Review Day

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Read 3 little pigs and before we got to the page where the big bad wolf blows on teh brick house we decided to go outside and try to blow my house down. It didn't work. So we sat down and read the rest of the story. The kids were cracking up when the wolf tried since they knew it couldn't be done :)

Popcorn and how it's made


Sing popcorn popping

Pretend pizza play and color our own pizza (drawing and tracing skills)

Pick up game and counting

Pumpkin seeds explored

Talked about pretend play situations

Paper bag puppet show


Snack-Popcorn and pumpkin seeds

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N song at the beginning and end of preschool

Traced the letter N

Talked about names and names that start with the letter N. Practiced writing their names.



The difference between day and Night

Did a worksheet where we figured out which pictures started with the letter N



Sand Rudoloph the Red Nosed reindeer and talked about noses

Head shoulders knees and toes (more nose talk)

Learned about nutrition, showed them myplate and talk about what foods are good for us

Played the YES or NO game with foods that are good for us or bad for us

Learned about nuts and where they come from - watched a video about how pecans are harvested and decided if they could shake a tree like the big machines do - Consensus was those machines are REALLY strong! :)


Snack-two different kinds of nuts (pecans and almonds)

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!