Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  We had a fantastically spooky week full of fun Halloween activities, songs, and games!  

 

 

 Number recognition and one-to-one correspondence with spiders was pretty creepy! ; )  The older kids practiced writing the numbers as well.

We learned a fun Halloween song this week: "Halloween is Coming!"  The kids loved playing the tambourines at certain points in the song.  This was great for them to practice holding them still when the tambourines should be quiet and then playing them when it was time to play! 

We learned the letter "H" this week--perfect for Halloween and Hats!

The Pre-K classes made wizard and witch hats for our "H" project!

 

 The kids absolutely loved Ms. Ann's song about the witches' brooms!  : )

Thank you to all the parents who helped with our Halloween parties!  It was wonderful to have you be a part of the festivities!  From reading Halloween stories, to bringing treats, and helping with Halloween games--you were superb!  It was so darling to see how excited each child got when their mom came to help!

 

 Witches, cats, and other Halloween shapes out of Play-doh!

 Halloween Bingo!

We had fun doing a "Pumpkin Walk" to get our Halloween treats!

 One class was honored to have Anna and Elsa from "Frozen" come sing for them on Halloween!  

(Our assistant teachers are the best!)

 

The "Reading Wizard" (Mr. Cooper) made a special visit to each of our classes this week!  He read a magical story and encouraged the kids to have their parents read to them each night!  

Make time to read to your sweet little ones daily!  Not only is it a great bonding experience, but it also helps them to become fluent readers later on.

We hope you had a fun, safe Halloween!

Halloween is coming!

After learning about pumpkins last week, we transitioned right into Halloween with Jack-o-lanterns and the letter "J" this week! 

 All the children really enjoyed this week's variation to our letter of the week song:  jumping each time we sang the sound of the letter "J"!  Using multiple senses while learning is very effective in helping to remember what we've learned.

One of the kids' favorite stories from this week was "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" by Linda Williams.  The children LOVED interacting with this story with each item that the little old lady comes across on her walk in the woods ending with a Jack-o-lantern saying "Boo! Boo!".

We made our own Jack-o-lanterns out of play-doh using triangles, rectangles, ovals, and circles.  This was a great activity to strengthen the children's ability to name shapes and to use their creativity in creating an individual Jack-o-lantern.  It was delightful to see just how different each jack-o-lantern was and the variations each child created!

 After creating a play-doh jack-o-lantern, we used cookie cutters to make more Halloween shapes and creatures!  Playing together with the children creates a great environment for the children to share with each other and the teachers and to build friendships and rapport with one another!

This week we also played some number games with candy corns and pumpkins.  Practicing one-to-once correspondence, number recognition, and counting skills were our focus with these games!

 

 Last week we painted our own pumpkins and then turned those pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns this week!  It was quite fascinating to explore the many different faces of Jack-o-lanterns and how much of a part of Halloween they are! The kids' Jack-o-lanterns are adorable!

We brought our sensory table in for Halloween time this week!  It was really fun to see the preschoolers experiment with the various funnel sizes and the corn and the other Halloween items in the mix!  This was a very popular center this week!  Next week we'll add more items for the kids to continue exploring and discovering!

Susie Safari stopped in for a Halloween visit this week!  She delighted the kids with learning about spiders and her puppet of the old woman who swallowed a fly and so many other things!

Lastly, I wanted to share how proud I am of my Pre-K students!  Each day we recite the "Pledge of Allegiance" in our Pre-K classes and after working on this over the last couple of months, these kids have it down!  They are doing a wonderful job and stand and recite those powerful words so respectfully!  I love seeing these children learn and grow and become!

Pumpkin week!

This week was truly magical as we studied all about pumpkins!

 The kids loved getting to see inside the pumpkins and thoroughly enjoyed smelling, holding, and feeling the pumpkins and their seeds!

 

 

      Hands-on learning is so wonderful as it uses multiple senses and really solidifies and personalizes what we've been learning as a class!  It was fun to hear what some of them said the pumpkins smelled like: apricots and peaches were some of the different responses!  It was fun for the kids to be able to take pumpkin seeds home as well as a mini pumpkin!

One of our wonderful assistant teachers, Ms. Ann, had a fun passing game for the kids to play during our music time!  The kids always love this game, but thought it was extra fun playing with a real pumpkin!

Miss Emily had the kids be part of a little band as she read them a music story and led them in a little parade!

We learned about the color orange this week--very appropriate for pumpkin week!

 
The Pre-K classes mixed red and yellow to make orange!  Some wanted their pumpkins red-orange and others wanted yellow-orange.  They liked seeing that we could make different shades of orange on our pumpkin projects!

 Next week we'll be turning those cute painted pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns!  

We also learned the letter "P".  The Pre-K classes used pumpkin seeds to make the letter "P" on  their orange pumpkin!  

And then we got to use more pumpkin seeds to count with!  We're continually working on number recognition and one-to-one correspondence with counting.

It just takes a little effort at home to review numbers and letters we've been learning in class, but it really helps the children remember them!  As you're driving, reading a book together, cooking with kids, or even shopping--point out numbers and letters to your children!   It takes kids multiple times of being exposed to the same number or letter before they really learn it.

We hope you are enjoying Fall Break with your darling kids!  They are learning so much and we're  having the time of our lives in the process!