Pumpkins

This week started out amazing with a field trip! Pack's Farm was perfect for our group. We had great warmish weather for October, so that was nice too! First, we got to have a lesson on pumpkins from Mr. Pack, or Old MacDonald as some in our class believed, which he liked :) He read us a book that perfectly explained the life cycle of a pumpkin, then told us all about how he plants his pumpkins. He had pumpkins and gourds of every variety for us to see and he told us about them. Then he carved a pumpkin to show the kids. He was so fast, and showed us how much easier it is to cut out the bottom than the top and deal with a lid! This was life-changing at our house and we carved that way this year and it worked wonderfully! Afterwards, we headed out to play. We did the hay maze a few times, then went off to the play area. They had big slides, a corn box, a pump game with rubber duckies and water, a tire playground, and big tunnels the kids could run in together. They had a great time! After they were done, we ate a quick snack, then each picked a pumpkin. It was a great way to start off our week learning about pumpkins, because it introduced how they're grown, plus they got to visit a real pumpkin patch before coming back to school and playing in one here.

Dramatic Play
Pumpkin Patch


Blocks
Another kid request. Some were disappointed I didn't have leaves to rake during apple orchard week, so they came out now. There were also blocks and puzzles on the shelves all week that were used each day, in addition to raking leaves.
 

Art
Pumpkin Slime-I just mixed pumpkin guts with the typical slime recipe, glue and water with borax, and we got ooey gooey pumpkin slime. They all tried it, but some didn't love the texture and watched from a distance. Others were so into it!


Because they didn't all appreciate the yuckiness, I also added some paper and fall foam stickers as an alternative at the art table.


We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, then painted with orange paint. Minor frustration. I have gallons of paint from Wal-Mart, and others from Lakeshore, and my Lakeshore ones are coming apart! The orange gallon has turned yellow, so I tried shaking and shaking and it's this nasty dull yellowish red, not orange at all. I've barely had it a year, and it's so frustrating! Long story short, I'll never buy the more expensive Lakeshore paint again.

Beads. It had nothing to do with pumpkins, but my original plan was more paint, and we've been doing a lot of that and we needed a change of pace, so I got out beads and string!  


Small Manipulatives

Pumpkin do-a-dot pages and flat marbles and orange pom poms


Pumpkin lacing cards


Pumpkin shape matching

All of these are from tot-schooling.

Writing

Lots of pumpkin and Halloween stickers and stencils

 

Snack
We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Outside

Sensory table: kinetic sand with little pumpkins and acorns


Large Group
We learned the song 5 Little Pumpkins this week

Day 1, field trip

Day 2, we compared our pumpkins. We measured them and weighed them. Then we also reviewed our 5 senses by using them to learn about pumpkins.


Day 3, we made a gate for our 5 little pumpkins. It was challenging, because I wanted them all to work together, and that can be hard, but they did it! The only guidance I offered was it had to fit all 5 pumpkins. So when it was tall at first, I came to add the pumpkins, and it could only fit 1. So I asked them how to fit more, and they had to figure out to make it wider, instead of taller. And as 3 separate kids started their own gates, I would add a pumpkin and let them figure out it couldn't fit 5 without working with the other kids. It took awhile, but they eventually got it. They also liked adding random small blocks, and they saw as I placed the pumpkins, that those weren't very stable. I was proud of how they got it all worked out.


Day 4, We read Spookley the Square Pumpkin and then used play dough and they each got to make their own pumpkins. Like above, I gave very little guidance, I want them to figure it out. They got to choose their shape and figure out how to make it come to life.

Small Group

We did pumpkin seed counting.

We did a file folder game from tot-schooling putting pumpkins with letters in ABC order.

We did another worksheet for more cutting practice. They cut the pumpkins out and matched the faces. I really focused with them on holding scissors correctly, and I think we'll be doing a lot more of this to get them kinder ready.


Miss Kim played a matching counting game, and they did a number dot to dot.

5 Senses

Playing catch-up here! Thanks for your patience with my blogging, or lack thereof last month.

Dramatic Play
We just simply had our housekeeping/kitchen set up. This was the kids' request. I had thought about another restaurant area, but when I asked them, they just wanted to play house. Simple, and a well-loved center!

Blocks
Large foam number puzzle. I love this one for the texture.


ABC train blocks

Wood train tracks, for 2 days due to popular demand


Art
Day 1, since we missed 1 apple day due to sickness last week, we finished some things today. So for art, we did apple stamping.


Jello collages. I LOVE the smell of this one! This one was popular all day, with a line waiting to fill an empty seat. They loved the smell, and watching the colors turn bright in the glue.

I decided to get rid of this spice rack this summer, then as I dumped out the few spices that weren't empty yet, I realized I should have kept them for a great sensory experience too, but too late! I recycled this for our art, and filled the jars with Jello powder. When we actually did it, I needed the space for the bins to collect extra powder, and it looked more like this.


Play dough with different textures for stamping. They liked showing off cool designs to each other, and they table ended up pretty full with other stuff they brought over to stamp and see its texture. And we used that word "texture" over and over and over.


Made gingerbread men for snack, then painted with dot markers.

Small Manipulatives
Links

Bristle Blocks

File Folder games about faces (my kids have cool church teachers that make these-and then I steal the ones I want for preschool)



Gingerbread Man floor puzzle


Letter magnets on the board. They loved these more than I expected. They liked connecting them to make trains, and spelling their names.


Farm Sounds Bingo was out after we'd used it in small group too.


Writing
Scented markers

Scented colored pencils

Texture Line markers

Snack
Apple Pie, from last week. They weren't huge fans, but they tried it.

Smoothie. This was a fun way to use all 5 senses, since the blender is so loud!

Gingerbread Men. They made them during art, then got to eat one for snack, and decorate another to take home during small group.

Outside
Sensory table: cornmeal, because it's a sensory experience we hadn't done yet! I added in test tubes (the kids call them potion bottles) just for something different, and they had a lot of fun.

Tents and Tunnels. I didn't get a pic without kids, but they had a lot of fun dragging them around and making new set ups and designs. They especially liked them upside down this time. I guess whatever works.

Large Group
We didn't learn a new song this week, but we did read and act out this poem each day.

Day 1, we read Your 5 Senses to introduce them. We went outside with a 5 senses paper on a clipboard, and they drew pictures of what they smelled, heard, saw, touched, and tasted. Most tasted the raspberries or grapes, but a few got more adventurous and tasted grass, which I strongly discouraged! They had a great and productive time exploring, often running up to me to tell me something else they heard or touched. So even though a paper comes home with scribbles, I know they were observing and finding real things.

Day 2, We read about our sense of touch and made texture hands. I had hands cut out already, and a tray full of items. They chose which ones to use and glued one to each finger. Then I had them describe its texture and I wrote down on each finger how it felt.

Day 3, We read Look Here, and talked about sight. Then we played a game about not having sight. We set up some obstacles in the room, then they each took turns walking through it blindfolded. They got to choose a seeing friend to help them, by using touch to hold their hand and guide them, or using sound by telling them where to go.

Day 4, we read The Gingerbread Man and acted it out. This was their favorite activity of the week! We then talked about what senses we used to make and eat our gingerbread men for snack (spoiler alert: all of them), and then again for the book, what senses did we read about? And we filled those out on a chart. They really loved the retelling part! The next week, I kept the book in the reading center, and found quite a few of them "reading" it as they flipped through and read the pictures.

Small Group

We finished the apple centers we hadn't from last week.

We explored taste by tasting salt and sugar, then journaling our favorite things to taste.

We explored texture and touch by making texture rubbings around the room.

We explored sounds by playing Farm Sounds Bingo.

We explored smell by smelling different bottles and sorting which ones smelled good or bad to them. Then they did a worksheet (Ugh, you know I hate those), but with a good purpose. While I'd always rather sort the real smells (like we did) than do a worksheet, they really need the cutting practice! So they cut along the straight lines and I helped them hold their scissors correctly. I didn't worry on the sorting and gluing side, since many were just being silly, and that's just fine in preschool! So if your child came home with garbage on the good smelling side, I know :)

The Five Senses

Dramatic Play
I used my favorite sense (taste) and chose to do an ice cream store. I have play ice cream cones, popsicles, and Dilly bars, plus recycled ice cream cartons and cone boxes. The ice cream cartons are filled with styrofoam balls, plus there are bowls, spoons, and fruits for toppings.
I set it up with the cash register and a table for customers, and they were set. They loved it and it was busy for all 2 weeks.

Blocks
I got out the small legos, having no idea what a hit they'd be. We've always stuck to Duplos, but apparently small legos is where it's at. This center was constantly busy and there was so much great building and imaginary play going on. I love Legos!

Art
Play dough textures. I got out the play dough, and also had a basket with random items they could put in the play dough to see what textures it made. They were excited when I told them they could try anything in the room. Soon the table was full of objects and they made all sorts of cool textures.

 We used our sense of smell by doing Jello art. I put Jello in our graciously donated spice bottles that I store in beautiful junk, and they sprinkled and poured like crazy on their glue deisgns. The room smelled so delicious and fruity all day! I underestimated how much they'd love this, but it was busy all day and we had pictures drying all over the room. I was so busy, I didn't get a pic :)

I found fun dot paint markers on clearance at Wal Mart, so we painted with those and they loved them.

We had a fun sensory experience with Magic Sand. I bought it from Steve Spangler's site. It's basically waterproofed sand. You can play with it under water, but when you pull it out, it's dry! You can build with it under water, and make water droplets on it. This was another big hit.

Small Manips
We played with:
bristle blocks
shape and color links
musical instruments
people floor puzzles

We made 1 fun snack this week to explore a new taste, homemade smoothies. I found the recipe here.
I would say half of them liked it, but at least they all tried it.

Large Group
Day 1, We read the best book about texture (of course I forgot the title and already returned it to the library), but it had tons of awesome texture words and we really worked on our vocabulary. It was really interactive and they were adding lots of their own words too to describe the textures. We then went on a texture hunt with rubbing crayons and made rubbings of textures all throughout the room. I didn't expect them to really love this activity, but they were so excited and running all over to find new things!
Day 2, we explored our sense of taste. We examined sugar and salt and couldn't determine what it was with sight, touch, or smell, so they had to taste it. Their faces were awesome. We then talked about 4 different tastes (salty, sweet, spicy, sour) and tasted many different foods, then sorted them by how they tasted. We tried chips, pretzels, sour candy, lemons, cinnamon bears, marshmallows, and chocolate. I was surprised by how many ate their whole lemon slices, yet immediately spit out their cinnamon bears.
Day 3, we made sensory bottles. They filled them with glitter and sequins, and we added water, food color of their choice, and oil. It was so much fun and they loved it!
Day 4, we went on a 5 senses scavenger hunt. There were 5 clues that led us inside and outside, searching with our senses, then they had to fill out a page in a book for each one.

We'll be exploring more with our senses on our field trip next week!