Winter

I hate January, and the cold, and the snow, and all of it. But I do love teaching this theme! The snowflakes hanging from the ceiling make winter feel beautiful and magical, plus we're inside and warm, so a win-win!

Dramatic Play

A wintery hot cocoa stand and snowball fights. Both were a big hit. I used brown rice covered in cocoa (mix them in a bag with some rubbing alcohol to help it stick) for the hot chocolate. I like that the smell adds to the sensory experience. Sure, rice falls everywhere, but it vacuums easily! It's worth it to give them something to pour and serve. Their hands get a little chocolate-y too, but nothing they can't wash off!




The daily snowball fights were super fun, and they were great about following the rules to keep it to this side of the room, and not throw them at people who didn't want to play. It's good to get some large motor movement in when we spend less time running and moving outside because of the cold.


Blocks

Winter floor puzzle


Snowmen counting bottles


The Mitten and masks to retell the story




And cars. Nothing to do with winter, just a popular request!


Art

Epsom salt painting. They love how the crystals appear like magic when it's dry, because it looks like they're only painting with water!


Watercolors

Frozen paint. They stared at me like they didn't know what to do. Then they figured out they're kind of like crayons at first. As they melt, they're more like paint and start to break off of the sticks.


Glue and cotton "snow" balls


Small Manipulatives

Clothesline with ABC mittens
This had one of those exciting teaching moments, when one student was trying to find the right letters to spell his name. Because these all have capital and lowercase letters, it was tricking him. I recommended he grab his name and name letters from the pocket chart where we practice spelling our names. He did, and a bunch of kids followed suit! And, even better, they had to problem solve to pin them on the line, because they kept flipping upside down. They learned they had to hold the letters and pin from the bottom instead of the top. My teacher heart just bursts when they engage in this type of play-based learning that is child-centered because they thought up the idea, and then engaged in an academic learning with their name, problem-solving with the clips, and a small motor skill, all rolled into one!


Frozen file folder games and weather bears from totschooling






M is for Mitten flat marbles


Alphabet sensory cards. The letters are outlined in puffy paint.


Counting snowman buttons


Snowmen on the magnet board


Writing

Snowflake stickers

Index cards. These were a huge hit and got the kids started on sending cards to everyone!

Snack

Our special winter snack was cinnamon snowflake tortillas.


Outside
We actually got snow on week 2, so we had colored water in recycled bottles outside and painted the snow a beautiful rainbow!



Large Group

We learned the word "coniferous" to go along with our fall word, "deciduous." We compared and sorted pictures of coniferous and deciduous trees.

Day 1, we read The Snowy Day. Then we divided into 2 groups and did the summer and winter puzzles. When we were done, we used the puzzles to help us make a Venn diagram to compare summer and winter.


Day 2, we read The Mitten and acted out the story. They had a great time taking turns going inside the giant mitten! They wanted to try over and over, so it was in the block center the next school day. The kids who didn't want to go inside got to play the parts of Nikki, Baba, and the mouse, and they had fun too!


Day 3, we read Millions of Snowflakes. We counted snowflakes in the book, and noticed how each one was unique. They used pipe cleaners to make their own unique snowflake and we put it in borax water to grow a crystal. They turned out great!










Day 4, we read Hello Snow! We did an experiment testing different gloves on our hands in a bucket of snow to see which one was the warmest. Some chose the same glove they had guessed to be warmest, even if it wasn't warmest, but most chose the thickest ones as the warmest.


Small Group

Week 1, my group played a fly swatter game with snowflakes with numbers on them. I said the number and they swatted it. Then they got to choose an action (jump, spin, kick, punch, etc) and we would count to that number.
The second group colored in their journal about their favorite thing to do in the winter.


Week 2, my group made name snowmen, practicing putting the letters in their name in order to build their snowman.
I had a mom volunteer for the other group, and they played a number matching game from Jan Brett and practiced counting.

Happy Halloween!

Dramatic Play

We kept out the pumpkin patch from last week, but added pumpkin buckets and dress ups! The dress ups were a huge hit and I spent the whole hour helping kids change in and out of every costume. Then they'd "trick or treat" around the room for toys and things.

On Halloween, they came in their own costumes, so it was just the pumpkin patch without costumes.

Blocks

Alien counting puzzle


Sensory Table

We had record low temperatures this week, and since we don't go outside when it's below 20 degrees, I bought the table in! It was our fall mix from last week, with some added Halloween surprises!


Art

Beads and pipe cleaners


Halloween collages


Small Manipulatives

Spider lacing cards


Bug counting puzzles


Witch magnets




Writing

Halloween stamps


Halloween stickers

Snack

Mummy dogs (hot dogs they wrapped with strips of crescent dough)

Pumpkin oranges and banana ghosts for a healthy Halloween snack


Large Group

We sang 5 Little Pumpkins and learned the word "spooky." We talked about spooky things at Halloween just being pretend things, so they could remember something they're afraid of is not real.

Day 1, we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat, and retold the story using character headbands.

Day 2, we read The Spookiest Halloween Ever, then did our Halloween centers
(thanks to my parent volunteers for running the centers!)

Center 1: My group read Spiders Spiders Everywhere, which is an awesome math book that covers counting to 10, and position words. Then we made our own counting spider books up to 5, and had to count as we stamped spiders in their books.

Center 2: The kids at the block center used all the blocks to build a gate for the 5 pumpkin buckets. Our dad helper also encouraged them to build the tallest towers that could hold a pumpkin on top-awesome large motor and problem solving skills!

Center 3: My husband played "potion master" and used test tubes to help the kids make baking soda and vinegar potions. They only had primary colors available and had to remember how to mix them to make secondary colors if they wanted them.

Center 4: Our parent helper read 5 Spooky Ghosts and had the kids count the ghosts on each page. Then they did a ghost shape worksheet, where they colored the shapes she told them to find, to help review shape names.

Small Group

We only did this on day 1, since on Halloween we had several small group rotations!

My group played a pumpkin counting game and did a pumpkin dot to dot to practice counting to 10.

The other group made pictures with Halloween stickers.



***Counting! Do you see a common theme of counting here, and during fall week? It's because it's an important skill we're working on now. Rote counting, which is just repeating the numbers in order, and mostly, one-to-one correspondence, which is counting objects or pictures. We are practicing using our fingers and touching each thing that we count, or using our fingers to move the objects we are counting, to keep track of what's already been counted. We are working on numbers 1-10. We are also working on matching those to their corresponding numbers, or the concept of numeracy. This is a lot for 3 year olds! But they can do it, and we'll be practicing lots and lots in many different ways, in every theme, so they are on their way to becoming amazing mathematicians!
Here's an excellent article on the subject: https://www.education.com/magazine/article/preschool-number-recognition-counting-easy/

Fall

My favorite season for preschool because there's just so much fun stuff to do! Here's what we did:

Dramatic Play

Apple Orchard/Leaf Raking







Fellow teachers: I've tried many different ways to "hang" the apples each year. Each way has its pros and cons. This year I just did balls of masking tape and it worked great for a day, but each day after pulling and placing the balls so many times, I had to replace it, which wasn't a big deal. If you've tried this in your dramatic play areas at school, let me know how you did it! This idea is one of my most pinned, so I'd love to see how it's working for you.

Then added the Pumpkin Patch after 2 days. Also, foud the cutest banners and apple bags at Target that I had to have!! Perfect for this center. I love fall!





Blocks 

Wood train sets


They loved it, so it was an option all week, along with the 4 seasons puzzle and usual blocks.

Art

Tissue paper squares and liquid starch painting


Spin art, love how these turned out! It's a popular and busy center.

We used the art table to make our homemade applesauce for snack, then got out dot paints.

Small Manipulatives

Pumpkin shape-matching mats (perfect review of last week) from Totschooling


Fall Pattern Cards


Lacing pumpkins and Flat marbles and pumpkin and apple dot pages from Totschooling


Magnet Board was Ten Little Apples Up on Top. I LOVE that this board made them curious about the book, because I got called here over and over to read this, and it either was followed by asking me to read something else, or them recreating the book on the magnet board.


Reading


Writing

Fall stickers


Fall/Halloween stencils

Texture rubbing plates


Snack

Day 1, we tasted red, yellow, and green apples, colored our favorite to hang in the tree, and graphed our results. (picture below in large group section)

Day 2, we had grape juice and grape jelly made from our own backyard grapes, and learned how they're juiced.

Day 3, we made and ate our own applesauce.

Outside

The sensory table was an "apple pie" mix with oatmeal,  cinnamon sticks, and toy apples/pom poms, plus cups and scoops. It was fun to watch them make muffins and cookies.


After 2 days, I changed it to this sensory fall mix (thanks Dollar Tree), that we also used the next week, so they had 3 days with this one. They loved sifting through for "treasures" (anything plastic and/or shiny).

Large Group

We learned the songs, Round and Round the Seasons Go, Leaves are Falling (they love this one because they get to throw leaves), and 5 Little Pumpkins.

Our word was deciduous, which is my favorite word to teach all year, and the one they often remember the best because it's so fun to say. Each day we watched a different Sesame Street video to help us learn the word.

The deciduous rap

Deciduous word on the street

Day 1, we played a leaf rhyming game and matched rhyming words. Raking Rhymes from Kelly's Kindergarten.

Day 2, we read about pumpkins, counted pumpkins, and decorated little pumpkins.

Day 3, we took a fall walk to find deciduous trees and signs of fall.

Small Group

My group made karo syrup leaves for our tree, and the others made leaves with the leaf rubbing plates.


My group counted apples with my apple counting mats (we're going to be practicing this A LOT), the other group colored an apple life cycle page. Counting mats are from Kelly's Kindergarten.

I can't tell you the guilt I feel when I send home what looks like a worksheet, but there's always a reason for anything I do. I honestly didn't care if they learned the apple life cycle by coloring it, because I doubt they did (worksheets don't work), but this group is still learning to work together without the teacher, and other tasks I've tried have required my interventions, leaving my group waiting. I value the small group learning time to help teach hard concepts on an individualized level, so I need the other group to be able to work alone. And the coloring went great!