Blast from the Past

This week we took some time to go back in time and look at things from the past.  This was a vocabulary word we used throughout the week in order to help the children understand such a tricky concept.  We started out the week going all the way back to the time of the dinosaurs.  We learned that they lived a very long time ago and can now be seen mostly in museums.

We matched upper and lower case letters together by matching the letter written on an egg with a letter written on a dinosaur.  This is one of the first skills to master in reading and we do a lot of activities similar to this each week to work in these skills.

We learned about fossils and the children were able to break open and discover what dinosaur was inside for them.  Then, we were able to look at the imprints made in the 'rock' to see the fossil.

After that we did more math by placing cotton balls to represent eggs in each dinosaur nest.  The children had to read the number in their next aloud to their teacher and then glue that amount to show they understood the relationship between the numeral and amount.

 After our nests, we painted some scales on various dinosaurs with paint brushes and later on with stamps and our fingers.  This helped the children learn another vocabulary word.

After all that art work to build vocabulary, we then worked on spelling the word DINO.  The teacher showed the children this word on our screen and then helped them identify the four letters and practiced saying the order they went in to make the word DINO.  Then, we went to the tables to tape them to string in the correct order so each child could spell the word DINO.  

 Once we spelled DINO we worked on making dinosaur feet!  The children were able to work on their pincher grasp and fine motor skills by decorating dino feet that should fit over their shoes at home.  Hopefully some of them tried them out over their shoes to stomp around the house like the dinosaurs we danced and acted like this week.

 Besides talking about dinosaurs from the past, we then started to move forward to another time period, the 1950's.  We learned about diners and milk shakes and juke boxes then placed cherries on top of milk shakes like we did with the dino nests and eggs.  

After our milkshakes, we heard the story of Flat Stanley as we moved through time and after hearing about him, we worked on spelling the name Stanley by sorting letters and gluing them on top of the letters written on top of Flat Stanley.

 We made records this week to transition from the fifties to the sixties out of paper plates this week.  During this time, the children were able to trace letters for writing time and then were able to draw on their record as well to work those same motor skills.

Once we were done with our records we moved on to decorating a crazy hippie van where the goal was to fill the van with lots of color and creativity as were true of the time.

 After decorating our vans, we did our first lesson in tie-dye.  The children were given baby wipes and then told to color on them with as many colors as possible.  Then, they folded them and squeezed them to create a tie-dye affect.

We also made paper dolls like what were used as toys long ago but we did the tie-dye affect with their paper doll clothes as well.  the children were given pre-cut out clothes made out of coffee filters and then colored them and then sprayed them with water to spread the color around the clothes.  Their 'designs' ended up looking awesome!

We played a lot of games from the past this week that are still fun to play today.  We did a lot with hula hoops throughout the week as well as hopscotch and even went outside to play jump rope too!  Long ago it was more normal to play outside instead of indoors on a device so we took this opportunity to get the kids outside and active; we had a great time!

We did glow in the dark bowling like people used to do in the 1980's on Friday this week and the kids laughed as we turned out the lights to show the glowing water bottle pins!  Try it at home this Halloween, it is a ton of fun!

Before we headed home on Friday this week we decorated guitars to be rock and roll stars before freeze dancing to Elvis and other rock and roll music.  Hopefully the children were able to play with them at home.

What's Coming Up?

Don't forget that next week we will be talking about Halloween and our Halloween party is Monday, October 30th.  We will be visiting our media center to hear a 'spooky story' and then trick or treating in the school before heading to our room to enjoy treats.  We will only hold preschool that day during the times stated on the invites so the teachers have time to clean up after the party and turn our room back into a classroom again.

Remember that we also have the FREE Trick or Treat with Pirate Pete event at Palatine High School on Thursday, October 26th.