Halloween Day

We had a lot of fun in Little Adventures Preschool today.  It was the first day that our new friends I and M joined the party.  Yay for more girls in my life! 

We did this fun matching activity.  It came from the Creative Resources printables, but I'm sure you could easily make your own.  The idea was to match the pumpkins that had the same face, so we talked in great detail about the shape of the eyes, nose and mouth.

 Next we played a graphing game from 2 Teaching Mommies Halloween set.  I also sent home the printable for kids to do as homework. 

 This copy I laminated and used wet erase markers to fill it in.  The boxer costume was the winner (was rolled 10 times first).  I also laminated the dice and used velcro on all the "glue" tabs.  I wanted to be able to store it flat and it seemed to work out just fine.

 One of the things that makes preschool managable for me and makes having an in-home daycare a stress for me is clean up.  I love that I can leave our mess and deal with it right after the kids go home.  So much less stress and so much more learning can take place!  This is the picture of after art time today.

 For art today we did some drawing with pencils and tracing Halloween stencils.  We also decorated our papers with Halloween stickers.  Then we added paint to the mix.  I took the idea from Little Family Fun to use cookie cutters to paint. The kids seemed to get the hang of it and like it until they decided that finger painting was better.

 So, C (will be 3 years in January) is definately the class clown.  I was helping another child wash his hands and there was a bunch of giggling at the table.  I returned to find that he had painted his hands, face and hair with a mixture of the black, yellow and orange paint.  It took all of my control to not burst out laughing.  I would have let myself laugh if it was just us, but with 6 other kids there I knew the idea would be appealing for other kids to try if I didn't hold it together. What a nut!

 If you were wondering what a paint smock over a muscle costume looks like, here you go:

 Another activity we did today was to glue pumpkin seeds onto paper.  Some kids did designs, some kids (like C) jut did blobs of glue and seeds.

 They also had the option to use the bottle or use a paintbrush to get the glue onto the paper.

 Here is everyone working so well on putting their stickers on their papers.

 We had a very delisous snack today.  Every family provided a portion of it and all the kids were pleased with it.  I was too!  It may be the healthiest thing they eat today (bananas, apples, cucumbers, zucchini hummas and homemade lemonaid).

Halloween Weekend

We have been very busy since my last post, so here's a little catch up.
We went to Boo at the Zoo and the Children's Museum for Trick-or-Treat Street.

 We made ghosts and flew them over this big fan.

 We played with our friends and C and J rode the train.

We had a group Halloween party, and this is our family picture.

I downloaded 124 pictures today of this weekend alone, so I saved you the eyesore of too many pictures, so you got the best of them.  Boy did we have a lot of fun!

Bats and Monsters

Today's theme was Bats and Monsters.  We reviewed the letters B and M.  During our morning Language Arts block the kids are split into two groups.  One group works with me at the reading table, and the other group works independently.  We've been working on "reading" independently during this time. 

 J really likes all the Halloween books in our reading box this month.

 At the reading table R and T were practicing cutting on the lines.  Part way through I figured out they weren't holding the scissors correctly, then I realized that they didn't know how to turn the paper so they didn't have to look at it upside down (like R is doing in the picture).  Cutting is a schooled skill.  This H sort comes from the Halloween Theme from 2 Teaching Mommies.

 We also worked on pre writing pages.  They had to get the monsters to the door.  R was so focused on drawing right on the line.  The pre write pages are from the Monsters theme by 2 Teaching Mommies.

 I pulled out the dot art for the boys (all boys today!) for the first time today.  They did a great job with the M is for Monster page from the Monster Theme by, yep you guessed it, 2 Teaching Mommies.  They have such great units that worked very well with our theme for the day.  Happy dance for me because I didn't have to create it.

 We also did "Thumbprint Bats" today.  J, also known as spider-man, loved using his spider-man hands to make the prints.

 T was the first to try adding to his thumbprints with a crayon.  He's starting to get the idea of intentional drawing instead of scribbling.

 I found this idea from another blog, I'm not sure which and as I tried to find it again I failed.  I adapted it to make it work for the supplies I had on hand.  We had a great time rolling the dice and putting the correct number of counting sticks into our monsters.

 We also measured bats today. This bat idea is from Chalk Talk.

 The boys had a great time putting all the money back into the jar, and what a great fine motor activity it turned out to be.

Tuesday the 25th

This is C (2 yrs) yesterday.

 This is C today.  Notice anything similar?  I don't think I'll be able to pry his bob the builder costume off of him.  He loves it!  And the best part?  They are actual clothes that he can wear any time he wants!  Not just some thin jumpsuit that has a printed design on it.  Yay for a great costume!

 A few weeks ago when we were learning the letter B I printed out these cards and didn't have enough time to do the activity with our preschool class.  We finally got around to it today.  I had the boys cut out each letter and then use the bears to build words.  It was a different way to explore how letters have a purpose and was much more fun than rereading our beginning readers.

 Today we also had some fun with some color matching jack-o-lanterns and a pumpkin/jack-o-lantern sort.  They are great printables from 1+1+1=1.

 This is another of my favorite activities, and as soon as I started doing this the boys have been finding letters all over the real world.  I've written a few key sentences that go with our alphabet program (The Amazing Action Alphabet) and then I've had the boys find certain letters throughout all of the sentences and mark them with highlighter tape.

 We've done six letters so far.  C was so happy to pose for the picture after completing all of the S's (see them in blue?).

 Here's a little teaser for all my preschool kids for tomorrow.  Look forward to talking about Bats and Monsters and doing some cute counting!

 We'll be rolling dice and putting the correct number of Halloween sticks into our Frankenstein tubes.  I used the foam sheets cut in half, some tacky glue to make them into a tube and then foam stickers (thanks Oma!) on Popsicle sticks for our counters.  Look forward to these coming home (it'll also be the homework game for Wednesday).

Camping

One of C's favorite games to play is "Camping".  It's a great dramatic play game that continues day in and day out.  On Saturday evening we decided it was warm enough to make a real camp fire out in our little pit in the backyard and cook dinner in it.

 EMan was confined to his high chair since he was getting too close for comfort to the fire.

 C really wanted to put up the tent, which started a good conversation about the changing season and how it gets cold at night.  We compromised and put up the kid tent in his bedroom.  He then was given the option to sleep in the tent or in his bed.  He chose the tent :)

 Before going to bed though we try and have a mom/daddy read story and a C read story.  Right now he reads us the books from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  He's learned 6 letters and is therefore reading the first 6 books in their series.  I'd highly recommend checking out the company.  Go to their web page by clicking here: Amazing Action Alphabet.

C had a high fever on Sunday, so we canceled regular preschool for Monday (again).  I hate canceling.  There are so many fun activities that I love doing with our whole preschool class.  I've found that teaching is the job for me simply because even if there is a particularly hard day, I am still excited to wake up the next morning and greet kids again.  How many people can say that about their job?