October Week 5: Happy Halloween!

 This week was all about Halloween!  With the exception of Thursday (which was a repeat of last week's activity Out In The Jungle) Large Groups consisted of games, Halloween yoga and trick-or-treating.  But first, what did the teachers dress up as?

Miss Carrie was Pete The Cat.....

With his RED shoes!

Miss Jeana and Miss Suzanne were witches.  Miss Kelly was a cat and Miss Traci was a pirate.

Miss Jen was a princess on a unicorn.  Miss Shirley was a Minnie Mouse Witch, Miss Debbie was a cowgirl, and Miss Bella was a dog.

We played a lot of games and had fun doing yoga.  We practiced saying 'Happy Halloween' and 'Trick Or Treat'.

The morning preschool watched the Halloween parade.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!  Get ready for next week when we start to learn our Thanksgiving song and talk about foods we might see/eat during Thanksgiving!

October Week 4: Out In the Jungle

Phoneme: /g/

Transition Song: Five Little Ghosts

Materials: pictures of different animals/birds/bugs with /g/ in their name.

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: jungle, animals, birds, bugs, loud/quiet, gopher, grasshopper, seagull, eagle, penguin, dog, goat, goldfish, gecko, glow worm, gazelle, grouse, earwig, grison, sea slug, wart hog, gorilla, pig, frog, flamingo, I like/don’t like, Where questions, What questions.

Pre-Literacy: we skipped drawing the letter G this week in order to have enough time for the main activity.

This week in Large Group, Miss Carrie introduced a new game called Out In The Jungle.  It's based off one of her favorite songs called Safari Song from Preschool Of Rock - Everything Makes A Sound.  Miss Carrie adapted it to the large group goals.

Miss Carrie put up pictures around the room of animals we knew and animals we did not know.

Clockwise from top left: grouse, dog, frog, gazelle, earwig, gorilla

clockwise from top left: eagle, goat, pig, flamingo, penguin, sea slugs

clockwise from top: wart hog, seagull, gold fish, grasshopper, glow worm.  Missing: grison, gecko, gopher. 

 First, Miss Carrie would call out "Binoculars UP!"  Everyone help up their hands to pretend they were looking through binoculars.  Then we would chant:

Out in the jungle,
what did I see?
(then everyone drummed on their legs while chanting)

 I....Saw...A....

Then Miss Carrie would call out a classmate's name.  That person would point to an animal and name it.  Everyone came to look.  Miss Carrie would ask What is it?  Where does it live?  What does it move like?  What does it sound like?  Every took turns naming the animal/bird/bug.  We looked at the animal to determine what it moved like : fins to swim, four legs, two legs, wings, no legs?  We tried to figure out what the animal/bird/bug sounded like.  We talked about if the animal/bird/bug lived on a farm, in the jungle, in the water, in the air, underground, or in caves.

Last was the fun part: WE ACTED LIKE THE ANIMAL!  Everyone, even the teachers!  We crawled, hopped, flew, walked on four legs, slithered, and swam.  We barked, grunted, chirped, oinked, blurped (apparently that is what goldfish do according to preschoolers in the know), and chittered.  We balanced on one leg like flamingos.  At the end, Miss Carrie had a turn and said "I....Saw....A....HUMAN!"  Wait.  What is a human?  Hmmm.  Every class figured out that we are all humans so we walked like humans back to the rug.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Use a book of animals and take turn pretending to be the animals. Get on the ground with your child and follow their lead.  Where do they live?  What do they sound like?  What do they move like?  Go to the library and find more books about animals and where they live.  Go see live animals if you are near them.  If you have a favorite animal do some research together to learn more about that animal.

Look at what else happened this week:

October Week 3: Revisit the Favorites

This week in Large Group with Miss Carrie we revisited favorite songs.  Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy by Rachel Arntson and Silly Dance Contest by Jim Gill were favorites.  But there was another one that Miss Jeana does in her classroom that each one of her morning and afternoon classes requested:  SPOOKY WALK!

This one is popular every single year.  It is similar to Bear Hunt but with a Halloween Theme.

This weekend, go out for an autumn walk.  Look for leaves.  Look for familiar signs (grocery, stop signs, Halloween signs).  Start practicing saying "Trick or Treat" or "treat" or "Treat, please".  Or learn how to sign 'candy' and 'Happy Halloween'.  I like learning signs from Signing Time.

Do you know what you are going to dress up as for Halloween?  I'm dressing up like Pete The Cat!

October Week 2: Fall, Autumn, and Leaf Man

phoneme: /g/

Transition Song: Five Little Ghosts (see previous post for link)

Materials: Laminated letter G, autumn leaves, Book: Leaf Man

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: environmental sounds (moo, quack, gobble-gobble) high/low, same/different, big/little, in front/behind, next to, throw, roll, leaves, autumn, fall, trees, labeling colors, What/Where/Who, abstract convo, -ing, plural -s EX:  I have red leaves on my tree.

Pre-Literacy: Draw the letter G together.  What words have that /g/ sound? Go, ground, game, grape, goat.

This week with Miss Carrie, we read Leaf Man by Lois Elhert.  Leaf Man used to live in my yard but he blew away!  We saw a lot of pictures made with autumn leaves: animals, vegetables, fruits.  We guessed what they were and made animal sounds or answered if we liked pears and apples.

Miss Carrie has  A LOT of big trees at her house and the leaves are turning red, yellow, orange, and brown.  She brought some (pretend) leaves in a box and sprinkled them all over.  We rolled in the leaves and threw leaves.  We found leaves behind, in front, and next to us.  We found leaves that were big and little and compared if they  looked the same or different.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go for a walk and start looking for autumn leaves.  Compare sizes and colors.  Do they look the same or different?  Where did you find the leaves?  On the sidewalk?  In your yard?  At the park?

And one more thing:

These two designed a house.  And look what I see?

It's a piano.  With yellow piano keys and three yellow foot pedals.  I play piano and organ and thought this was very impressive!