Christmas Time

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

As much as I think it would be fun to have snow for Christmas, I am definitely happy that it does not snow here! :) So, it's fun to pretend! Our preschool room was covered in pretend snow and snowflakes. The kids loved doing rubbings and watching the snowflakes magically appear on their paper. :)

We also played with "snow," probably the kids favorite part of the day.

We also talked about different places where it snows, like the North Pole, which is where we went for our Christmas party!

The kids had a great time at the "north pole." First the kids made bags of food for Santa's reindeer. They had fun decorating the bags and then filling them with special treats to sprinkle on the lawn on Christmas Eve.

We read "The Night Before Christmas" (one of my favs)

We ate some special north pole treats and had hot chocolate of course!

The kids made a special star ornament to hang on the tree.

The kids LOVED running around the yard looking for a few of Santa's things that fell out of his sleigh while he was flying over our preschool. (he left us a note to tell us what to find)

Merry Christmas!!! :)

MICKEY MOUSE

This week was letter M- and if you know me, you'll know that I LOVE Mickey Mouse! :)

The kids did a Letter M worksheet and played a few different Mickey games. One game was memory with different Mickey faces. They also did a letter M maze to help Mickey find Minnie. The kids enjoyed watching a little of Mickey's Club house and dancing along to the "hot dog" song. Our craft for this week was cutting, cutting and cutting. The kids really enjoy cutting when there are no lines for them to stay on. We made Mickey faces with different scraps of paper. We also had some really cute Mickey snacks (Thanks Kristen!) and did some more letter matching- capitol to lower case.
We also reviewed all our letters again, A-M.

Oh, and our spotlight for this week was Sydnee. :)

Last week our spotlight was Maverick.

We also finished our transportation unit. We talked about buses, trains and airplanes.

The kids each had a turn to be our bus driver and to drive us to wherever they wanted to go. We traveled all over, we went to Tennessee, the mountains, the ocean and Utah!
But first our driver had to pass out the tickets...

And then the passengers had to find their seat that matched their ticket.

The kids did a great job making ABC trains.

It was fun talking about airplanes and how they can fly. We made a list of other things that can fly too. We flew our pretend airplanes around the room and wached a short video on airplanes.



Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

On Tuesday this week we talked about the first Thanksgiving and also about the Mayflower. The kids played a number matching game with some colorful fall leaves.

Our Thanksgiving Feast was a hit! The kids first colored some turkeys to add for our "turkey bowling." The kids really enjoyed rolling the bowling ball and knocking over our little turkeys. We sang our "5 little turkey" song again and made some head-bands to wear during our feast.

Lined up for the feast...

Our Thanksgiving Feast...

Thank you to everyone who donated food for our feast!!!

Cars

This week our spotlight was Tatum.

On Tuesday we learned about traffic signals and what they mean and why we have them. The kids enjoyed painting red and green lights to glue on their papers to make a traffic light. We also had a really fun time playing "red light, green light."

On Wednesday we learned all about maps. The kids had a great time looking at different kinds of maps. We looked at a large map, a pocket size map, a road map and even a map of Disneyland. We talked about what different symbols and colors might mean.

On Thursday we talked about our first mode of transportation...Cars! (we will learn about the rest after Thanksgiving)

We also reviewed our colors and our letters A-J.

The kids had fun driving the cars on the mat and also on the roads made out of tape! :)

I is for Ice Cream

Our Spotlight this week was Staten.

On Tuesday we talked about what flavor ice cream everyone likes. Mostly chocolate and one vanilla. :) We listened and watched a fun song about a girl who dreams about ice cream. We also played a shape matching game and reviewed our colors.

On Wednesday we talked about where ice cream comes from. "the box, the store, the ice cream man..." were some of their guesses.  :)  We learned that it is made from milk.

The kids had a great time making some homemade ice cream. We filled a bag with some milk and a little sugar and then put the bag inside a container with some ice and salt. The kids loved rolling the container on the ground and shaking it.

Results... YUMMY!

The kids also took turns scooping some play dough "ice cream" into some bowls.

On Thursday was our Ice Cream Party!
We played a counting game with some felt ice cream cones. Each child was given a turn to roll the dice and count that number of scoops to put on their cone. We also had some cherries for on top.

 The kids really enjoyed making a pretend ice cream cone to take home. It was my first time using "puffy paint" (aka - shaving cream, glue and food coloring) and I think it turned out great! The kids loved smoothing out the ice cream onto the paper.

The best part of the party?? Eating ice cream! :) The kids were able to make their own ice cream sundae. Don't forget the sprinkles on top!

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween week!

And our Spotlight for this week was Paytyn.

On Tuesday we got ready for our Halloween party by coloring our Haunted House papers, decorating our Halloween bags and hanging up bats in our preschool room.

Our Halloween party was great! The kids colored different Halloween pictures, made some cute little pumpkins and decorated pumpkin cookies. They also had a great time digging for skeleton bones, playing 'pin the broom on the witch' and listening to a Halloween story. I think the kids favorite part of the party was the trick or treating activity! (Who wouldn't love getting a bag full of candy from their classmates?!?)  :)

On Thursday we talked about books. Where we might find books, what kind of books there are and what different kinds of books the kids enjoy. Everyone brought a favorite book to class and we took turns telling what they are about.
We also did a few different activities to review our letters A-H.