Even with no preschool on Columbus Day we packed in a ton of fall fun into this week. After our normal morning routine, we started talking about pumpkins and other fun things we see in October. 
We decided to make some creepy goo for a science experiment. Anytime we tell the children we will be making something 'gooey' they all giggle with delight. But, this time we decided to make sure we did not have to messy hands (many of our young preschoolers do not like to get 'messy') and made our goo in plastic bags to take home.
This is a very easy science experiment you can do at home and you don't need plastic baggies to do it. If you are willing to get a little messy, just grab a bowl, glue, liquid starch, and maybe a little bit of watercolor paint to change it colors. We do not recommend food coloring because it is not very easy to get off of the hands. It's always better if you keep liquid watercolor paints on hand and use them for child-friendly activities because those are washable. 
This week we also built skeletons out of straws. There are many ways you can do this with your child. The biggest thing to remember is your child's skeleton will not look like a skeleton. 
Some of our preschoolers put a giant pile of glue in the middle of the page and then place many of our [straw] bones on top. The important part of this lesson was to talk about the word 'skeleton' and to help the children understand the word skeleton is what we use to describe the bones in our bodies. As the children created their skeletons, the teachers would use the word often to encourage the children to do the same.
For some traveling math this week we went around the room and counted witches cauldron's, pumpkins, Frankenstein's, and trees. Then we went back to the circle to talk about which item we had the most of and of which item we had the least. 
If you will remember, we have been working on the idea of most and least since preschool started. I am happy to say more and more of our preschoolers are showing they understand the concept of most and least.
When the second group of teachers enter the classroom the children know our first activity is always Letter of the Day. One of the days this week we talked about the letter O. 
After that, we decided to have the preschoolers make owls (O is for Owl). These owls were a lot of fun for the children to create and once they attached the wings they flew them about the classroom.
Where do we find so many cute craft projects? Pinterest, of course! If you haven't started following our boards, but have a Pinterest account, you can follow Kris Stary and check out all we find to do during school and more!
Once we were finished with our owls, we started talking about squirrels. We talked about how squirrels are starting to gather nuts for the winter and then the preschoolers went to the tables to count out acorns to give squirrels.
Each child got a cup with a number on it and a picture of a squirrel. They had to find the correct number of acorns and place them by the cup to feed the squirrel. 
The best part about this activity was the fact that the teacher who created it did so expecting to collect the cups and acorns at the end of the activity, but the children loved it so much they asked if they could keep their squirrels to bring home. She was so glad they enjoyed the activity so much she gladly sent them home.
Later we talked about other animals that are starting to find shelter for the winter. The children were given pictures of animals and their homes and asked to trace the lines to bring the animal to its correct home. The best part of this is how well our preschoolers are staying on the lines. These kinds of activities are terrific to build fine motor skills and improve writing quality.
We could not talk about animals finding their homes without singing, "The Cool Bear Hunt" song by Dr. Jean. As always, the children did a terrific job and enjoyed acting afraid of the bear and pretending to run away from his cave.
Later this week we created a volcano out of apples. The children repeated this activity over and over again with their teachers and it has only three simple ingredients. 
Core and apple and fill it with baking soda. Then pour vinegar on top and watch the magic! This is a cheap and fun science experiment the whole family will love!
After apple volcanoes, we read a story about 10 apples. The children had a great time counting the apples down from 10 with one of their teachers as she read the story. These kinds of subtraction books are both are a lot of fun for children and come in a variety of topics.
Later we took orange, white and yellow construction paper bits and glued them down in the shape of candy corn. The teachers had each section marked off in the paper to see if the preschoolers could re-create the image of candy corn shown to them before they started the activity. 
Remember, some preschoolers are new to school and new to the idea of following directions from a teacher. These types of arts and crafts projects are more about getting a child to figure out how to follow directions and less about the creativity.
After making candy corn, we encouraged more fine motor skill development by having the children draw lines going vertically instead of horizontally. This time, they traced lines to have leaves fall down from the tree; again building fine motor skills to improve writing quality. 
One thing we noticed was that this type of line was a bit tricky to some of our little pirates as we watched them try to turn the paper so they could draw horizontal lines again. Based on this observation, you may see more vertical line work going home to help them practice more hand movements as they also work on holding their utensils correctly.
Like the candy corn activity, we decided to use torn up paper to create leaves for decorating our classroom for fall. However this time the preschoolers would be the ones to rip up the paper. While you may think your child is good at making messes at home, ripping paper is actually a very tough fine motor skill for some children. 
Many tore the paper into three or four pieces and started to give up. We worked with them encouraging them to tear the paper into pieces as small as they could go.
After the children ripped up the paper, they brought it to a strip of contact paper laying sticky side up. The children were in charge of spreading out all of the torn pieces of paper to completely fill the sticky side until there was, "no sticky left".
We had quite a lot of fun this day and decided it would be a good idea to hop various ways: up-and-down, fast, slow, high, on 1 foot, and then the other. Then we read the book, Who Hops to find out what other animals like to hop as much as we do.
What's Coming Up?
There will be NO PRESCHOOL in Wednesday, October 22nd due to an Early Dismissal for College Night. Palatine High School hosts this each year and the school needs to get ready for the district to come and check out colleges for our Senior Class.
Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete will be Oct. 30th from 5:00-6:30 PM, so come and trick or treat indoors for FREE!
Our Halloween Party will be Friday, October 31st from 9:30 - 10:45 AM. An invitation went home on Friday along with an RSVP card. Please remember to bring your child in costume and let us know if anyone else will be trick or treating with us so we do not run out of treats along the way. We will head out and about the school together after we have treats int he classroom so please remember to bring no more than 12 of anything, we will have plenty to go around.
November will be here before we know it and so will our spring registration! Remember that morning preschool extends to last from 9:30 - 11:55 so if you are looking to change to our afternoon session (1:00-2:30 PM) please email me so I can make arrangements to fill your spot. Otherwise, it is assumed all current morning preschoolers will be staying in the morning. If you know of anyone looking to join our ship, please forward them the link to our registration page and Pirate Pete Preschool Website for more information.
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