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!