Week 7 (October 14, 15, 16)

I brought out the wooden trains and tracks this week and everyone got into them! I was surprised that they were so widely loved. Thank goodness I have so many!

I also noticed several new friendship pairs forming this week. Christian and Jared couldn't get enough of each other while they played trains together.

Wherever Abby is, Warren isn't too far behind. I had just asked him if he would like to come to the table to play with some Play-Doh, and he wasn't very interested. But then Abby ran over, so he dutifully followed. So funny.

Lullaby and Sofia hid in their playground fort and whispered important secrets to each other.  Even I couldn't hear what some of the secrets were, but I did hear some, like Sofia's dad was having a birthday.

Jackson and Warren played this train slide game a million times this day. It was very cute and very sweet.

More fun in the sand box. Jared decided to lay in the sand for a little while… No wonder I have to vacuum before AND after preschool. That cool sand just feels so nice!

Listening to them playing with the dolls often mimics what's happening in the preschoolers lives. This week, the dollies were getting ready for Halloween parties, and counting things to practice their numbers… Not too far off from what we had just talked about in circle time. I'm glad they are listening!

I like the Montessori ideals and letting the kids play with everyday objects in a non-specific way. So I gave them a thick rope to see what they could come up with. They, on their own, created a game similar to jump roping, but instead of the rope circling up over their heads, the rope holders just wiggled it, and the jumpers ran from one side to the other. They loved it. Everyone took turns on it.

For table time we did a few pumpkin activities.  One was coloring a zigzagged pumpkin, another was drawing pumpkins on the gate (like in the song) and counting them, and another was glueing shapes on the pumpkin faces. It was so much fun.

Also, the preschoolers reenacted the 5 little pumpkins song and we played it over and over again… Even when I thought they were sick of it, someone would ask to play again and everyone would jump up and do it. So cute.

On Friday the 23rd, the preschoolers are having a Halloween Party! It's from 9-11am, and there won't be any preschool that day, just a party day. Parents and siblings are also welcome to come. Costumes can be worn and I will have snacks and treats for everyone. If you (adults) cannot make it, you can still drop off your preschooler, but the pick-up time will be at 11, so please take note.  They loved making the invitations!  There are 2 other party days this year, one in February for Valentine's Day and one in May for Graduation Day. All the dates are on the calendar.

Week 6 (Oct. 7, 8, 9)

We had a busy week! And, as usual, I took too many pictures… Dress-up is always a favorite, and I switched out some of the old stuff with a few new masks, accessories and outfits.

The weather is still a bit warm, but SO nice. The preschoolers always enjoy it out there.

We spent lots of time with Play-Doh just for fun. It's a very calming activity and seems to be one of their favorite things to do.

I got each preschooler a spider web lacing board to work on those ever-so-important fine motor skills. They each got to take one home with them.

We've been talking lots about the Book-It program at school and the kids often choose to look at books during free choice time, and then run to tell me that when they get home they will color their owl on the calendar!  Let me know if you have any questions about the program.

Here are some more pictures of their play this week. They have such fun personalities, it's fun to see who is excited about what each day.

We talked a bit about Halloween and some of the creatures and characters that we will see during this month. After get excited about spiders and bats, I made that the theme for the week. We read Stellaluna, The Very Busy Spider, and several others. During table time, they did a spider match activity. This encourages number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, counting, visual discrimination, motor planning and coordination… When you're at home and there is an opportunity to count the number of objects, encourage your preschooler to do it. Make sure that they are counting as slowly as they are pointing, instead of rattling off 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 when there are only 5 objects.

We also made WEBS to catch a pesky fly, like in the book we had read.

During small groups I worked individually with the preschoolers on various skills using these sorting charts. They worked on color grouping, letter recognition and phonemic awareness (for charts that they had to try out the beginning sound of the word to figure out where it went). And of course as we picked up each chart, we did a little counting, patterning, etc. Just for fun. They are so smart!

Our Friday table time activity was to make BATS! They were beyond excited about this. We talked in circle time about what we would do, and that since this was ART, there was no wrong way to do it. I like the open creativity allowed in art, and for preschoolers who are learning so much about the right and wrong way of everything else right now, it's nice to have a freeing activity like this. Each bat turned out different, and each one was adorable. First, cutting out the wings and ears.

Then, getting lots of glue on the popsicle stick.

Putting on the goggly eyes.

Voila! Masterpiece finished!

We did a bit more with the fire safety activities too, since they had an interest in that from the previous week. We tried this visual discrimination and memory activity. The preschoolers look at the first picture for a few seconds, and talk about what they see. Then, I hide that picture and show one of the other 9 pictures (like the second drawing in the picture below) that is the same, but missing something.  Can you spot it? They squeal with excitement when I say we are doing this game during circle time. Ha ha. They sure make my day fun!