Halloween

(W's description of Halloween preschool at her house!)

Today was a SUPER FUN day at Preschool!  We had special visitors come for the day.  It was a lot of hard work, mainly by the mommies, to arrange for these visitors to come dressed in their best attire.  The visitors were:  Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Tigger, Lightening McQueen, a Pirate and Peter Pan.  We were so excited they would spend the day at Blue Preschool with us.  

The guests were happy to learn about the letter H, the color purple, the number 5 and the crescent shape.  We think the crescent shape was their favorite part of the lesson because it can look like the moon, a happy face or a sad face.  Peter Pan helped count how many more days until Halloween (5).  Our Pirate led the pledge of allegiance while Woody held the flag.  Lightening McQueen observed the weather and told us it would be a sunny but cold day.  Tigger pointed out that there were clouds outside as well.  Good team work!

Next we learned what “5 Little Pumpkins” did while sitting on a gate.  Our guests decided to draw a picture about that story on purple paper with the help of chalk and orange pumpkin colored stamps.  They of course had to draw themselves in the pictures as well.  After some singing and dancing and some yummy pumpkin shaped cheese, crackers and raisins to make jack-o-lantern faces, we took a break with some free play time.  Our guests LOVED the hot wheels cars and played nicely together, just as we hoped they would!

Then the mommies came to preschool early to watch our guests practice how to safely go trick or treating.  They each had a turn to go around the circle and say “trick or treat”.  Each of our guests brought a treat or prize to share with their friends.  They all had a wonderful time together.  The mommies were very proud of their little ones and had big smiles to show it!  We feel that each of our guests had a very special day and can’t wait to show what they have learned at preschool this Halloween.    Love you, Miss W

 Top row left to right: EM, G, P, little J, C (EM's brother) Bottom row left to right: EW and T

Fall Carnival

We had a great Fall Carnival in preschool on Thursday.  We all got together and enjoyed the great fall weather for a fun morning. 

The kids had a blast running and jumping in a huge leaf pile.

 All the kids brought a pumpkin and had fun using their artistic talents painting the pumpkins.

After pumpkins we had a great snack.  W brought an air popper and popped popcorn for all the kids.  B also brought some yummy apple cider and cookies.

We then had the boys try bobbing for apples- which was pretty funny.  They all gave it a try, though, and eventually got their apples.  (Once we told them to grab the stem it went a lot faster.) 

The kids then played on the playset, jumped in leaves some more, and had wagon rides around the yard while C did face painting.

Finally we had a picnic on the lawn.  It was great weather and we all had a great carnival!

Pumpkins!

Today, at Blue Preschool, we talked about Pumpkins. After reviewing the calendar and weather, I introduced the number 4 and the letter C. I drew a large "C" on the Magnadoodle, and each child had a chance to trace it. They really liked the hands-on. We all practiced doing the letter "C" in sign language.
Next, we read a book called, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable." Very cute story, darling pictures, and it held their attention pretty well. We then reviewed how a pumpkin grows with a short flannel board story:
We talked about the different things we can do with a pumpkin: decoration, food, seeds, jack-o-lanterns. We talked about the difference between a pumpkin and a jack-o-lantern. Then we sang a few songs about both:

ONE LITTLE PUMPKIN (to the tune of "One, little, two, little, three little Indians")

One little pumpkin smiling, smiling. (Hold up one finger and then make a smiley face!)
One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.
One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.
One little pumpkin is happy. (Smile and put your fingers on your cheeks.)

Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting. (Hold up two fingers and then frown and look down.)
Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting.
Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting.
Two little pumpkins are grumpy. (Cross your arms and frown.)

Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning. (Hold up three fingers and then cover your mouth with your hand as you yawn.)
Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning.
Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning.
Three little pumpkins are sleepy. (Stretch and yawn like you are falling asleep.)

Four little pumpkins crying, crying. (Hold up four fingers and then pretend to wipe a tear from your eye.)
Four little pumpkins crying, crying.
Four little pumpkins crying, crying.
Four little pumpkins are sad. (Wipe tears from both eyes with both hands.)

Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing. (Hold up five fingers and then hold your tummy as you pretend to laugh.)
Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.
Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.
Five little pumpkins are playing. (Run around the room!)

FIVE LITTLE PUMPKINS

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate;

The first one said, "Oh my it's getting late."

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But I don't care."

The fourth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

The fifth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

"Wooooooo" went the wind,

And out went the lights.

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Jack-O-Happy
(Original Author Unknown) Instruct children to make big circles around their heads using their arms.

This is Jack-O-Happy. (Children smile.)
This is Jack-O-Sad. (Children frown.)
This is Jack-O-Scared. (Children make frightened expression.)
This is Jack-O-Mad. (Children make angry expression.)
This is Jack-O-Silly. (Children make silly expression.)
This is Jack-O-Glad. (Children smile again.)

(We got some really cute faces for each of these emotions. Moms- try it at home with your preschooler & see the cute silly & scared faces!)

Next, we moved to the hands-on part of the lesson: exploring the inside of a pumpkin! We cut a medium-sized pumpkin into pieces and each boy got one piece to explore. We talked about which parts would make good food and which would not. We talked about what it looks, smells and feels like. Some of the boys were brave and touched the slimy pulp. (Others wanted nothing to do with it and kept their hands clean!) The boys each got a spoon and happily chopped away at their piece of pumpkin.

Our snack was Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread. EVERYONE loved it and even asked for more.
The activity for the Blue Preschool book was decorating an ORANGE OVAL to look like a pumpkin or jack-o-lantern.

We ended the lesson by enjoying the nice weather outside for some free time. We ran and played a lot of "duck-duck-goose" and "red light, green light." (and other games that three-year-old boys play, which have no name but involve a lot of running and screaming.)

(EW, P, EM, G, J, & T - all sporting some orange!)

Utah Museum of Natural History- Field Trip

On Friday our Thursday Preschool group took a special field trip to the Utah Museum of Natural History to learn more about the week's topic of dinosaurs. We changed the trip to Friday so we could also see the dinosaur show at the Mmuseum.

Here is T, G, EW and some of their siblings by a fun dinosaur in the wall that you can put pennies in and it will roar.

 Here is T in the dinosaur hall.  T and G both said their favorite dinosaur is the stegosaurus (pictured behind).

 T and G putting together a dinosaur bone puzzle. 

 G, T, and EW at the dinosaur dig.  They got to use little brushes and tried to find bones and fossils in the dirt.  It was very entertaining, but rather busy.

Finally the kids got to watch the dinosaur show in the lobby.  It was cute and at the end they got to see the new dinosaur that was just discovered- the Utahceratops- come out to great everybody... none of the kids wanted to get close enough to take a picture with it. 

 After all the fun we went to a near-by park and had lunch.  There was even a dinosaur to climb on at the park!

Dinosaurs

Phew, finally a moment to post about the dinosaur lesson.

Objective:
To help students learn to identify differences and similarities in things (different/same). Also implementing the number 3, letter D, color green, triangles, and dinosaurs.

Gathering activity:
For my gathering activity I had a bucket with rice for each child with a plastic dinosaur skeleton buried in the rice for them to dig up. (I found the dinosaurs at Dollartree two to a pack, too perfect to pass up!) Each child used a plastic spoon to dig for their dinosaur. Once they found the dinosaur they could use the magnifying glasses to look more closely at it or bury it again and trade with another student. This activity went quite well, all the boys seemed to enjoy it and I don't believe any of them ate the rice.
Welcome:
We went through the calendar and weather, then I introduced the number 3, triangles, and the color green.

Blue Book project:
For the blue book each student was given a paper with a green capital D printed on it. I showed them when the D was turned on its side it looked kind of like a dinosaur back. They were then given green triangle of varying shape and size to glue on and create a Dinosaur. I will admit most of them did not look like dinosaurs but the kids still had fun gluing on the shapes. The picture below is the sample I made.
Singing time:
For singing time we sang the following song to "The Wheels on the Bus" tune:

All Around The Swamp
The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP,FLAP,FLAP,
FLAP,FLAP,FLAP,FLAP.FLAP,FLAP
The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP, FLAP, FLAP
All around the swamp.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex went GRRR,GRRR, GRRR,
GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR,
The Tyrannosaurus Rex went GRR, GRR, GRR,
All around the swamp.

The Triceratops horns went POKE, POKE, POKE
POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE,
The Triceratops horns went POKE, POKE ,POKE,
All around the swamp.

The Brontosaurus went MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,
MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,MUNCH, MUNCH
The Brontosaurus went MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,
All around the swamp.

The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
All around the swamp.

I was kind of losing their attention so we did head shoulders knees and toes and moved on.

Lesson:
For the lesson I had a bag full of green items that each student took turns picking out. I was hoping to talk a little about how the items were the same and different but for the sake of time I moved on to dinosaur concentration. This ended up being a perfect way to discuss same and different while keeping their attention.

Snack:
For snack I had three items they could choose from, string cheese cut into thirds, pretzels, and sugar snap peas with water to drink. They could then choose whether they wanted their snack to be all the same or different. At first none of them wanted the sugar snap peas until I showed them what was inside. It was very cute to see some of them try it even if they ended up not liking it.

Story Time:
While they ate I read them One-O-saur, Two-O-saur by David Bedford.

Free Time:
The kids were pretty restless at this point so I let them have free time. They seemed to do well at free time, though I did have a little trouble getting them to start cleaning up, even when I sang the clean up song. Perhaps I didn't give them enough time for free time because it was almost time to go.

Craft:
For the craft I gave them each a dark piece of paper and drew a dinosaur with Elmer's glue on the page (sorry for my crude artistic interpretation of a dinosaur) The students were then given macaroni and spaghetti noodles to glue on the page. The picture below is of E's dinosaur. I think he spent more time sword fighting others with the spaghetti noodles then doing his picture.
I was hoping to snap a lot more pictures than I did. The time went really quickly and I barely had time to pick up the camera and take this picture of all the boys in their green and dinosaur shirts.
EM, J, T, EW, G, P

All in all it went really well. Cute group of boys!

Fall Leaves- Field Trip

Our Blue Preschool has a group that tries to get together every Thursday that we don't have a big field trip scheduled.  This Thursday EW, T, and a friend took a trip up to Silver Lake to go on a litle hike and look at the beautiful fall leaves- since we learned about them on Tuesday.

It was kind of cold but very beautiful on the drive up and at the lake.  The kids had fun finding different colored leaves and putting them in their buckets.

 EW and T loved watching the ducks and looking at the lake and trees. 

Fall Leaves Lesson

Today Teacher R had the kids at her house.  Here is her lesson on Fall Leaves!

Leaves Lesson Plan

Objective- All students will learn to recognize that leaves change each season and during the autumn the leaves change color to red, orange, yellow, and brown before they fall off the trees.  Children will also learn to recognize and identify the letter B, number 2, color yellow, and diamond shape.

Creative Play- When kids arrive they can play leaf matching, make leaf rubbings, or examine leaves with microscopes.

Gathering Activity/Songs- We’ll sing Higgly, Wiggly, Bumblebee then I Like to go to School to get ready for circle time.

Welcome- Talk about weather and day of the week. Introduce the number 2 and how to sign it.  Introduce the diamond shape- students will take turns identifying 2 diamonds each out of 24 shapes on a board.  Introduce the letter B and read the B book.

Introduce Autumn Leaves

Singing Time- Sing 5 Little Leaves

Six little leaves so bright and gay (all six children can be leaves) Were dancing about on a tree one day (children twirl and dance) The wind came blowing through the town (teacher pretends to be wind and blows very hard) And one little leave came tumbling down (teacher touches one child on the head and as she/he does the child twirls to the ground) Five little leaves... Four little leaves... Three little leaves... Two little leaves... One little leaf so bright and gay Was dancing about on a tree one day The wind came blowing through the town And one little leaf came tumbling down. (all children are on the floor)

And then I came and raked them all up in a pile! (Teacher pretends to rake the leaves into a big pile. The children love to scatter at this point so you can't rake them up.

Lesson- Read Fall Leaves Fall and talk about how leaves change each season.  The posterboard will have a winter tree.  Students will take turns putting green leaves on the tree for spring/summer tree then switching the leaves from green to yellow to make an Autumn tree. 

Each kid will pick two leaves.  We will talk about the qualities of each leaf (T's leaf is yellow and small) then paint print them in framed paper for their book.                            

Snack/Story- Snack will be toast leaves with strawberry or apricot jam and water.  We will read The Little Yellow Leaf while they eat snack.

Craft- We will make colorful leaves with bits of construction paper and clear contact paper .

 Free Play- Outside in the leaves

This is the Place Heritage Park

Our first field trip was a great success!  We met up at This is the Place Heritage Park and had a great morning with all the Blue Preschool kids.  Before we went into the park all the kids got their new field trip t-shirts that R made.  The shirts say "BLUE preschool" on them and the kids all loved wearing them!  It was also nice and easy for the Moms to spot where our kids were at all times. 

From left to right: P, G, EM, J, T, EW

To start off we went on a train ride around the park. 

All the kids got to pan for gold in the stream.  Here is S helping from left to right: T, EM, J, and P pan for gold... with some of their siblings.

 Each kid found a little piece of "gold" from the creek that they were able to trade in at the Bank for a piece of candy.  Here they are making their transaction.

We also rode the little train around the lake 3 times and the kids loved singing Old Mcdonald and screaming in the tunnel.  We also took a quick stop in the school house so the kids could see how children went to school in the pioneer times.  They liked drawing on their slates as they finished their candy from the banker.

 Then we over to the pony ride where each kid got to take a ride on a horse.  They were all very brave and seemed to enjoy themselves.  Here is T on the front horse and G on the back horse taking their turns.

After the pony rides the kids were able to pet the sheep and goats. The also were able to look at the cows, pigs, and rabbits.  How fun for them to learn about these animals on Tuesday then get to see, pet, and ride them on Thursday! 

We ended up with a little play time at the kid's village where all the boys enjoyed running around and playing in the houses and on, yet another, train.  Here is P, G, and J at the firehouse.