Elves

Tuesday morning, when we went into circle time an elf was sitting on a shelf with a book.  Everyone was so excited to see an elf had come to school!!  We read the story and then we needed to name our elf.  Each child shared a name that they thought would be just right for our elf.  The top three winners were Freddy, Sparkle, and Berry.  We decided to put them all together and name our elf Freddy Sparkleberry!  During activity time we made "elf hats".

On Wednesday, Freddy Sparkleberry was in the quiet activity room sitting on a window ledge.  He had red velvet cupcakes that he brought to share with the kids for snack!  It was a nice day so we had a chance to get outside and play for awhile.  Inside we heard several Christmas stories, and during activity time made an elf project out of the letter E.  We also had spinning tops and dreidels  to play with as well as play dough with Christmas cookie cutters.

After quiet activity time on Thursday we went on an elf hunt.  We looked in all of the rooms downstairs and couldn't find Freddy.  Finally we found him sitting under a tree in the media room.  He was sitting on top of a present!!  We opened it up and there was a wooden baking set for us to use in our play kitchen!  During activity time some of us chose to play with this.  We also traced over the lowercase letters of the alphabet, and played with cars and kinetic sand. We read a story called "The Twelve Days of Christmas".  It was a take off of the traditional version.  Instead of having a partridge in a pear tree it had a party in a pear tree.  When we got to the eighth day there were 8 elves baking!!  That's why Freddy brought us the baking set....he likes to help Santa bake cookies!!  The holiday spirit is all over our classroom....hope your houses are filled with it too!

The Gingerbread Man

We started the week hearing the story The Gingerbread Man.   We had fun chanting along with the story saying, "Run, run, as fast as you can, You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"  At the end of the story, to develop our reading comprehension, we tried to remember everyone who was chasing the Gingerbread Man. It might be fun to see if your child can still remember!!  (a little old lady, a little old man, a dog, cat, cow). Ask your child what happened to the Gingerbread Man at the end of the story!  Of course we had to have Gingerbread Men for a snack!  Mrs. Chyko was home sick with a cough so Mrs. Jenkins helped out all morning.  We had an extra long music time as we're starting to get ready for our Holiday Show.  During activity time we used gingerbread stencils to make our own gingerbread people and we decorated foam gingerbread cut outs using glitter glue and other decorations.

Wednesday we read The Gingerbread Baby.  It's similar to the Gingerbread Man but the Gingerbread cookie comes out of the oven 3 minutes early; so it's a baby!  This story is written by Jan Brett and has wonderful illustrations.  Here is a link to her website...there are nice activities for kids to interact with on this site.  http://www.janbrett.com/index.html

We had gingerbread babies for snack today and looked through a lot of new books about Christmas which have been added to our classroom library. This month we have kinetic sand  in our sensory tub. We also have gingerbread cookie cutters and gingerbread playdough, Lincoln Logs so the kids can build their own gingerbread houses and at the art table we started decorating  gingerbread houses.  

Thursday we had an ABC dot to dot we could choose to work on first thing in the morning.  During circle time we heard Gingerbread Friends.  Both of these Jan Brett stories had chants that the children joined along with during the read aloud.  We also learned a fingerplay about 5 Little Gingerbread Men during circle time.  For snack we had two gingerbread men connected together....gingerbread friends. We've been practicing our spanish during snack time and have been saying "si, por favor" instead of yes please and gracias instead of thank you.  Mr. Fleming came in and taught us how to say Merry Christmas (Feliz Navidad).  He also asked each one of us what we wanted for Christmas in Spanish and we had to reply to him in Spanish!!  (he helped everyone with the words).  During activity time, we finished our Gingerbread Houses, played with magnetic tiles, cars, kinetic sand, blocks, and gingerbread play dough. 

Corn and other things

We finished the cornucopias we've been working on with Mrs. Chyko...we have a lot of budding artists in our class!!

Noah was our Maple Leaf of the Week.  We had fun looking at Noah's poster as he told us all about his favorite things!!  One of his favorite things to play with are trains and on Thursday he brought in a special snack on a popsicle stick!!  Thanks Noah for sharing such a yummy treat with us!

We had fun painting with Indian Corn this week.  We painted right on the corn and then rolled it on paper in the shape of corn.  This was lots of fun but our hands sure got messy!!

Tuesday was our extended day...6 of us stayed for lunch and extra play time.  It's always exciting to eat lunch at school with our friends!

We used popcorn, pea, bean, sunflower, pumpkin, and corn seeds to make a seed mosaic in the shape of a maple leaf.  It's fun to see how each child created their own design using the same materials....beautiful!

We had a lot of fun building very tall towers with the blocks!!

We introduced several new materials this week.  The kids enjoyed creating things with Magna Tiles, homemade pumpkin scented play dough, and duplos.  They also had fun using the Woodland Critters play house, magna doodle, number puzzle and etch a sketch!

As always we heard lots of stories, sang lots of songs, practiced our 5 Little Turkeys poem and used alphabet beads to create necklaces with our names!  Some of the kids wondered when "The Spanish Guy" (Mr. Fleming) will be visiting again...should be after Thanksgiving!  Hasta Luego for now!

Turkeys

What a busy week!  We started the week on Tuesday with show and tell.  The theme was turkeys or something to do with Thanksgiving.  Show and Tell is always a favorite with the kids!  After show and tell, it was time to talk about Maple Leaf of the Week.  Caden was Maple Leaf and he brought in his "All About Me" poster to share with the class.  He also was our calendar helper and line leader for the week!  Next it was time to celebrate with Max.  It was his 4th birthday!  He brought in a special treat of "mud cups and worms" to share with his friends.  It was so yummy...Thanks Max and Happy Birthday! (Of course we sang to him in English and Spanish!)

We went to music after our snack.  It was so nice outside, we went out to play for an extra long time....when we came inside we heard a book that Zoefii brought in called Pete the Cat's Thanksgiving.  We also heard a book called Ten Fat Turkeys that Noah brought in. 

Thanks for sharing the books with us Noah and Zoefii....we loved them! 

 We were supposed to get to activity time and make turkeys out of toilet paper tubes but we ran out of time today!  We'll make them on Wednesday and Thursday instead. 

Wednesday we heard the book called  A Turkey for Thanksgiving

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We also watched some videos on our class ipad about turkeys.  We watched one that showed real turkeys gobbling and 2 others that were songs with animated turkeys. 

Here is one of the videos the kids enjoyed.  They may want to watch it again at home and sing along!!

We went outside again to enjoy the great weather...who knows how much longer it will last! 

During activity time, Mrs. Gould made toilet paper tube turkeys with the kids and Mrs. Chyko continued painting cornucopias with the kids at the easel.  We also had blocks, cars and trucks, trains, a floor puzzle, the sensory table, and other activities off the shelves for the kids to work with during this time.  We talked about the letter T and the sound it made right before we went home.  Right away the kids said, T like in Tannar!!  I love it when they start making connections like that!  

Thursday Caden's parents came in to visit.  Caden's dad is a volunteer fireman with Cedarburg.  He talked to us about fire safety and learning the number 9-1-1 in case of an emergency. He also brought in all of his gear and played a game with us where we had to help him put on his fire suit!  Then we had a turn to try on his boots, pants, hat, and gloves if we wanted to too.  We each got our own fire hat and badge to take home. 

We had a special "fire safety" snack too.  Jello jigglers in the shape of a fire truck, cheese in the shape of a fire hydrant, and water balloons (grapes)! Yum!

Thanks Caden and family for such a special morning!

When we finished with our snack we had time to look through books.  Then it was on to activity time!  In addition to finishing our paintings and toilet paper tube turkeys, we practiced tracing a turkey and played with the other activities in our classroom!  Lately building with mega blocks has been a favorite choice!

We learned a finger play called "5 Little Turkeys" at the end of the day and took home a copy so we could practice saying it at home too!

Fall Fun and Bears

The kids are always excited when it is a new month.  The calendar changes and so does our monthly pattern.  This month's pattern has to do with brown turkeys, orange turkeys and cornucopias. (Why do we practice making patterns?  Research has shown that the brain learns best by seeing patterns. Our number system as well as so many of our words are all based on patterns!)  We have a class teddy bear named "Barry" that has a monthly sweater to put on, this month it has a cornucopia on the front as well as the word November. During activity time the kids can dress Barry in his monthly sweaters if they choose. It's always exciting when Barry gets to change his sweater for the new month! Whenever we switch months we sing the months of the year song too!

Tuesday we celebrated Matthew's 4th birthday. He brought in Dairy Queen ice cream treats... sooo yummy!!  We sang Happy Birthday in English and Spanish...I wonder if the kids are singing the spanish version at home yet???  During activity time we painted the mini pumpkins that Matthew brought in last week.  The kids had so much fun using red, purple and gold paint to decorate their mini pumpkin !!  They love being able to mix colors when they paint...Thanks Matthew and Happy Birthday!

We heard a story called The Falling Leaves and the Scarecrow during circle time.  The scarecrow was supposed to keep the crows from eating the Farmer's Corn, but was having a hard time doing that.  Eventually the trees helped the scarecrow keep the crows away.  Our sensory tub is now filled with corn for the kids to work with.  We change the tub each month.  In September it was filled with kinetic sand,  in October with rice and November is dried corn month!  We  have some dried corn on cobs in the tub too!  The kids take  the corn off the cob with their fingers or tweezers...a great way to develop fine motor skills!

Wednesday we had 3 kids in class!!  We heard Raccoons and Ripe Corn and The Leaf Man during circle time.  During activity time we started painting our cornucopias with Mrs. Chyko at the easel and we made Leaf Men with Mrs. Gould at the rainbow table.  We had Maple Leaf cookies for snack. We got a new piece of outdoor climbing equipment so we had fun climbing on it and enjoying the great weather outside!

Thursday was Teddy Bear/Stuffed Animal Day!  The kids shared their animal with each other during circle time.  Max brought in a Giraffe, Naomi brought in a brown bear, Caden brought in "Bunny Bear", Liam brought in his favorite bear, Zoefii brought in a Lizard named Larry, Noah brought in Mickey Mouse, Brooke brought in Pink Panda Bear, and Matthew brought in a blue bear that played music. We all missed Tannar very much today...we want him to bring in his stuffed animal next week!

We heard a book called Bear has a Cold and learned the songs "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" and "The Bear Went Over the Mountain!" (Of course we had to act the songs out while we were singing!)

For snack we had Honey Grahams, since bears like to eat honey!!  After snack we had a lot of bear books to look through.   We went outside and played with balls, jump ropes, and badminton racquets and birdies, it was so nice out that it was hard to come back inside!

During activity time Mrs. Chyko kept working on painting cornucopias and Mrs. Gould taught the kids how to hold their crayons and connect an alphabet dot-to-dot. It turned out to be a bear!!  The kids colored in the bear and added bee stickers.  We also talked about the letter B and practiced identifying it and the sound it makes!

We ended the day with Mr. Fleming coming in and teaching us Spanish.  We learned the days of the week, colors and how to say hello and goodbye!  We also practiced going around in a circle and saying our names and the names of our stuffed animals in Spanish!

Halloween Fun

We started the week with "black day".  The kids wore black to school and we heard a story called Stellaluna about a little black bat who gets separated from her mother and lives with birds until the end when her mother finds her.  During art time we made a black bat out of a toilet paper tube.  We also finished our fall trees from last week by adding  Stellaluna and her mother (black foam bat stickers) to the project.  We had music today with Mrs. Jenkins and had fun moving around to the songs she taught us!

Max and Liam were home sick with a cold on Tuesday...we missed you two!!

Wednesday we had fun learning songs, rhymes and playing games to the "Wee Sing for Halloween" CD.  We played "The Spooky Loo" and "Fly Little Bats".  We also learned the rhyme "5 Little Pumpkins".  We memorized it and acted it out.  We had so much fun acting it out we wanted to show our "grown ups" at pick up time.  During activity time we made a gate out of popsicle sticks and put our little pumpkins on it.  In addition to having fun with the project we used it to practice counting and one to one correspondence while we were making it! We also practiced adding and subtracting while we were saying our chant and then creating it on paper!

Thursday was our costume party....everyone looked great in their costumes!  We sure missed Max though...he was still home sick.  The kids said he can wear his costume to school once he's feeling better if he wants too!!  Sounds good to me!

We had fun calling each other by our costume names...we had Superman, Jack O Lantern, Michelangelo, Batman, Tinkerbell, Leonardo, Bay Max and Thomas!  Mrs. Chyko and I were dressed like cats so the kids called us Kitty Cat!  We giggled all day long about our Halloween names.

We went on a parade around the church and visited with Ms. Sue and Ms. Tracy in the staff workroom.  Then we went to see Ms. Candy and Ms. Lucy in the church office.  We said our "5 Little Pumpkin" rhyme for them and they gave us Halloween treats!!  We got Smarties and M and M's. Thanks so much ladies!  The kids were so excited to show off their costumes!  When we returned from our parade Mrs. Chyko and Mrs. Curtis had the table set and ready for us to celebrate.

Thanks to all the parents who sent in items to make our party a success.  The kids loved frosting their cookies and adding sprinkles on top.  Special thanks to Heidi Curtis for organizing all the food, supplies, and games!  After we ate we broke into small groups and moved from station to station.  Mrs. Chyko ran the "glitter leaf" tattoo station, Mrs. Curtis ran the games (pumpkin bean bag toss and ghost (golf balls) into a cave (plastic cup) and Mrs. Gould ran the beaded pumpkin craft.  It was Matthew's real birthday today so he brought in treat bags to share with us too!  On Tuesday, we'll celebrate his birthday at school.

Happy Halloween!

Apples and Leaves

We talked about apples and pears today.  We read a book called Apples and Pumpkins and also heard a story called The Little Red House with No Windows and No Doors and a Star Inside  After we read the story we cut open an apple and found a star inside!  Then we used the apples to make apple prints. We tried to capture the star while we were printing.  We also cut a pear in half and didn't find a star....it looked more like a football inside!  We tried to capture that shape too!

We had our first extended day on Tuesday!  Six kids stayed for lunch and then we walked to Wildwood Park. On the way we stopped and looked at "fall things".  We saw apples on a tree, leaves on the ground and some cats watching us out their front door.  We got back to school just in time to get a drink of water and go home.  Here's a picture of our "lunch bunch"!  We had fun on our extended day and had some very tired Maple Leafers and teachers!!

We started Maple Leaf of the Week.  Brooke was our first "leaf".   She brought in a poster about herself and shared it with the class on Tuesday.  On Wednesday her mom and dad came to visit. They brought in a special train set for us to see.  We also heard two great stories about trains, The Little Engine that Could and Curious George and the Train. Then we were treated to a special cookie in the shape of a train crossing!  After snack it was time to go outside and pretend to be a train!  Everyone had to hold onto a rope with loops to create a train and Brooke's parents set up train crossings for us so we had to stop and go.  When we finished the loop everyone wanted to do it again!  So of course we did!  We even had train whistles that Brooke gave us to blow while we were being the train!  We got a special train treat bag to take home with us too...wow!  Thanks Brooke, John and Jen for creating such a special day for all of us!!

When a child is "Maple Leaf of the Week" they are also the helper for the week.  That means they get to feed the frogs and be the line leader.  They also lead us in the calendar each morning. and get a Maple Leaf crown to wear for the week!

We had an apple tasting party with Golden Delicious, Macintosh and Granny Smith apples first thing in the morning on Wednesday. We discussed what our favorite apple was...Golden Delicious was the class favorite.  We cut up apples to make "Friendship Applesauce".  The apples smelled so good cooking in the background while Brooke's family visited!

We also learned a new art technique during activity time....weaving! 

Thursday was the day of our leaf hunt.  We heard a great story called Going on a Leaf Hunt.  Then we went outside and took a fall walk around the church looking for beautiful fall leaves.  We discovered red leaves, yellow leaves, orange, brown and green leaves!  It was so nice we had extra time to play outside before we went on our walk.  We also discovered that leaves have different shapes, sizes and colors depending on what kind of a tree it is!  Mrs. Gould showed us how to make leaf rubbings with leaf plates that she had.  During activity time we each started making our own fall tree with colorful leaves.  We had a very busy week!!

Pumpkins

We started the week with orange day.  All of the kids looked great dressed in their orange clothings.  They all brought in something orange for show and tell as well.  We had orange trucks, orange bears, an orange leaf, and lots more.  Mrs. Gould brought in orange gourds for all of us and we each got to take one home.  Then it was time to hear our story about an orange pumpkin named Spookley.  We had a CD to go with it so we listened to that as well.

Click on the link below to see the video of Spookley.  My guess is that your kids would love to watch it!!

During art we mixed red and yellow paint on a square piece of white paper to create orange.  We needed to let these dry before we could turn them into our very own Spookleys!

Wednesday was pumpkin science day.  We heard a story called Pumpkin, Pumpkins which tells the story of how pumpkins grow.  It had real pictures as illustrations and took us through all the stages from seed to pumpkin and even to jack o lanterns! (Life science and biology for preschool!) Then it was time for us to cut open our pumpkins and see what was inside.  We all knocked on the pumpkin first and realized it was hollow.  Then we saw all the seeds and pulp when we opened it up.  We broke into partners and we each got a pumpkin to clean out.  

Some of us liked how it felt inside and some of us didn't!  After we cleaned out the insides we put the pumpkins in the oven to bake. Naomi brought in some pumpkin seeds that she helped bake at home so we had them with our snack.  Thanks Naomi....they were delicious!! When we pulled out the pumpkins they were dark orange and the insides were very soft. (States of matter and how matter changes...physical science and chemistry preschool style).  We also baked the seeds!

Here are the seeds after they came out of the pumpkin.  All of the kids had a turn to put a little salt on the seeds before we baked them.

Thursday was pumpkin bread baking day!  The insides of the pumpkin were scooped out and pureed so we could use it in our recipe to bake.  Then we made "Friendship Pumpkin Bread".  We called it friendship bread because all of us had a chance to mix and add ingredients.  

 While the bread was baking we went outside, finished our art project, had activity time and heard another story about a pumpkin who became a jack 'o lantern.  Our classroom smelled so good!

Finally the bread was done and we were able to have our snack.  Chocolate chip pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds, and chocolate milke!  Yum!!

Last week we made squish art with Mrs. Chyko using red and yellow paint.  The artwork was so beautiful that we decided to display it on our art wall.  Ask your child to show you their project next time you're at school!  The kids are so proud of their work!!

Beautiful!!!

The Farm

We spent the week getting ready for our trip to the pumpkin farm.  On Tuesday we learned the song and game "Old MacDonald Had a Farm".  We read a few books about farms and during activity time we had several different farms, barns and play animals for the kids to use.  We also had pumpkin cookies from Trader Joe's as a snack. We had several new books about farms set out for the kids to "read" when they finished their snack.

During art, the kids mixed red and yellow paint with Mrs. Chyko and made squish paintings.  We also got outside for quite awhile to take advantage of the beautiful weather!  

On Wednesday we heard the book The Little Red Hen. We retold the story using flannel pieces on a flannel board which is a great way to build reading comprehension.  The kids had fun using the voices of the pig, goose and cat as they said "Not, I".  We also had a good discussion about fairness after we finished reading the story.  Should the little red hen have shared her bread even though none of her friends helped her with all of the work?  The kids had some very strong opinions on this!!  During art we used a variety of shapes to create a little red hen. 

Thursday was our trip to the farm.  We were so fortunate with the weather!

We learned how pumpkins grow and saw a white pumpkin! (I think they actually said it was blue but it looks white to me!)

We went through a corn maze and a smaller maze made of hay bales.

We saw ducklings, a rooster, pigs, cows, and goats.

Time for the hay ride to the pumpkin patch...

Playing in the corn...it was a great day at the farm.  Thanks parents for helping to make this happen...it was great seeing everybody!!