Leaves and Halloween

Making our leaf men with the leaves we collected.

This week we read Going on a Leaf Hunt and Leaf Man. Even though it was misting on Tuesday we were still able to get out for a short leaf hunt. We collected lots of leaves, dried them off inside and turned them into leaf men!!

Our Leaf Men

We added magna tiles and wooden blocks with spiders and webbing to our block area.

We  had fun hearing stories about Halloween, learning the poem 5 Little Pumpkins,and playing the circle game Spooky Loo.

Thursday was our Costume Party.  The kids were so excited!!  

Such festive treats!  The kids frosted and decorated pumpkin cookies too!

Wow!!!

Before we ate our treats, we went on a parade around the church.  We love visiting all the people who work at the church and they even gave us treats!!

Listening to directions before going to our Halloween Centers.

We had tattoos, pumpkin stickers, 

bowling, 

ring toss,

Can you get the ring on the witches hat? 

and crafts!

Happy Halloween!! 

Thank you parents for putting on such a wonderful party!

Pumpkins and Apples

Autumn is a preschoolers wonderland!! We've been talking about all the changes that are taking place outside right now.  Apples are on trees, pumpkins are in fields, and leaves are changing colors.  In addition seeds and nuts are falling to the ground! To celebrate the season we took a trip to a pumpkin farm.  To prepare for the trip we read about The Big Read Barn, The Little People's Farm, and Spot Counts to Ten (Spot visits a farm and counts all the farm animals!) We also read about how pumpkins grow.  We had barns, farm animals, and tractors set out for pretend play and we painted mini white pumpkins during art.  By the time the kids left on Wednesday they were so excited for the upcoming trip!

We learned about pumpkins in the shed before we went out to explore the fields!

We went through a giant corn maze and then we ran through a maze made out of hay bales!!

Time to see the animals...turkeys, 

chicks that were 1 day old, 

On to the tractor for a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch!

We had so much fun looking for our pumpkins!!

What a great looking bunch!!

After we found our pumpkin we had fun playing in a box filled with feed corn....

and riding on toys surrounded by hay bales!

When we came back to school on Tuesday it was time to talk about apples!  We heard a great story about a"The Little Red House With No Windows and No Doors and A Star Inside".  Ask your kids what the house was....I bet all of them know the answer!!  (An apple!!)  We cut an apple in half and found the star.  Then we used paint and made apple prints.  We cut the prints into the shape of an apple and glued them down.

Our apple masterpieces!!

Tuesday was our first "lunch bunch".  We brought lunches to school and stayed for an extra two hours.  We had more time to play, make a project, and go outside!  

Tommy brought in snacks for us this week. They were so yummy!  Thanks Tommy!


Thursday we heard Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss.  Then it was time to make applesauce!  

Before we cooked the apples we added cinnamon, sugar and a little water. 

 Everyone had a turn using our apple peeler, corer, slicer to prepare the apples.  

We all giggled at how long the apple skin was when it came off.  Most of us thought it looked like a snake!!

Boy did our classroom smell good while our apples were cooking!  Our finished product.  We had applesauce with cheesy crackers for our snack!

The weather was great this week!  We played outside each day.  Gigi loved making giraffes because her name starts with a G!!

Using stencils and foam letter stickers to create art in the morning is always a hit!  It's such a fantastic way to develop the kids fine motor skills, as well as work on writing their names, identifying letters, developing creativity, independent thinking and imagination!  Not to mention the vocabulary development that takes place as we chat while we work!  

The Little Critters cottage, school and grocery store are another hit with the kids, as well as the kinetic sand!

More Fun with Clifford

We heard 3 new Clifford books this week.  Clifford's First Autumn, Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors, and Clifford Goes to Hollywood.  We have a stuffed Clifford that has joined our class for the past two weeks and loves to hear stories about himself!! In addition to hearing about Clifford we read our first "big book" this week;  The Eensy Weensy Spider.  The kids helped me "read" the book as we sang the words and I pointed to them.  We also sang our A,B,C's as I pointed to the letters in the room.  The kids are so interested in learning about letters!  It's been really fun watching them as they begin to write letters in their names and try to make other letters as well.

We were fortunate with the weather and were able to get outside each day this week. Inside,  we switched our sand table as we replaced our "fairy garden" with molds and sand stamps.  The kids continue to love using play dough, cars, blocks, magnets, and the trains.

We used "do-a-dot" paint to make the letter C on Wednesday.  Joan and I showed the kids how to make a C and then gave them each a red crayon so they could try it.  We were so excited when they each made their very own C (for Clifford).  Then they used the dot paint to go on top of it.  Afterwards they wanted to make their own designs with the paint, and many of them chose to make other letters on their own.

We celebrated another birthday this week!  Brooke is 4 and she brought in bananas and ice cream cups with sprinkles for us to put on top.  Yum!!  Thanks Brooklyn!!

The Eensy Weensy Spider big book. 
I wonder if the kids are singing this at home too!! 

Mrs. Jenkins had the kids up and marching around
the church while they were singing! 

Happy Birthday, Brooke!! 

Singing Happy Birthday.

A classful of Cliffords!!

We were able to take our Clifford puppets home on Thursday too!  Yay!!  The kids had been waiting for that!!