Halloween

We had a big Halloween party on Monday, October 31st. The kids all dressed up and we played several games like "pin the mouth on the ," jack o' lantern bean bag toss and "hide the pumpkin" (a spin off of hide the thimble). The kids got special pumpkin cake pops made by a wonderful mama and then other kids brought in treat bags and candy to share with their friends.

Fall Fun

Part of the joy of the fall season is playing in the leaves.  This year I was lucky enough that my two older kids, along with a couple neighborhood kids found leaf raking enjoyable.  For several afternoons, they showed up in my backyard to rake up the leaves.  The daycare kids loved running down the hill and jumping into the leaf pile.  Here are a few pics that I snapped.

G Activities

As part of our letter G activities, we read a street safety book (the name of which escapes me now).  The book talked about stoplights and the meaning of the colors.  Since "green" and "go" both start with g, we HAD to make a stoplight.  This is the first project that the kids did entirely by themselves with very limited adult instruction (basically showed them a finished one and said, "go make one.").

I thought they turned out quite good and the kids were super excited that they could cut on their own.

In honor of the Halloween season we practiced writing the letter G on ghosts, which were then decorated.  The kids all think it's great fun that there are Halloween words that begin with the letter they are learning!



Festive Fish

We've been talking about fall now for quite some time, so I was looking for a different themed "f" activity.  I happened upon Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni and felt compelled to do a fish activity.  I discussed with the kids out Lionni used watercolors in his illustrations and it was only appropriate that we do the same.  I made some generic fish shapes and provided the kids with watercolors.  They did an awesome job with the paints, remembering to rinse out one color before adding it to another.

Egg-citing Egg Smashing

A few weeks back we worked on letter e.  The /e/ sound is a tough one to master so when I had a couple dozen eggshells staring me in the face, I came up with egg smashing.  Each child received a cake pan with cleaned eggshells in it.  Armed with a "Whack-a-Mole" hammer, they went crazy smashed the shells.  Each time they crunched the shells, the kids were instructed to make the /e/ sound.

The kids got the benefit of a little hand/eye coordination practice and the fun of smashing something.  Win-win!

The kids also worked on a letter E worksheet.  This was the first time that the directions were read aloud, but I gave no further instruction.  Many times we would discuss the worksheet during circle time and we would come up with the correct answers as a group, but this time, they were on their own.  I did still provide verbal instruction to the kids as they cut out their pictures.



Working to improve

I've been terribly derelict in my blogging duties lately.  It seems like life gets in the way (or I'm cooking during naptime, so there went my blogging time).  I assure you we've been working and I have several sets of pictures to post of activities we've done, so I'll try to get a few of them up tonight or tomorrow.

Working to improve

I've been terribly derelict in my blogging duties lately.  It seems like life gets in the way (or I'm cooking during naptime, so there went my blogging time).  I assure you we've been working and I have several sets of pictures to post of activities we've done, so I'll try to get a few of them up tonight or tomorrow.

Sack Lunch Friday

Today was the first of many Sack Lunch Fridays.  There are many things that kindergartners need to know and one of the most overlooked is lunch room know-how.  Kids need to be able to walk through a lunch line and say "yes" or "no" to the choices offered.  They must be able to carry the plates to the table and when finished, scrape them off and get them to the dishwashing area.  Most of these new routines are overwhelming for new students, so I try to give the kids like experiences so they have an idea what to expect.

One would think that bringing a sack lunch avoids most of these issues, but brown bagging has challenges all its own.  For instance, kids need to know how to get all of the food out, opened, eaten, replaced and be ready to go in 20 minutes (the average length of time for a school lunch period).  To help kids along, I will be having "Sack Lunch Friday" each week, so the kids can practice these skills and be the smartest kids in their class on the first day! :)

I have a wealth of lunchboxes.  One could get the idea that I'm addicted, but in reality, there are different boxes for different needs, so we have about 10 lunchboxes in our house.  Most kids however, have a lunchbox type tote or an actual lunchbox already, so the kids were free to bring their own, which most did.

Here is lunch.

Here are the kids with the lunchboxes.  Don't they look excited!

And, here they are eating!  Almost everyone ate the majority of their food.  If only I had realized that if I put peas in a lunchbox, kids would eat them, I would've started doing this ages ago.  Who knew?

Budget update

I've been neglecting my preschool blog.  Sorry!  It just happens to be one of those times of year when everything and everyone tries to take a little bit of my time and my naptime blogging gets consumed with other things.  Hopefully next week I'll get back on track with daily posts.

But, since I haven't updated my budget for a while, I thought I'd do that.

6-2 packs of glue sticks--I'm out and in my opinion glue sticks are indispensable to the preschool classroom.  Using bottle glue is an acquired skill that most preschoolers do not have.  Cost, $2.40

1 8 pack of dry erase crayons--This wasn't on my to buy list or even my want list since I didn't know they existed until last night.  However, I've been looking for a brown to round out my dry erase marker selection and I've only found sets upwards of $10.  These crayons were on clearance at Walgreens for $1.99, so I couldn't resist.

Digging for Dinosaurs (pics only)

Little Man trying to climb the stairs