This week in the Pirate Pete Preschool we are exploring different countries around the world. Each day we compare and contrast our culture to the different cultures we are studying and are often looking at maps to find all of these places around the world.
The first country we learned about was Egypt! We talked and made a book about the Nile River, the Pyramids, and mummies. Each page had a task for the children to complete which was a great method for recognizing pieces of Egyptian culture. We reviewed the entire book at the circle before going to the tables to make one on our own and learned the pyramids are made in the shape of triangles. They also learned Egyptians place mummies (NOT mommies) in the pyramids after they are built.
Sticking to our Egyptian theme, we built pyramids with Dixie cups. It was great to see the children really working and thinking through the process of building a pyramid-like structure! We were very impressed when the children started building pyramids so high they ran out of cups at their tables! This activity is very easy to recreate at home with cups you may have and then you can ask; how high can you make your pyramid?
Our next stop was China! On Monday we read a book about the Chinese New Year which focused on the famous dragon symbol. The bright, colorful pages perfectly depicted the excitement of this special Chinese holiday!
In order to continue our travels around the world, we had to create our own passports! The children learned about the importance of a passport and enjoyed coloring and decorating them! We also packed our file folder suitcases with the various clothes we might want to take on our trips around the world. Some students added shirts, shorts and hats while others added swimsuits and flip flop sandals.
Mexico was our next stop on our world tour! We colored the Mexican flag with green and red crayons. After coloring, we practiced our handwriting by tracing the words "Green" and "Red". We will review the Mexican flag Friday during our flag activity.
We used our special 'traveling tubes' to transport us to different states in the U.S.! We talked about how to recognize Illinois, Texas, California, and Florida by their shapes, sizes and places on the map! The children were amazed to find out that everyone in the preschool lives in Illinois! We now now the town we go to school in is Palatine and the state we live in is Illinois and the country we live in is the United States of America.
Where do we find volcanoes? Hawaii! After learning Hawaii is an island but still a part of the United Stated States, we made two types of volcanoes. With this science experiment we had the opportunity to watch how a volcano bubbles and churns before it erupts by placing water and vegetable oil in a jar then after adding a drop of food coloring we tossed in alka-seltzer to watch the gas bubble up through the oil. 
Then we did the good old fashioned erupting volcano with water, dish soap, baking soda and vinegar. The children enjoyed the experiment so much, they wanted to repeat it over and over again! 
After our exciting experiment, we all quieted down to listen to a story about riding on a train. The children were intrigued by the pictures and really enjoy talking about the many different methods of travel. 
After the story we traveled to Asia to see the beautiful apple blossom trees there. We talked about the colors in the blooms on the trees and how the branches looked on each tree before going to the tables and creating our own apple blossom trees using popped popcorn that had been colored with a little red and pink dye the children were able to glue the blossoms on the branches of the trees they drew.
Our technology lesson this week fit perfectly with our theme! This counting around the world app helped us to further explore the world and improve our fine motor skills. As the children worked on counting skills and visualizing the amounts associated with these numbers, they 'visited' various countries to learn about items native to the various lands.
Friday was another terrific day going all around the world. We remembered the travels we took to various countries and analyzed a variety of flags. The preschoolers remembered working on the flag from Mexico earlier in the week and how to recognize the flag for the United States of America. They then had the opportunity to design their very own flag any way they chose that would represent them the way these flags represent various countries.
After making the flags, we talked about how to say hello in many of these countries like 'hello' in the United States, 'hola' in Mexico, 'ni hao' in China and so forth. Each child was given a set of flags with letters on the back of them and they 'traveled' around the room matching the first letter of the word to the whole greeting along with the flag around the room. This letter matching activity helped them build pre-reading skills.
We looked at a map and charted a travel plan to visit various countries around the world. We took a boat, a plane, and a train to get across and around the world. By the end of the day the children could tell us why we took a boat from one country to the next, why we took a train and why we would take an airplane. In our travels we learned to recognize the letters in the various ways to say hello around the world.
Each child was given a map at the end of the day that held a different number on each continent. The children were given beads and asked to recognize the number then glue the correct amount of beads near that number on that continent. After that we uncovered some scientific magic at the tables where we 'melted' snowballs from the arctic to find creatures frozen in the snow.
What's Coming Up?
- We do not have preschool in Monday, November 9th due to a district wide institute day.
- We will be talking about space on Wednesday and Friday this week as we travel to the skies!
- Don't forget the week of Thanksgiving there will be NO PRESCHOOL!
