Fall Fun!

We are back to signing in by picking the item we like the best.  In this case the children picked parrots or chickens and it seems parrots were the favorite....which surprised us a lot since the children seem to enjoy their time visiting the chicken coop outside!

Briana is pointing to our new sight word, like.

Another day and Noor is picking night time over day time.  You can see she is the first in this column.  To a 4 year old, being "brave" enough to be the first to choose a side is a big deal...hooray for Noor.

A new question mark helper activity too.  Charlotte has to find the matching feather by looking carefully.  She is developing visual discrimination.

We've been working with the children to tell a "story" in sequence.  Here's what Jake said:  "Once upon a time there was a farmer named Daniel.  He planted 2 carrots and 3 eggplants.  That makes 5.  He carried them to the market.  He sold them all."  You can see there is a definite beginning, middle and end to this story which is what we're looking for.  It was interesting to watch Jake tell the story too, because he moved the vegetables around to reflect what he was saying!

Busy working in the art room making chanukiahs from clay



If you look carefully you can see how the girls made ledges from the magna tiles to support the unifix cubes.



Briana is trying to fit another unifix cube tower into her building.  It was too tall...

so she removed one cube.....

and made it work.  Problem solving and persistence in action.

Working together with play dough and tools promotes conversation, fine motor and often ingenuity.  We think this was some kind of trap...but the boys were a bit silent when we asked them!

One job of both Pilgrim and Wampanoag Indian kids was shucking corn.   

We have many ears of corn to shuck...you'll be able to watch the table fill up.  Not only is this good for developing bi-lateral coordination, but we hope it makes the first Thanksgiving a bit more real to the children.

More and more shucking action. 

Daniel is looking at a fully shucked ear of corn and comparing it to a new one.

You can see some of the easel painting as we prepare our costumes for the PreK feast.

Make sure you come in to see these hand print turkeys and to read why each child is thankful.

On election day we gave the children a chance to experience voting.  We were going to choose which costume our class would wear to the feast.  We showed pictures of Pilgrims, Indians and turkeys  and placed a different  color unifix cube by each picture.

They came up individually and selected their cube to place in the "ballot box".  Since real voting is private, we wanted the kids to stay quiet and not reveal their choice.

Amelia is thinking about her choice.





We asked the children to see if they could figure out which color had the most, just by looking.  They could easily see red (for the turkeys) had the most.

How would we know for sure?  What would we have to do to the cubes? 

As we talked and the kids gave many suggestions, they came to realize we should group the cubes by color in order to  count them.  As predicted, turkeys won.  Just like in real elections, majority rules,  so we will be turkeys at our feast.

A fun fine motor activity...beads, bottles and caps.  Learning to unscrew a bottle cap means that unscrewing a thermos or water bottle at lunch is easier! 

Farrah came in to talk about the foods she ate as a little girl, growing up in Iraq.  She gave each child a taste of this yogurt/mint drink and some crackers.

She  taught us how to count in Farsi.

Amelia clearly did not like the yogurt!

Noor and Suri were delighted to have their Mom share a little bit of their home culture.  And so were the kids, even if the food and drink wasn't exactly what they expected!

Jake's dad happened to show up so even he got a chance to taste.

When Govind's grandpa showed up, we put him to work.  Our diagonal number line is too tall for us to reach, even on the chair.  Good thing we are almost ready to start the vertical line so the numbers can come down!