Monkey Backround

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Pilgrims' and Indians' First Thanksgiving

We had a terrific Thanksgiving week at preschool! As always, this week began with play time.
At Circle Time we learned about the letter T.
First we had a turkey chase. A few of the children would leave the room, and the rest would hide. Then the other children would come back in and look for the hiding children. When a hiding "turkey" was found, the "hunters" would chase them and put them where all good turkeys go, on the table.
Later we made a turkey craft, a hand print turkey. After we made a hand print on the page, we wrote the letters of our name on paper turkey feathers and glued them to our hand prints. We drew a turkey in the center of the hand, and tada!!! We had a really cute turkey craft!
For snack we ate mini pies. We filled mini shells with the fillings of our choice, cherry, vanilla, or apple. Then Miss Lauren topped them off with whipped cream.
We divided into groups for our next two activities. Miss Cindy took some of the children downstairs, and Miss Lauren stayed upstairs with the rest. While downstairs the children talked about how pilgrims had to make their own stuff. Then they dipped their own candles.
The children upstairs made Indian hats. We talked a bit about Indians made their own things too, and then we sewed beads onto our hats. We attached feathers and wore our own Indian hats!!!
To finish such a fun week of preschool, we had a turkey shoot. We used a ball gun and shot down "turkeys." Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Perfect Plants

This weeks preschool was great! In our Letter Bag were things that began with P.


One of our Show & Tells this week was a pink princess plate with plants on it. It went perfectly with our letter!To begin our plant week, we talked about how plants breath in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen, which is good because we breath in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide. Then we played a relay. In the relay we used spoons to move the air, pom-poms, back and forth between a tree and lungs.


Our first craft was making plants out of paper. We reviewed the different parts of plants and what they need to grow.


For snack this week we ate different parts of plants. We ate roots (carrots), leaves (lettuce), stems (celery), fresh fruit, (apples/grapes), dehydrated fruit (craisins), seeds, and things made out of seeds, and even something made from nectar! Wow! Plants sure provide us with lots of food. Then we went on a plant scavenger hunt. We found all sorts of fun things! While we were on our hunt, we gathered leaves for another activity.


When our hunt was over we played DON'T EAT SPROUT!!! We put M&Ms on pictures of different plants. One person leaves the room and the group chooses a picture to be "Sprout." The person who left comes in and starts eating M&M's. When the person picks up Sprout everyone shouts "DON'T EAT SPROUT!!!!!" Then a new person is chosen to leave, and the game goes on.


Everyone got a flower as a gift from Miss Lauren, and then we used the leaves we gathered on the hunt to make leaf prints. What a perfect plant week!

Friday, November 5, 2010

Beautiful Birds

At Lauren's Little Learners Preschool this week, we learned about an "egg"-citing topic, Beautiful Birds!!! Our letter of the week was E. In our letter bag we found an egg, an Etcha-Sketch, an elephant and more.
Our first activity was meeting a real bird!!!! Miss Lauren's pet, Sunshine, came to preschool and let us feed and hold him!!! To celebrate this special occasion we made "Happy Bird-day!!!" cards. When we opened these pop-up cards, there was a tweeting bird inside them.
Then we learned about eggs. We discussed the different parts of an egg, and then each of the children took turns cracking an egg. We ate an omelet made out of the eggs we cracked! Next we made a nest. We flew around and gathered the pieces to our nest, flew back and put it together, and then pretended to be baby birds. We began as eggs and hatched into baby chicks.
For snack we ate like baby birds. With their heads tipped back and their mouths open wide the children cheeped loudly for their snack. We ate lots of different bird snacks! Like gummy worms, Gold Fish Crackers, grapes, and seeds (candy corn). Later we "napped" like birds. The children gathered under the mommy bird's wings (Miss Lauren's arms) and slept until it was time to practice flying!
Flying practice was lots of fun!!!! The baby birds all enjoyed flying, but sometimes a baby bird would "fall" and need help from the mommy bird!
When a baby bird learns to fly it makes it's own nest, so our last activity was making nests. We glued the pieces of our nests to a small paper plate. Then we made chicks for our nests. We opened an Easter egg and glued the inside to the nest. We glued paper beaks and googly eyes to the egg. This craft turned out really cute!!! Preschool went really fast this week, because time "flies" when your having fun and so do preschoolers!!!!