Halloween is here!

Halloween is right around the corner so this week was full of Halloween fun! For some spectacular science activities this week we spent time talking about the magic of witches and the teachers froze water inside gloves with Halloween decorations inside then the preschoolers squirted hot water onto the ice so it would melt; finding the Halloween treasures in the 'witches hands'.

We read a story about a Halloween pumpkin and trick or treaters then made some Halloween pumpkins for our room decorations with our make shift pumpkin patch for our party on Monday.

Speaking of room decorations, we made paper plate spiders complete with pipe cleaner legs for fine motor development and have them hanging in our giant spider area for our party as well.  We hope our families will enjoy these spooky decorations!

We learned about other fun Halloween characters we see this time of year, ghosts!  The children made a 'trick' with a 'treat' this week to spook their family members by raising the tootsie pop wrapped in tissue up through a cup while saying, "oooooooh."  The children giggled over and over again as they practiced scaring their family members by scaring their teachers with their tricky treat!

The children learned a song this week about 5 Little Monsters who enjoyed jumping on the bed as they dressed up in various costumes from the preschool and jumped up at down until it was their turn to "fall of the bed" and have a seat in the circle.  Many children asked for us to replete this song so they all could have a turn to dress up and act like the little monsters in the song.

We played with Mr. Bones this week for a little fun and games action as we tried to place the bow tie on Mr. Bones in the correct place.  Most children of this age group do not enjoy wearing a blindfold so we just spun them around with their eyes closed (in some cases they were open) and they placed the bow tie in the best place they thought it should go.

We also working on those small motor skills with tape this week making 'mummies'.  Here is a tip, head to the dollar store and buy some packages of tape then then your child pull and tear it to work on building those little finger muscles.  All kids enjoy things like this and they serve a strong developmental purpose.

The topic of Halloween can't go without a little pumpkin carving so we had a little contest to see which group of preschoolers count find the most seeds inside their pumpkin.  Some of the children refused to touch the seeds while some dug right in, I hope your families were able to enjoy some of this at home this fall as well and maybe even carved a jack o lantern or two!

Early in the week we learned how to follow a recipe to make "witches' brew" by "reading" the instructions on our screen and taking turns to put the correct amount of Halloween ingredients into the pot.  Someone might have to help put in 4 worms while someone else might have put in 5 eyeballs and so forth.  The children were very interested in seeing if their witches' brew would attract any witches to our preschool later in the day.

Because this was such a hit to make the brew at the circle all together, later in the week we reviewed how to do this with a few other ingredients and then set the children loose at the tables to make them in smaller groups so more children could have turns adding and stirring the ingredients together.

We had other fun times with science this week as we did a ghostly experiment with marshmallows.  The children were given three cups with various liquids inside.  The children then has to guess which liquid would melt the marshmallow the fastest. 

We used shapes to make some paper jack o lanterns this week and perfected some paintbrush holding while doing so then moved on to filling our trick or treat buckets with treats to get ready for all that is to come during our Halloween party on Monday and any trick or treating the children will be doing as well.  

We hope many of you enjoyed the free trick or treating event this past week as well and loaded up your houses with many sweet treats as well as great memories.

We ended the week with a visit from Dr. Cates, the District 211 superintendent.  It was so great to see him enjoying the great teaching that goes on in our program and he was very impressed with all we do during our preschool days.  We want to send a special thank you to him as he took time out of his schedule to swing by and see our great program first hand and we were so proud of how polite our preschoolers were as they left and thanked him for visiting.

What's Coming Up?

Monday is our Halloween Party at Pirate Pete Preschool!  We will be holding it during our normal preschool time and will be trick or treating before enjoying the treats brought in by our families.  Please bring your treat to pass with you when you come in with your child and enjoy the time we get to spend all together tomorrow.

Wednesday and Friday we will be talking about camping as it is a fun thing to do this time of year as well.

Don't forget the week of November 20th we will not have preschool, we hope you plan to enjoy your Thanksgiving breaks!

Animal Week Fun!

Animals were a hot topic this week for us in preschool as we made turtles with shells and talked about where they might live and the parts of a turtle before assembling them.

Then we moved over to the farm for a while on Monday.  We sang the "Old MacDonald" song and used stuffed animals to learn the parts of the song.  When the children heard the name of the animal they were holding they raised it up high in the air.  

We talked about what animals live on the farm and what sounds they make as well.  Then we made some little pigs by discussing the shapes the teachers had set out for us.  We practiced the procedure at the circle all together then the children went to the tables to make them on their own.

The children also learned about fish and ducks and how they both like water and then helped the ducks "swim" across the "pond" using spay bottles to work on our fine motor muscles while watching them move across the surface of the water.  Other children then took turns fishing in a separate pond.

Speaking of water, this week we made an octopus out of paper plates and pipe cleaners.  As children work on their small muscles threading, it can be a bit of a challenge and discouraging.  Therefore, we used stiffer materials like pipe cleaners to help the children build their threading confidence as they thread them through the holes made in the base of the plates.

We enjoyed some boat races this week as well while we talked about the water and what animals we see if we are in a boat on the ocean.  It was a lot of fun and we even had children ask if we could write up directions for parents to make them at home!

By Friday we were able to sort while animals are pets, which ones are farm animals and which are wild animals we might only see in a zoo or in the wild.  After discussing these things at the circle, we went to the tables to be in small groups to sort animals into these groups.  After that we also sorted them by color and land and sea animals too.  Sorting items is a fan favorite and we had  great time talking about all the animals we had to work with for this activity.

On Friday we also used various geometric shapes to complete pictures of animals by putting them together to fill a space on the page like a puzzle.  While some kids were sorting and others doing geometric shapes, we also played with the Ele-fun!  The children always giggle with delight with this game so we brought it out for a fun Friday activity with the kids in honor of animal week.

What's Coming Up?

We finally have a full week of preschool again!  The theme this week will be all about fun Halloween things like pumpkins, ghosts, mummies, etc.

Don't forget about the FREE PHS Trick or Treat event we will have this Thursday evening and our Halloween Preschool Party will be next Monday during preschool hours.