poked into it and the kids squeezed the milk water out until their cow was done milking!

We know that being a farmer isn't all it's "cracked up" to be....it is a lot of hard work! This center had some eggs that Farmer Ben had broken and cracked! He needed help from the kids to get them back together and in their carton. The kids matched the eggs up by matching their lowercase to uppercase letters. 

We had fun counting and matching with our Uno Moo game!

Felt farm scenes!

We even did some math horse raising! We started our houses at the starting line, rolled the die, and our horse moved that many lines forward until they made it to the end of the race!

Kendrick and Rocky are playing a mama and baby match-up game below. We learned that a baby turtle is called a hatchling, a dog is a puppy, and more!

We are starting our journals this week! I will be pulling each child aside during centers to work on letter formation and name practice!

Fall is here!

It's starting to get chilly outside! But, we don't let that get us down. We did talk about how the leaves are coming down, however. We talked about all things fall this week: cooler weather, colors changing, leaves falling. And, check out this candid moment of the kids while we were singing our fall leaves song! Isn't it great?!

We also read a really cute book called, "Fall Is Not Easy" by Marty Kelley. It is a very cute book about a tree that thinks every season is easy, except Fall. It isn't quite sure what to do in the Fall. There are some cute illustrations of the tree trying to know what to be.......a jack-o-lantern pattern, polka-dotted, and even a cow, which is what we based our craft off of below.

We made some Fall AB patterns this week. They are doing great with their patterns!

During centers, we had some Fall stamps that they could make some more patterns with. Here is Bridger displaying his excellent pattern making skills!

For sensory, we found some fall treasures in the sand table. Some of the treasures included plastic acorns, leaves, and pumpkins.

We could visit the art center and make some Fall dot art pictures. We had pumpkins, scarecrows, turkeys, and squirrels. 

For a science center, we had some leaf rubbings and talked about the veins and their purpose. They loved seeing how much detail came through onto their paper.

We have now discussed letters A-G. We practiced our letter formations with our long straight lines, short straight lines, long curvy lines, and short curvy lines. 

Our math center was all about apples! We had some apples that each had a number on them. The kids practiced counting out that number of seeds and adding them to their apples.

We also had a pop-it game (works like the game Trouble) where they would pop their die and whatever number it landed on, they added that many apples to their baskets.

As each new season approaches, we will discuss the four seasons. This center was our match-a-season miniatures. We had miniature items that are common in each season, and we matched them up with their correct season mat.

We also had some four seasons puzzles.

And, our little hands and fingers are still getting strong with our stringing activities. This week we strung some apple jacks onto a string necklace. This is actually a hard task for a preschooler, so great practice at home helps too! Gives them lots of strength to hold that pencil correctly!

I will be sending library books home with your child next week so watch for them to come home. Please help your child take care of their book and return it weekly so that the books can cycle through each child. Thanks!!