Thanks to many Seasons in Illinois!

The weather outside is slowly showing us the changing of the seasons!  The leaves are falling off the trees, the wind is picking up, and we are all starting to think about Thanksgiving!  This week we have seen another great Star of the Week presentation as well and were off to learn about the world and times we live in!

As we talked about fall we used Q-Tips in the place of paint brushes to place 'dots' of leaves using the colors yellow, red, orange and brown.  This helped build fine motor skills and was a test in following directions to see if students placed dots or drew lines.

For this (above) math activity, each child was given a paper cloud with a number on it.  Then they glued that amount of raindrops underneath the cloud.  The children had fun counting the raindrops and learning about how and why it rains!  

We were having a blast with technology this week too as we played this "Weather Learning Game for Children."  The kids were able to manipulate items based on the seasons they saw on the screen to coordinate the correct items with the appropriate times of year.

We started the second half of class with a science experiment story.  The children helped the character in the story perform magic tricks by clapping their hands and watching as we blew up a ballon with nothing but hot and cold air then made volcanoes, tornadoes and rainbows appear.  Then, we played in the snow (baking soda and shaving cream) and leaves the character of the story left behind.

After the story and a little play time, the children were given the words to represent each month of the year and 'read' the month with a clue to an image that would help the children decide if that month falls in winter, spring, summer or fall.  They then placed that month in the designated season on the floor.

Continuing our lesson about rain, the children had the opportunity to construct their own fluffy clouds.  Using some soft cotton, construction paper, and string, the children assembled this craft while thinking about the different types of precipitation.  

For our weather math activity later in the week, the children had to count the correct amount of snowflakes to match the number of each cloud  This was done earlier with rain drops and then we moved on to snow.  As the activity continued, we added up all of the snowflakes that were on the table and even examined all of the different colors that were represented.  Math activities can be so much more than just adding and counting.  Colors and patterns are also an important piece of math!  

The upcoming weather is exciting but can also be dangerous!  We discussed the purpose of pouring salt on ice outside so that we do not slip and fall.  This science experiment showed us how ice transforms when salt is poured onto it.  The now lumpy, rough ice cubes stuck to the pieces of yarn which intrigued the children!  This is easy to do at home as you will only need ice, yarn and salt.  See if you can pick up the ice using only yarn and salt!

Since we were talking about seasons this week, the Thanksgiving season is also upon us so; to kick off the exciting Thanksgiving season we made our own Thanksgiving dinners.  We filled our plates with colorful, healthy foods but of course did not forget to add a slice of pumpkin pie!  Everyone's plate looked different as some children chose to leave certain foods off because they did not like them. 

This draw-and-tell story about Thanksgiving included pilgrims, Indians, and teepees and revealed a surprise picture of a turkey at the end!  The children were so excited to participate and help the teacher draw the story the second time around!  The children really paid attention the second time and loved drawing each part of the turkey.  

For this week's pre-reading worksheet, we focused on letters H, D, T, P, and C.  With the teachers helped the children sound out each Thanksgiving word and match the capital letters on the right to words and pictures on the left.  

These turkeys (below) made out of bowls and construction paper provided the children with a lot of fun!  The preschoolers were able to feed the turkeys through a hole in the top of the bowl.  Working on our fine motor skills, they counted the raw, colorful pasta noodles and stuck them in the small hole.  This activity was a huge hit with everyone!

 

Before heading home we also made a special treat for our Thanksgiving science lesson.  We had home-made butter like the pilgrims did long ago.  We used heavy milk (whipping cream) and poured it into a jar to pass around the room and shake as hard as we could.  Everyone in the room (preschoolers and teachers) had a hand in making the butter we ended up with at the end of the hour!  The children were able to share in a special snack they made themselves with the butter we produced from the cream and a few whole wheat crackers.  Don't be surprised if some of the children ask to make butter for your families this Thanksgiving.

What's Coming Up?

• We have a week off for the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Enjoy the time with your families and stay warm in the snow!
  
  
• The week of November 30th we will be learning about animals and their habitats.
  
  
• Mark your calendars:December 18th will be our last day of preschool for the fall semester.  This will also be the day of our Holiday Party with a special visit from the man up North!

Off we go into outer space!

We started out our Wednesday by presenting the star of the week poster.  Each week a different child gets to be the star of the week, so check your backpacks each week to see if your child gets to be the star of the week that week and help your child draw, add photos and create decorations to it as well!

After the terrific presentation by our Star of the Week, we shared with the children that we would be traveling to outer space!  These might have been two short days but they were filled with ideas about plants, stars and more!  We began our spelling/pre-reading and math exercises by asking the children to count out enough squares that would represent the letters of their names.  So if a child's name was Kris, she would count out four letters, etc.  Then, they needed to find a triangle to use as the top of the rocket.  Each child then glued down the squares and triangle then wrote his/her name down the rocket.  Some even asked for help to draw stars in the sky to show their rocket flying into space.

After building rockets using the letters of our names, we used iPads to go into space and look at constellations and follow the stars in a 'connect the dots' type of way to build the shapes that equal constellations.  There are many apps out there no matter your device at home that can do this with your child.  Feel free to play in the app store and find what you might enjoy playing at home!

Next we made spaceships! Using a paper bowl, clear plastic cup, large pompom, googley eyes, markers, and glue, you can easily make these at home with your child! First you will glue googley eyes to the large pompom. Next, glue will be put on the bowl to attach the pompom, and around the plastic cup to attach it to the bowl. Lastly, the spaceship can be decorated however you want. 

While our space ships were drying, we pretended we were in out space and got some wiggles out by going on a 'moon rock' hunt.  Teachers created 'moon rocks' out of foil and they scattered them about the room then asked the children to find them and place their collection in the middle of the room to see how many they each were able to contribute.

We watched as teachers later created a solar system using a jar, water, vegetable oil, cotton balls, water color paint and a little sparkle to build a solar system in the jar and talked about what we could imagine would be in space based on what the jar looked like.

In our space travels on Friday we matched some planets and stars together by color sorting things into piles by category for a little mathematical exercise.  Games like this are easy to do with any objects you have at home and sorting (or seriation) of any object to classify items is a great way to lay the ground work for math skills.

While some children worked at the tables for math, others stayed at the circle to put a fun twist on our class favorite tune, "The Cool Bear Hunt."  Instead of going on a bear hunt, we changed thing to go on an Alien hunt in space!

We read a few books about out space, solar systems and what astronauts do as a career.  If you don't have the Dr. Seuss Space story we found it on an app too through the i-Tunes store.  Feel free to search for that if you are an Apple user.

During free play some children were found to be doing puzzles and playing in the kitchen area however others were seen building rocket ships with out magnetic shapes and designing other space houses on their own!  It was so great to see them applying things we have been discussing in class this week.

With this corn syrup, water, and black food coloring mixture, the kids were able to create their own outer space they could condense into a water bottle. They added glitter and beads to stimulate the planets and stars in our solar system.  The teachers then used a hot glue gun to seal the lids of the water bottles closed.  

We have had a good week learning about space like planets, stars and suns.  We we move in to our last full week of November we will be covering weather and seasons as it is the time of year for those things to be changing.  Look for a few fun Thanksgiving projects to come home as we will have the week of Thanksgiving off.

What's Coming Up?

Be sure if you are a current preschooler you send your spring tuition check in to school with your child in the coming week.  This is the only way to hold your morning spot for next semester.  Don't forget our morning times extend in the spring and preschool will run for about 2 hours and 45 minutes.  That tuition amount is $200.  If you are planning on moving to the afternoon session, the tuition is still only $150.  If you know of anyone looking for preschool starting in February, please forward this blog or our website link on to them for more information as we still have a few spaces open in the afternoon group.