Preschool Week 8 - Halloween

MS/PS:  Fall scissor skills worksheet.   CT:  D/T/W - Songs - “Knock, Knock Trick-or-Treat” http://supersimplelearning.com/halloween/songs.html S: Mandarin Orange Jack-o-Lanterns (Pinterest) WT:  Introduce Wiggle Time Dice! Monster Freeze Dance. Put on "Monster Mash". Have kids show off their silliest monster dance moves—(also try having them stagger like zombies, fly on broomsticks like witches, or hop like toads) but they must freeze in place when the tunes turn off! L: Halloween Around the World! (map skills) - Draw a card with a picture of a country, find the country on the map, talk about how they celebrate Halloween. C/A: Paper plate Ghost and Paper Jack-o-Lantern

Halloween Party Time!

Preschool Week 7 - The 5 Senses

Lesson Plan: Math/Writing Skills:  Apples/YUM! and HarvestTime worksheets  (from Day-by-Day Kindergarten Lesson Plan book by Mailbox) Circle Time:  Date/Time/Weather - Singing time - What senses do we use to experience music? Can we be loud and soft? Can we still hear with our eyes closed or hands behind our backs? Snack: TEXTURES! - juicy grapes, squishy yogurt, and crunchy crackers. Wiggle Time:  Watch dance videos - use eyes to follow along, ears to hear music, and use touch to clap hands and move along. Lesson:  Read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?”  Talk about the 5 senses and how we use them each day. Craft Time:  FingerPainting (sight, touch) Discuss adjectives - how do we describe the paint we feel and the colors we see?

On Friday, Oct 19, we had a field trip to KidsTown in Wheaton, IL, for our Make-Believe Week. It is an amazing place for kids. There are several rooms with different themes of play such as a work room with power tools and a train table, a sheriff's office with a jail, a fire-station, a princess room, a gingerbread house, a pet-care center with a fish tank, etc. etc. There is also a huge padded jungle gym to climb on and a dance floor where there's music playing for the kids to boogie. There are also lots of comfy chairs for mom's and dad's to sit in and visit while the kids go play. The kids had a lot of fun using their imaginations and playing with all the toys.  

The 19th was also Megan's 5th birthday so I brought some cupcakes to share. However, we were not allowed to sing "happy birthday" because we did not pay to have a party there. We found out if you want to have a party it's about $200...so we had some "un-birthday" cupcakes, which was appropriate anyway because we had read "Alice in Wonderland" on Monday. Other than that silly rule, I really liked KidsTown.

So, I may be really mean but, I made Meg wait until her daddy came home on Friday night before I'd let her open any of her presents.  Kyle said it would be more mean to him if I let her open everything without him.  She really didn't mind though.  I'm telling on him now, but I asked Kyle to be in charge of taking pictures and videos but forgot my camera was new and he didn't really know how to start and stop the videos.  So, we thought we had taken videos of her opening gifts from her aunties and grandparents...but they didn't get recorded...SORRY!! On Saturday we had a birthday party with a few of Meg's friends.  We had a princess theme only because I had ordered all the decorations for her birthday last year and then they didn't get used.  I figured she might not be as excited about princesses next year so I sort of forced her into it, but I think she liked it.  We had a 3-hour party, which I guess seemed a little ambitious, but we had a lot of activities for the girls and they all had a lot of fun.  There was never a dull moment.  Kyle and I really enjoyed watching them play and be silly together.  Meg is one spoiled loved girl! She has lots of aunts and grandparents and friends who know just what she likes and what she would enjoy playing with.  Meg has had the best few days since her birthday playing with all her new toys.   Thank you, thank you, thank you! to everyone who remembered our sweet "Meggers" and sent cards, gifts, or texts and phone-calls.  Our hearts are so full to know that she has such wonderful friends and family who love her. It's hard to believe we have a 5-year-old now.  Meg, you are a great light in our lives and bring your family such joy with your sweet heart.  WE LOVE YOU!

Week 6 - Make Believe & Imagine

Math/Writing Skills: Disney Letter Worksheet and  Princess Memory.

Circle Time: Date/Time/Weather - read "Alice in Wonderland" - listen to cd "Gift of Make Believe"

Snack:  ants on a log and dirt & worms - don’t worry, it’s only pretend! :)

Wiggle Time:  play “Alice” - chase a rabbit (white handkerchief puppet), shrink and grow, and paint the roses red!

Lesson: What are the different parts of a story (beg, mid, end)? What is an author, illustrator, publisher?

Craft: Fantasy collage - use fantastical characters and ideas from stories and songs we heard today.

Death of a Camera

I have no pictures from last week.  My Nikon CoolPix camera decided to start freaking out and then it died.  So only a couple of pictures from Irene's visit and NOTHING from the fun Columbus Day lesson for preschool last week.

I'm glad I had saved a big chunk of my babysitting money for a "rainy day" but I was not happy to have had to spend all of it on a new camera.  But, the Canon I got is amazing and I'm very happy with it.  It's got a lithium battery and an 8x optic zoom.  It's even blue.

Last week for preschool we studied Christopher Columbus.  For our opening activity time we colored a picture of a ship and then taped on paper sails which "billowed" in the wind.  We discussed how ships used sails to catch the wind and move them across the sea.  During circle time we sang songs about Columbus and pretended to row our boats with him.  For snack time we had "sea biscuits" with jam and mandarin oranges (to prevent scurvy, of course!).  At wiggle time we danced to videos of "A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea" and "Day-O".  For our lesson we read a "biography" of Christopher Columbus and charted his course on our map of the world.  We learned about the different countries people came from to the New World.  For our Art Project we made our own telescopes using paper towel tubes and decorated them with scenes from the ocean (including mermaids).  We even put a piece of plastic wrap on the ends with a drawing of "land" so we could say "LAND-HO!" We had a lot of fun learning about the discovery of our great land.

I did take pictures with my phone, but I don't have a way to get them directly on-line, so maybe with some luck I'll be able to figure it out later.  Meanwhile, here are some of the first images my new camera caught... 

wow... with my other camera that would have just been a blur...maybe this new camera has some drawbacks?

ok, that's much better...but it was before I discovered my camera will automatically correct red-eye!

such a sweet boy!

The Muddy Day

Preschool Week 4 - "Our Amazing Bodies" - and what better way to kick off October than by learning about our skeletons?  We practiced writing letters to make the words for different body parts and then drew a line from the word to the picture of that part.  Then we played "build a body".  For number recognition we rolled the die and each number had a corresponding body part.  The first player to get their skeleton together was the winner.  During circle time we read a spooky story called "The Soup Bone" about a little old lady and a skeleton that chases her around.  We also sang "B-O-N-E-S" (to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O") and used our maracas and triangles (thank you Target dollar corner!).  

At snack time we ate cheese and crackers and drank milk; we talked about how our bones need calcium in order to stay healthy and strong and what kinds of foods have calcium.  For wiggle time we did the skeleton dance! The girls LOVED this and we did it MANY times.  The link for the video we watched is here - http://supersimplelearning.com/songs/themes-series/halloween/the-skeleton-dance/ 

Thanks to Kyle's anatomy books, we looked at pictures of our bones and discussed how they help us move, how they protect our organs, and how they connect together.  The girls found this very fascinating.  We talked about how sometimes bones can get broken and that then a doctor takes a special picture of our bones called an x-ray.  We then moved to the kitchen for craft time and made our own x-rays of our hands and skeletons using q-tips.  Then we practiced writing the letter X all over our x-rays.  I think it's safe to say this week's lesson was a big success.