This week we started out with another fabulous All About Me presentation. The kids love sharing their photos and information about their families. We learned about one student's favorite place; candy land and that some of our preschoolers want to become teachers when they grow up while others want to be Cinderella.
We are working on helping preschoolers hold their writing utensils correctly through various writing sheets. However, having the children rip tissue paper to make fire pits for our camping unit will also help them with muscle memory to pinch the writing utensil and not just grip it in a fist. The more they rip things the more their hands get used to that movement and when they start holding crayons and markers they will begin repeating that hand position. 
After making our fire pits we put our papers in our cubbies in played camp songs with rhythm sticks at the circle rug around our 'campfire' that was made by the teachers. The children love working with the rhythm sticks that help them listen and follow directions as well as create rhythmic patterns which supports counting and other math principals.
Speaking of math, we did other math activities this week when we talked about the shapes that are used to build tents. The children used squares on the bottom and added triangles on the top of our magnetic blocks to build campgrounds with lots tents.
We spent a lot of time outside this week too since camping usually takes place outside. The children went on bug hunts and nature trail scavenger hunts and made chalk drawings on the sidewalks and even did some fun science experiments outside where we made guesses about what would happen to pop bottle once a Mentos was dropped into them. 
A few of the preschoolers made accurate guesses by using prior knowledge they gained from watching this very experience on youtube.
Once we were back inside this week we also used bugs to paint! The children were able to choose bugs with a variety of legs and bodies to dip into paint and make all sorts of patterns and designs.
We used marshmallows a lot this week as well since s'mores are such a big part of what makes camping so fun. We made more fire pits with numbers on them and asked the children to read the number on the 'fire pit' to learn how many marshmallows needed to be thrown into the fire. 
Sometimes we can camp near the water which often means there is a beach nearby that has a sandy shore. We used this reason to draw letters and numbers in the sand at the tables. If you do not have sand at home, flour also works well to allow the children to use their fingers and practice drawing.
After letter of the day practice we worked on letter recognition with a pre-reading activity. The children were given trees with white lower case letters written on them. 
Then were given glue sticks and small red circles (apples) with upper case letters written on them. the children had to figure out which letters matched and glue the upper case letters to the lower case ones on the tree to fill the apple tree. These types of matching games really will help the children with their letter recognition skills since some upper and lower case letters look nothing alike.
Lots of grass grows outside and is often seen while camping outdoors so we planted our own grass this week to learn about what is needed to help things grow. We placed dirt, seeds and water into cups to take home in order to set them in the sun and look for the grass to appear. 
On Friday we took a few more paths on our make believe camping trail to get to our 'campsite' where we had a large parachute tent waiting for us. We crawled through tunnels (caves) and walked across balance beams (logs) to pack a healthy snack (toy food) and build our parachute tent outside. It was quite an adventure!
Back inside we did more bug math and science with magnify glasses to look closer at real bugs and leaves and flowers then sorted plastic bugs into paper jars by color and number.
Due to a building evacuation the children got to go on an added field trip Friday where we played on the real football field and did warm ups like the real Pirate football players do. The children had such a fun time playing outside this extra bit and worked up a mighty strong appetite for snack when we can back in.
While the teachers prepared the applesauce snack of the day the children worked on s'more math by sorting and matching the parts of a s'more to the same number. Each child would glue down and arrange paper graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate on a paper based on the image of a numeral, amount of marshmallows and other symbols all linked to the same number.
After snack we 'made dessert' by getting back to the s'mores idea and building pretend s'mores by gluing cotton balls, black paper squares and cardboard squares all together. Then we 'roasted' them over our 'camp fire'. 
We practiced phonics by spelling with marshmallows that had letters written on them in marker. The children would make the sound of the missing letter with their teacher and then find the letter on the marshmallow that made that sound to place in the blank. Many of the children took home this camping sheet and/or the marshmallows with letters written on them to play this at home too.
We learned how to make leaf imprints on paper with crayons, paper and leaves and had a fun time trying to see the shapes below the paper as they colored.
Before going home we did one final science experiment with straw wrappers. The children used small droppers of water to make the straw 'worm' grow and expand to teach the concept that worms do best in moist areas.
What's Coming Up?
This coming week will be all about Health and Hygiene and the following week will be the Preschool Fall Break week off due to the craziness of the high school schedule that week.
A flyer went home on Friday to remind families of the Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete Event at PHS on October 26th. This is a free event open to the public for kids 10 and under.
