Our PreSchool Blog

Leading up to our class Thanksgiving feast, we talked all about how the first Thanksgiving came about!

We discussed that the Pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower and met the Indians who taught them how to hunt and farm in the Spring time. At the end of their harvest they had a feast to celebrate their hard work and new found friendship. We brought this all back to the student’s own lives and how it connected to their Thanksgiving today. As a class, we decided that the holiday was based around appreciation and being thankful for what we have 🙂 We made a list of what we were most thankful for on the board following this exercise.

To help us better understand the  story of Thanksgiving, we retold it together as we created a symbolic necklace.  Each colored bead on the string symbolized a part of the story. The kids had fun making the necklaces and it helped them to remember the story in a unique way! We sent a key home to parents so they could talk about the Thanksgiving necklaces outside of the classroom.

Just like the Pilgrims and Indians, we prepped our food for our feast!

And then we got to enjoy it together!!

We had a blast with our November farm theme in Preschool/Preschool Prep! Below the students are washing the “mud” (brown paint) off of the pigs to reveal a letter to identify!

The Preschool class acted out the story “I Spy on the Farm”. It was a fun and interactive way to retell the story step by step.

After reading “Chicka Chika Boom Boom”, we collected leaves outside that had letters on them and we created our own fall version of the alphabet tree!

Practicing our cutting skills by giving the trolls a haircut!

Matching letters to the correct beginning sounds

Measuring with nonstandard objects

Fine motor fun!

Counting our way through Preschool!

We have begun our study of The First Thanksgiving in preschool this past week.  We have learned a little about how the pilgrim children were different from us, that the big boat they traveled on was not called Jimmy (haha), but actually the Mayflower and that the Indians taught them how to plant seeds and hunt for food.  We love this time of year in preschool!

We went on a bear hunt in the PM Preschool and Preschool Prep classes! We read the story, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and reenacted it by going on our own classroom bear hunt!

Through the grass “swishy swashy, swishy swashy”

Through the water “splish splosh, splish splosh”

Through the mud “squelch squerch, squelch squerch”

Through the forest “stumble trip, stumble trip”

Through the snow storm “hooo wooo”

Through the cave “tip toe, tip toe”

We ended the day with a bear “hunt and color” sort!

We embraced our October theme whole heartedly this month! What’s better than giving academic time a Halloween twist?? Here’s a taste of what we did this month!

Spider Counting!

Building letters with pumpkin seeds

Letter building with candy corn

Halloween cutting center

Feeding the Alphabet Zombie (he loves his letters!)

Acting out the Five Little Pumpkins

Spider swatting and number recognition!

Fall Number Mats

Wicked letter find and sort! 

Silly Monster Craft!

The Preschoolers and Preschool Preppers have been apart of many fun, hands-on explorations this month! We opened up a pumpkin, made our own homemade applesauce and had some animals visit the classroom!

We have been learning about sorting in preschool this month.  We are teaching children to find matches and things that are the same.  We also practice using language to describe what makes those things similar, ie color, shape, size, etc.  We have been sorting many different materials and working hard to find their common attributes.  Our favorite were definitely these Halloween creatures!

Last week we learned all about the letter D and got to have fun with a lot of dinosaur activities.  I am pretty sure if you are a child at the age of 3 or 4 you just love dinosaurs… no matter what!  Our students LOVED everything we did this week and had a ton of fun!  Part of our focus this year is to keep our curriculum very concrete and playful.  We did just that and had a blast learning about the letter D while doing so!