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!! 

Clifford!

We started the week reading about Clifford the Big Red Dog, by Norman Bridwell. After we heard Clifford the Big Red Dog we had an outdoor science activity and planted a Big Red Chrysanthemum.  Chrysanthemum was our new vocabulary word for the week!! All the kids helped put dirt in the pot and water the plant once it was transplanted to it's new home. I asked all the kids to tell their grown ups about our chrysanthemum. I hope they did! Some of the buds aren't opened yet, the kids are watching to see if the flowers bloom.  On Wednesday we heard Clifford's Family and on Thursday we heard Clifford's Kitten.

Everyone waited so patiently to take their turn to water the plant!!

Discussing roots, stems, leaves and flowers.

We had two more birthdays this week!  We celebrated with Addy and Piper.  They both brought in delicious ice cream treats...thanks girls!!

Happy Birthday, Addy!!

Ice cream sandwiches and apple slices!!  Yum!!

Singing Happy Birthday to Piper!

M and M ice cream cones...delicious!!

Gi Gi brought in our treat on Wednesday...cheese, crackers, and grapes.  Boy do we eat well at Maple Leaf!!

We finished adding all the details to our Pete the Cat.  The kids were so excited to bring them home!!

This week during activity time we've been making Clifford puppets, working with play dough, playing with cars, trucks, and doll houses!!

We painted the puppets with Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Chyko helped us put on Clifford's face and tail!

The kids have been enjoying the  play dough center where the play dough is home made and smells really good!! This week we had letter cookie cutters, rollers, and zoo animals for them to work with!  

First Two Weeks

The first two weeks of school have been wonderful! We've been working on reading our names, learning the names of our new friends, counting  every day as we do calendar (so far we've counted to 21), as well as counting on our class abacus.  We've celebrated 4 birthdays, had music class with Mrs. Jenkins twice, heard lots of stories, played outside and taken a tour of the church. Today we met Pastor Ashley and Mrs. Quick upstairs in the church offices!  At the end of each day we pass around our class bear and tell everyone what our favorite part of school.  Some of the answers have been, "I liked playing outside, I liked painting, I liked eating our snack, I liked making a friend, I liked playing with trucks."

It's fun to use puppets with the kids.  So far we've met Berry Bear(our calendar puppet), Mousie (a little gray mouse that sometimes plays tricks on us!) and today we met Pete the Cat!

We spent the first few days playing getting to know you games.  One activity was making the first letter of our names using glue and fruit loops!  

Brooklyn has a honey crisp apple tree at her house.  She brought in a bunch to share for snack.  

The weather has been wonderful!  We've been outside playing every day!

The first birthday we celebrated was Henry's.  We had delicious ice cream sandwiches from Dairy Queen!

After we have snack we read books in the circle time room. We've been working on teaching the kids how to look at the pictures in the books to tell themselves a story!

So far we've used balls, ribbons, play equipment, sidewalk chalk, and our imagination when we go outside!

 We celebrated Finn's birthday next! We had delicious mini chocolate cupcakes with orange and green frosting! We had apple slices along with the treat! So good!!

Roman celebrated his birthday today!  We had rainbow cupcakes with blue frosting and fish sprinkles...yum!  We had orange slices too!!

We went for a walk today using our friendship rope.  We all had a handle so we could stay together as a group!  We pretended we were a choo choo train as we walked around the church!!

We've been working on Pete the Cat art.  First we had to paint in the cat shape, then when it dried we added his face.  We should be finishing these next week!

Here's a link to Pete the Cat books and songs.  We watched some of these at school but the kids might enjoy watching and singing these at home too!  Have fun!

Pete the Cat