Halloween Party

We had our Preschool Halloween Party on Halloween. Each mom was put in charge of a little activity. One mother did Halloween songs. They were the cutest, fun Halloween songs, I’ll have to find out where the mom got them from!

I also had a Halloween song they remembered from last year where they got to wear masks. -

-sung to Farmer and the Dale - "The witch goes hee hee, the witch goes hee, Hi Ho It's Halloween. The witch goes hee hee", etc

Next we read a Halloween book.

Another mom printed off a Halloween Bingo game that was perfect for the kids that just had pictures. They used candy corn for their pieces and when someone got a Bingo they could eat a candy. We played until everyone had won.

Next was a treat box craft I purchased from Oriental Trading for a buck or two on clearance. For the younger kids that weren’t in preschool, they made a treat box just printed off from a template online.

We had a little Halloween Parade where they marched around and danced to some Halloween music then went ‘trick-or-treating’ to different rooms in the house. Each mom brought a little goodie for each kid which we handed out. They got spider rings, sticky webs, pretzels, and Halloween stickers. This was also great since we were able to etiquette and practice saying ‘trick-or-treat’ and ‘thank you’

We ate cupcakes

Then watched a Halloween movie. It was very casual, which was just what we needed that day, and the kids had a blast!

Letter O

• After calendar we started with talking about the letter o.  Short o as in octopus and long o as in oh no!  We sand the letter o song.  It teaches both long and short o.
• Then I gave them clues about what we were going to learn about today that started with o.   It starts with the "ow" sound as in ouch which comes when you pair "o" with "w".  The thing we are learning about also makes a sound that has "oo" in it which is when you put two "o"'s together.  It says hoo.  They guessed it - owls!
• We read a short non fiction book that has simple text  called Incredible Owls.  This book comes from a series scholastic published called Science Vocabulary Readers.  These are nonfiction  books that are geared for easy reading.  
• We painted some paper plate owls.  While they were doing this, I went around and asked them the most interesting thing they learned about owls.  I wanted to have them write some of it, but for times sake we didn't.  I used muffin cups for eyes instead of paper.  I got those ideas here and here.

• We then watched a video from PBS and talked about nocturnal and diurnal animals

Then I printed various animal masks that I found off the internet and the kids help up their mask and we decided if they were nocturnal or diurnal.

• Centers - 

Owl Pellets - These were pretend in fact they were just a bag of  candy bones.  They had to pull them out with tweezers and sort them into groups. The sorting sheet I got from here.  The candy bones I ordered from oriental trading.



Owl writing - I made an owl out of "O"'s that they had to trace. 
Owl books- bunch of books to look at
Sorting animals - sorted pictures of animals into whether they were awake at night or during the day.
Halloween stamp - use Halloween stamps to add decorations to a Halloween scene.

Owl Snack

Combination of these to.  A chocolate rice cake with marshmallow and chocolate chip eyes and candy corn nose.

Field Trip - Lins

We went to a local grocery store - Lins - for our field trip.

The manager was so nice and gave the kids a little Halloween bag with coloring pages and coupons in it that they could fill with goodies from the tour-

We went to the produce section and talked about their favorite fruits and veggies. They got to pick a banana and put it in the bag. The kids were giggling thinking it was so cool that they were doing their own shopping

We went to the back warehouse where he showed them their big fridges, freezer, and ALL the milk they drink! It was COLD back there!

They also got to see where the trucks come and bring all the food they sale.

We made our way to the bakery and the kids got a cookie to put in their bags

They got cheese sticks at the deli

Last we went upstairs where they have windows and can see the WHOLE store. They have them so they can watch people and make sure people don't steal

The kids really enjoyed the experience-

Letter L

• We started with talking about the sound "L" makes.  L for leg.  Then we watched the L song.  I made a slight change though. Instead of having them say the sound l, l, l, l, l like they do in the video, we held the sound out l------------------.  This is for blending prep.  When it came to showing them how to write the lower case "l"  I had them start at the top of their leg and trace straight down.  Thus emphasizing "l" for leg.

"L" is for light:

• I started by having the kids see if they could guess something else that started with "L" by watching what I did.  I flicked the light on and off.  Then I asked them if they knew where light came from or how we got it.  (Don't worry, we weren't planning on delving into the logistics of a light bulb!) I told them I had a story to tell them about how light on the earth came to be.  I had them follow me down to my pantry that had no windows so that it would be very dark.  We left the light on outside so they could see a sliver of light through the door incase they were a little nervous.  I then told the creation story using glow sticks from the dollar store.  Each glow stick represented a different day.  (I must say the kids were mesmerized).  Here is how it goes:

Day 1 - Lord separates light from dark  (plain glow stick)
Day 2 - Lord separates water from sky/heavens (blue trident glow stick)
Day 3 - Lord separates water from land and creates grass, plants, trees, etc ( flower glow stick)
Day 4- Lord creates sun, moon, stars (yellow star glow stick)
Day 5 - Lord creates water animals and birds (butterfly glow stick)
Day 6 - Lord creates land animals and man (heart glow stick)
Day 7 - He rests (no glow stick)

• After this I had them take their glow stick and write "L"s in the air as well as their name.  Then I gave them each another one and we played a game of making capital "L" and lower case "l" by raising and lowering the second glow stick.  We went back upstairs waving our glow sticks and singing twinkle twinkle little star.

• Then we talked about how we have day and night.  They each were little Earths and turned while I had a flashlight and stayed still being the sun.  We talked about how when they were facing the light that was day and when they faced away from it, that was night.  Then we read the book Sunshine, Moonshine.  This is a simple book that shows some things you do during the day and night.  After we read, each kid came up with something they did during the day or night.  They acted it out for us and we had to guess what it was.  Then we sorted it into a group - Day or Night.  Very quickly, we determined we had to make a new group - Both.

• Centers:

1- Day or Night Sorting - pictures I found off the internet that they had to sort into whether or not they did that during the day or night (or both).
2- Creation Match - I cut out the pictures and then had them place them number that matched with that day of creation.  You can find  that activity here
 
3-Sun Prints - Picked a toy and set it on piece of construction paper with their name on it and placed it in the sun.
4- Moon Sand Writing - wrote 5 "Ll"s in moon sand and then got a few minutes free play. You can find the recipe for moon sand here.  It was super easy to make!!!!  And definitely the favorite center for the kids!
5-Books about Earth, light,& moon - ones they could look at and enjoy pictures.
6-Read one on one with me.

• Creation Layered Snack (idea found here) - Took clear cups and used this to review the days of the creation.

Day 1- Light/Dark - Vanilla & Chocolate Pudding
Day 2 - Water/Sky(Heaven) - Blue Jello & Cool Whip
Day 3 - Land/Plants - crushed cookies
Day 4-Sun/Moon/Stars - star sprinkles
Day 5- Animals - animal crackers
Day 6-  Man - spoon with people picture on handle
They were scarfed!

• Shadow Puppet Play to Big Pumpkin - We talked about how shadows are made when light is blocked by something and how people took this idea to make  shadow puppet plays.  These are simple to make.  Take a white sheet and hang it up.  Shine a big light behind the sheet.  Put your puppet in front of the light and it's shadow is made on the screen. Make sure you cut out any negative space on your puppets ( ie eyes, mouth for pumpkin, etc) it makes it more interesting. I did the play for them first and then they got to do it themselves.  I found some shadow puppets here, but also had to make the witch and mummy myself.  Big Pumpkin is my all time favorite Halloween Story/Song  

Review "L" song!

Review Day-2

Friday was another Review Day, and it didn’t quite go as well as Monday. I blame my other two littles for that. They liked to scream. And be held. Making it much more difficult to help the kids, let alone hear what they were saying. However, I stick by my lesson plan and don’t think I would change anything.

I did the same review routine in the morning. Matching letters and making sounds. Doing our blending board. Then forming their own words. I did highlight different sounds though on each day. Monday blending words used the endings – “at” “it” “ad” and “id.” Friday I used words with endings “am” “im” “as” and “is” We also taught the sight word “is” for both days and as you’ll about to see, Friday I also worked a lot with “this” and “that.”

After our blending/spelling Review I sent them to do worksheets. With Halloween around the corner, a lot of our activities included that. They filled in the missing letter of the Halloween picture and I was also doing a lot with numbers that day, so they had to fill in the missing letter of the number as well. I gave them letters to choose from for the picture, but not the number. These girls rocked that worksheet and were so proud they got done so quickly.

After the worksheet we went over the words "this" and "that." I had the words written on a board and set an item under each side. Did they like "This" or "That" better? They each would say if they liked "this" or "that" and I marked it. After we did a few rounds, we graphed our answers.

We talked a little about scary things that you might see at Halloween, but that it is not real and taught them a song that included "this" and that" It is sung to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star-

"Ghosts and goblins, scary bats. I'm not afraid of this or that.

They are only make believe. Costumes made for Halloween.

Ghosts and goblins, scary bats. I''m not afraid of this or that."

I let them hold up some scary pictures while we sang.

It was time to put the kids to work while I took them for one-on-one reading practice. First they got to fill out a "This or That" worksheet. I had pictures of 2 different things and they had to choose if they liked this or that better. Then copy the word "This" or "That" depending on which thing they liked more.

I had another worksheet and they had to count how many of each picture there was, then circle the correct number and fill in the missing blank again 

A lot of the kids got tired of filling in missing letters and opted to just circle the number. When you're not there to help them (since you're working one on one) you just expect things like this and can't let it bother you

I also made up a Color by Number worksheet just finding a simple coloring page online and adding numbers to it. What kid doesn't like Color by Number? :)

After doing one-on-one reading I taught them another Halloween song. This is one I learned as a kid and loved. After singing it with actions a few times I gave them a worksheet. It had missing words to the song they had to fill in. Two of my kids were gone. So I just let them color. They had already had a lot of practice and I didn't want them hating preschool. But a couple still took hold of it and loved it

That took our entire day, but I thought of lots of little witch treats we could have made too. Cookie/kiss hats, pretzel broomsticks, etc. Like I said, Fridays are usually the toughest. Even kids at that age seem to know it's the end of the week and get tired, so try to keep a lot of variation and fun activities mixed in. If preschool was longer, we definitely would have! :)

Fun Day - Pumpkins

I wish I could say this Fun Day was a huge success, but really, we are still trying to figure out the best way to do it. It is only our second one and have decided it doesn't work really well to have everyone come to them. 17 people gets a bit chaotic. However, the kids did have a really good time and I think a lot of the activities were great and would work really well if you do them with a smaller group.

So I started with the story of Cinderella and had the kids act it out for me while I told a very simple version. I had basic costumes, to make it more fun - tie for the dad, costume jewelry for the ball, wand for the godfather, crown for prince, etc (our story varied a little with the kids we had :) And made a fun pumpkin carriage the kids thought was cool-

I talked about how Cinderella was still happy and nice to everyone even though people were mean to her. And that it was okay that she cried when she was sad she couldn't go to the ball.

Next we divided into stations and had us rotate through them. I had six stations, they were:

1. Seed counting- I had a Jack o' lantern face where they could put pumpkin seeds in the mouth for teeth and a page with simple math problems. Ex below "2+3=" (2 teeth in the top, 3 teeth in the bottom equals 5 teeth)              

At this station I also had Halloween pictures with a line on the side. They had to line up pumpkin seeds and measure how many seeds tall each picture was and fill in the worksheet

2. Painting station- They got to paint a brown lunch bag orange and green, stuff it and tie the top to make pumpkins

This station also had magic painting with a picture of a mouse, pumpkin and ragged girl. When they painted with their magic wand (sponge) it turned into a man, carriage and beautiful princess (hard to see in the pics) Noah thought this was so cool!

3. Playdough Pumpkins - I made some orange playdough and set out black beans, cookie cutters, and drew some Jack o'lantern faces. They could try to make the faces on the picture, or make up their own faces. This kept my kids entertained the entire day, plus the next!

4. Measuring/Estimate Station- I had yarn and a pumpkin. They needed to guess how big to cut it to fit around the pumpkin. Then they taped it to a paper marking if it was too big or too small. They also had to guess if the pumpkin would float and mark it on the worksheet.

At this station I also had a scale and lots of various items. They needed to guess if they thought the pumpkin was heavier than each thing. Then they got to weigh them and see if they were right, then mark them in order from lightest to heaviest on the worksheet.

5. Sensory tub-I had a tub filled with pasta noodles and Halloween objects hiding in them. They needed to find each item, then listed on the worksheet was different textures in graph form. They needed to mark if they thought it was bumpy, smooth, soft, squishy, etc

6. Last station was pumpkin drawing- I had pumpkins cut out then had instructions for them- A line down the pumpkin for every year they are (4 grooves if you're 4 years old); boy-triangle eyes, girl-circle eyes; how many letters are in your name=how many teeth, etc. Since I knew this wouldn't take long, I had a Clifford Halloween movie that had a pumpkin activity in their bonus features where they could make their own pumpkin. Choose a tall, regular or short pumpkin, what shapes eyes, nose, and mouth then see it light up. It's a fun little feature on the disk!

After everyone completed the stations we had pumpkin squares and watched a little Halloween movie. Despite a lot of noise, it was fun and I felt good about what I did.

Review Day 1

Review Week is a lot of fun because you get to see what the children have learned and teach them how to blend it all together. We did A LOT and I'm including a lot of info here, so brace yourself :)

I started with reviewing each letter and its sound. I had a board with all the capital and lowercase letters on it. Each kid got to come up and pick a letter, make the sound it makes, then find its match. The kids would decide if it was a match then all make the sound together.

After we were able to review all the sounds I went to our blending board. It is laminated and we can just use a wet-erase marker to highlight words and practice blending. They make the first sound, add a second and work on blending those two before adding another sound.

When they had practice blending and doing words I went back to my letter board and only kept the lowercase letters up. I would say a word, then had the children take turns coming up and picking the letter to spell it. Ex, "fat" First kid would come up and find "f" next kid "a" etc. and we were able to spell a few words.

I sent the kids to do a worksheet filling in the blanks with the proper letter. Because one of the other moms taught feelings I included that in my review and that is what I used for my worksheet. The kids did really well-

After the worksheet we reviewed feelings together and played "Don't Eat Sam!" (Don't Eat Pete" I made a board with Halloween pictures with different faces. We talked about the feelings they were showing and read "Sam." Then played-What a fun game for kids! When everyone had a turn we talked about feelings they felt while playing.

Next I highlighted the word "If." They were each given 4 faces - happy, scared, tired, sad and I asked a bunch of "What if" questions. I pointed to the word "if" and they said it with me when I asked the questions. They would pick the face they felt if that happened and held it up. We then sang "If you're Happy and You Know It"

ex-"What if your mom makes your favorite dinner" ; "What if you can't find mom at store" ; "What if you stay up really late?" ; "What if you lost your favorite toy" etc.

I sent them to the table and had a few activities for them to keep them busy while I took each kid away and worked one-on-one with them reading sentences and blending, etc.

The kids were so great and it was fun to watch their eyes light up when they realized the word they were saying. I had them make the sound as I pointed to each letter only showing one word at a time. Some kids needed me to only show the one letter at a time or they became flustered seeing three letters next to each other or would just try to guess the word. By the time they got to the bottom of the page they got much better at the idea of blending and recognizing the letter/sound quickly.

The activities they were left with was coloring their own "Don't Eat Sam" board, an envelope with faces and patterns they could play with and try to complete the patterns, and a Feelings Book.

The Feelings Book said, "If I... then I feel ___." They had to trace the word "If" on each page, I filled in what it would be when I took them one-on-one and they drew a face for each page - happy, scared, tired, sad.

After my one-on-review we read the book I Wish I Had Duck Feet. What a fun book! They looked for the "if"s in the book then we colored a page. They got to choose what they would want - duck feet, antlers, whale spout, elephant nose, etc. The page said "If I had.... I would..." It was so cute to see their imaginations and see their creative drawings. Too bad I didn't get a chance to snap a few pictures.

It was a really fun, learning-filled day!

Field Trip- Dentist

We took a field trip to a dentist office for "teeTH." I was excited about this field trip since shamefully I admit I still have not taken my kids to a dentist. So I felt like them having the opportunity to see everything before going would calm nerves and make the first experience more enjoyable. This office is very cute for children. They have play houses, toys, computers built into the wall with games and a TV for kids in the waiting room.

After getting some time to explore the waiting room the kids were read a story about visiting the dentist-

They have this cute little door the kids to go through when their names are called. That takes you into the x-ray area-

Next we were taken to where they brush and look at your teeth-

The kids were taught the proper way to brush their teeth and got to practice brushing dinosaur teeth! :)

Afterwards we got to visit the "sugar bug?" (is that what they call cavities?) room where they get the bugs out. Funny enough, that was the favorite room. Each kid got to sit in the chair that tipped them upside down and wear an elephant nose :)

Just receiving some more instruction, looking at the tools and the whole group that day (one of the moms had family in town, plus our younger kids)-

Each kid got a balloon and a little goodie bag. It had the dentist book they read to us, a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss threaders, a bracelet, another balloon, a magnet and basically my children thought it was the coolest thing ever! They were hilarious as I drove home oooing and ahhing over every little thing. They loved the dentist!

Thanks Children Dental for the wonderful tour!