Pumpkins and Fall Harvest

The excitement for Halloween is building up in our classroom. During circle time the children have enjoyed sharing their stories about pumpkin patches, playing in leaves, costume ideas, and other fall activities. We have been learning about pumpkins and fall harvest by reading several books together and learning songs and finger plays. Our favorites include the finger play "The Five Little Pumpkins" and the song "Spooky Walk." We are planning to sing these songs for parents and family at our Halloween party.

Here is a peak at some of our pumpkin activities:

 We painted small pumpkins which were generously donated to our class.

 We used golf tees and plastic hammers to do pumpkin pounding. Both classes had a blast with this fine motor activity.

 In the sensory table we had the children make predictions about what was inside a pumpkin. The guesses from preschoolers included, "Derby cars, stickers, a star (remembering our apple discoveries), purple seeds, and candy." We had a lot of laughs during our pumpkin discovery. After we carved the pumpkin the children were able to pick out the seeds and do some sorting.

 We read the book Pumpkin Jack and learned about the life cycle of pumpkins. Then we made this paper plate to show the details of what we learned. Our cycle shows the pumpkin changing from a seed to a sprout and yellow flower, then a pumpkin, and then becoming a moldy and rotten pumpkin, and then the cycle can begin again.

At Miss Danielle's center the children we so excited to have technology incorporated in the lesson. She used a video, "Did you ever see a pumpkin.."
You can find it here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URBnD_1bUew

The children watched the video and sang the song. Then they were able to take their own hand-painted pumpkins and create jack-o-lanterns. I loved watching this interactive activity take place.
Thank you Miss Danielle for this great idea!

Here is a picture of the finished jack-o-lanterns on display:

After our unit on pumpkins we moved on to reading about farms, scarecrows, and fall harvest.

 In the dramatic play area the class was making vegetable soup with various vegetables they picked.

 We decorated scarecrow heads with other pumpkins that were generously donated to our classes.

 The children painted with corn and potatoes to make creative artwork. They also used various art supplies including bubble wrap to decorate Indian corn.

We are looking forward to a fun-filled week ahead with our Halloween parade and party!

Leaves are Falling....

This week we spent time learning about the trees and their leaves. We began by reading the book, We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger.

 The book and our discussions helped us to learn how to find different types of leaves and classify them by their color and shape. After our circle time we went on a leaf hunt of our own. Each child was given a bag to carry and we led them out to various paths around the school building. There were excited shouts, "I found a yellow one!" "Look at this huge one!" "I think this is the maple leaf!" It was a great experience for us all...and it is always a fun adventure to take our learning outdoors. Here are some photos from the experience:

After the leaf hunt we returned to the classroom to do some counting with our leaves, sorting, and to make leaf rubbings.

Another book we read this week was one of my favorites, Leaf Man by Lois Elhert.

I love to read this book with the children. The illustrations are so imaginative and absolutely beautiful. After we read the book we used the felt board to make our own leaf people. The children enjoyed manipulating the leaves to make their own designs. After circle time we also incorporated the Leaf Man book into our centers and the children were able to create their own leaf person using real leaves.

It was a great week spent learning together. Our easel was being used to finger paint beautiful fall scenes, the sensory table was used to sort various nuts from trees, and we sang many songs and finger-plays together. Here is one more peak at some of our learning. We introduced patterns by using different colored leaves. The children practiced making their own "AB" pattern strip. We will continue to work on the skill or recognizing and making patterns throughout the year.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the fall leaves and scenery before they are gone!

Fire Safety Week

Our class loved learning about fire safety because it meant they could practice "STOP, DROP, and ROLL" in the classroom as well as have a visit from some real fire fighters from our local fire department. We spent time reading books to learn about fire fighters and their equipment. The children were fascinated to watch a real fire fighter get dressed and put on all of his gear. Here is an inside look at our visit:

Here are some of our learning activities that look place throughout the week:

We played Firetruck Bingo to practice number recognition. This was a popular center...we love Bingo dabbers!

YUM! At one center we practiced following direction to make a tasty firetruck treat!

 We used shapes to create our own firetruck pictures.

 We painted with toy firetrucks to make these great pictures of firetruck tracks. This was a great fine motor skill of moving the trucks back and forth in the paint.

We also borrowed this fabulous firetruck tent to play in. We wore our firefighter helmets and took flashlights inside the tent with us.

It is my hope that through all of these fun learning activities and experiences the children went home and shared with their parents about the importance of fire safety, smoke detectors, and "Stop, Drop, and Roll." We had a great week together....I am wondering if we will see some fire fighters again soon on Halloween....it seemed to be a pretty exciting costume in our classroom!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Our Very Own Butterflies

We had a wonderful unit on caterpillars and butterflies. I had found more than a dozen monarch caterpillars in a field of milk weed at the beginning of the month and placed them in a butterfly net in the classroom. Everyday we enjoyed checking the net to see if anything had changed and the children patiently awaited the reveal of our first butterfly. Here are some pictures of the process:

This is a picture of one of the preschoolers drawing her observations of the caterpillars for the day. As you can see....we had several green chrysalis in the net.

We read the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar several times. Then we completed many activities based on the book including putting butterflies in order by their shape and size, sorting butterflies by color, matching butterflies, and making artwork.

 In this activity we used bingo dabbers to recreate the artwork that Eric Carle used in his book.

I surveyed the class to see if they liked some of the foods that we read about in the book. They were able to practice name recognition and place their name on the chart for this activity. As it turned out...everyone likes lollipops and no one likes to eat green leaves like the caterpillar! :)

Our sensory table was filled with birdseed and other things that start with the letter "B" this week including butterflies. The children enjoyed manipulating the items in the table and making new discoveries.

This last picture is an example of our name caterpillars. The children practiced putting their letters in order to create their name and then they decorated their caterpillars.

We had a great week and the excitement and pure joy when each butterfly hatched was priceless. I loved hearing the children's shrieks and laughter as we let each butterfly fly free. It is one of my favorite activities to do with them. 

I wanted to share a few photos of the children letting our butterflies go outside. I had to crop and edit the pictures for privacy purposes but I hope it gives you a glance of the enchantment. The butterflies were willing to rest on our fingers and on some occasion they flew away immediately but on one of the colder, rainy days we had to place them on our fence to allow them time to adjust to the climate and within a few hours they had both flown away.