Five Little Pumpkins...

We started out this week talking about apples and then moved on to pumpkins by the end of the week.  However, before we could talk about apples or pumpkins or any other fall objects, we need to praise our Star of the Week.  He did a terrific job on his poster and presented it to the class with pride.

Star of the Week posters are always terrific ways to start the week and the children are always beaming as we ask them questions about what they drew, or who a photograph might be of or what their plans are for the future.  We hope that once these posters go home, you hang them in a place where your child can be reminded of the good work he/she did to create these great projects.  

Back to the apples again; we showed the children a whole apple, half an apple and a quarter of an apple and asked them what they thought would turn brown first.  Many children guessed a variety of the above then we set it aside to look at at the end of the preschool day.  

This is a great little taste of science anyone can do at home.  If you want to take it a step further, place lemon juice on top of one and give them four options.  Then you can talk about oxidation with them when they see the lemon keeps the apple whiter longer. Many adults think children this young can't handle such big words as oxidation, but if you present the word to the child and show them what it means, you would be amazed at what information their little brains can hold!

 After talking about apples, we played a spelling game with the children while the teachers set up the 'apple trees' for our math activity.

 

Every letter that is used to make up every preschooler's name was placed on a ghost in the room and each child used their memory (and name tags) to walk around the room with their teachers and collect the ghosts carrying the letters of their name.  When finished, they brought their ghosts to the circle to check the spelling of their name with a teacher then they were allowed to bring their ghosts home to practice spelling their names with family.

Once everyone found the letters of their names, our apple trees were ready for picking!  We attached green contact paper to the walls and gave children 'apple bushels' to fill.  They picked apples from the trees and found some that had already fallen on the ground too.

  

After that, the children worked together with teachers to sort their apples by color (green yellow or red) then count them to find the total apples picked as well as to see which color they had the most or least of on their trip apple picking. 

 

 We loved playing this game with the children and many of the teachers had a fun time practicing this game and getting the 'apples' (which were pom poms) to stay on the tree.  If you don't have contact paper at home, scotch tape will work too. 

Once they finished picking and sorting their apples they turned to 'climb' the tree taped to the floor to 'pick some leaves' then try to throw them into our Bozo Buckets. 
The children then climbed through the 'spider web' at the end of the hallway.If you have a good doorway and some yarn, you can have your children work on their critical thinking skills while they move through the yarn you taped across your doorway.  This is fall fun for the whole family and if you use tape, you can throw small toy bugs into the web to try to 'catch' them as well.

While some of our preschoolers were working on their apple picking in the hallway, the children inside the room were busy singing songs about picking apples and dancing like scarecrows.  

Many of these songs aren't just cute, but work a child's language building skills through rhyming and physical movement while acting out the moves the characters sing about in their songs.

After everyone moved from one station to the next, we changed teachers and worked on our letter of the day then moved on to science.  This week, the teacher took time to "blow up a pumpkin!" 
However, this is not what you might think. She drew a pumpkin face on an orange balloon and attached it to a water bottle containing vinegar.  We discussed what happens when vinegar is mixed with a certain ingredient we often use when making cookies-baking soda.  
We reminded the preschoolers that baking soda is the ingredient in cookies that helps them puff up in the oven and then told them the 'pumpkin' had some inside him.  
As she turned him right side up, the baking soda inside him sprinkled into the vinegar mixing and creating gas.  This "blew up" our 'pumpkin'!




After this awesome 'trick'the children split up into stations again to go to story time and pattern math with leaves.  After identifying the colors of the leaves, the children created patterns to see if their friends could come up with the next color in their row.
Later this week we talked about bats and worked on a bat project with bat stencils placed on a page and then painted over.  When the bat image is peeled off, the image of bats will appear!

We created a 'magical brew' just like a witch by using 'Squishy Baff' in our water table. 
 The children took the 'magical ingredients' and sprinkled them into the water table and as we mixed the water up, we saw it turn into red goo!  To change the goo back into water, we added another 'magical ingredient' and after mixing once more, we got our water back!  Lots of fun and laughs were had by all, to see the commercial for this product, click here.

Our pumpkin art this week allowed us to add candy corn to pumpkins that corresponded with numbers given to the children by their teachers.

 While some children worked on this project, others played a game of Simon Says that involved them rolling a block the teachers labeled with movements more relative to our monthly theme. Some children had to crawl like spiders and others had to tip-toe like skeletons, etc.

The last fun science experiment this week was to color a pumpkin using a hair dryer and crayons!  The teachers glued crayons to the top of a pumpkin and then applied heat in front of the children to melt the crayons for a rainbow affect.  If you are looking to try this at home, click here for the directions.(See, I told you we ended with pumpkins!)

 

What's Coming Up?

Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete is a FREE event at Palatine High School on October 30th from 5:00-6:30 PM.

Our Halloween party will be Friday, October 31st in the preschool room from 9:30 -10:45 AM.  Please arrive with your child and be sure he/she is in costume (you can dress up too if you would like to do so.)  The teachers will take your treats and then you will be welcome to have a treat and enjoy the room decorations and a Halloween Story.  

Everyone will trick or treat around the school with the teachers for a few treats to take home and enjoy.  If you haven't sent in your RSVP, please do so in order for us to ensure we have enough plates and tricks and treats for everyone this day.