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!