Fantastic Fall: Getting Ready for Winter

 This week we discussed how we use Fall to get ready for winter.

After we discussed what some animals do to prepare for Winter, 

we illustrated a book "Who Needs a Coat".

 Then we learned about animals that hibernate, and animals that migrate.

While Montego held up an animal, the children helped him place it in the correct category on the rug - hibernates, migrates, or grows a thick coat of fur to stay

Our balanced literacy book this week was 

entitled "Fall" - full of signs and colors of the season!

Using our knowledge of the characteristics of fall, we painted a Fall Landscape.

We always make an outline with a black crayon to include detail 

before we add our watercolors.

Grant drew a tree with leaves falling to the ground, acorns, and a pumpkin.

We finished up a Fall book by making a beautiful leaf cover

(those books are in their portfolio folders).

The letter "N" was introduced this week.

We had lots of practice writing letters and numbers on the whiteboards.

(Bailee and Montego are pretty excited to both have blue markers!)

 We practiced blending sounds we have learned the past few weeks into words.

We also worked on an art project we'll finish up next week (to be continued!)

Bugs, bugs, bugs! (& Some Halloween Fun)

This week we introduced the Letter 'S', and the sight word 'this'. 

 In our Ss Book, we underlined every 'this' and highlighted every 's'.  

We learned the 's' song - which sounded very mysterious - perfect for a Halloween Week!

This week our unit was Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

We learned the characteristics of insects and of spiders.  

We compared how they are alike and how they are different.

 Here the children are counting the legs of a spider and its body parts, 

so we could compare them with an insect.

 For a fun math activity, we used our fingerprints to make the correct number of spiders on each web.

We went outside to observe real bugs.

Even though it was a little cold, the children hunted out a few bugs!

The children then made observational drawings of the bugs they spotted.

(I'm saving these fun papers for our portfolios!)

Then, we came inside and used our knowledge to illustrate our own Bug Books!

The kids did a great job remembering the characteristics we observed on our walk!

We also had our Halloween Party this week!!!

We started with a literacy activity.

After reading, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything . . .

 We made our own jack-o-lantern head, hat, gloves, pants, shoes,

 and shirt so we could act out the story together.

This came home with the kids - hopefully they can use the pieces to retell the story!

Here we all are in our Halloween costumes!

Next we played lots of games, and earned some fun 

halloween prizes to put in our buckets!

 Bucket Toss

 Making Ghost Suckers

 Ring Toss

 Halloween Style "Go Fishing"

We all took a turn manning the game!

 Halloween Concentration

Monster Musical Chairs

Bailee was the Monster Winner!

 Everybody received the Golden Pumpkin Award!

We had an awesome party!

Behind the Scenes:

Here are a few things I don't usually take pictures of, even though we do them everyday!

When the children finish their seat work, they choose books from our library and read until we are ready to meet back at the carpet together.  

This is a great way to smooth out our transitions from one activity to the next.

Snack Time!

The kids LOVE snack time!  Second only to CENTERS, it's their favorite thing about preschool!