The winter weather is here!  With that comes heavy winter clothing.  With heavy winter clothing comes misplaced mittens, hats and coats.  Today we practiced how to keep track of our things.  We began with learning the “preschool flip.”  This helps the children put their coats on correctly themselves.  Ask your preschooler to show you how to do this new fancy trick!

Once we come in the classroom, the children build their responsibility and independence by hanging their coats on their hooks.  Showing the children that they can hang their coat using a “magic hook” inside their coat, the hood, or the top of their coat helps the children realize that there is a specific spot to help aid with hanging.  Putting their backpacks over their coats helps to keep the coat where it belongs.  Hats and mittens can be safely stowed in each child’s cubby.

With the month of December comes a new destination to learn and explore! We have traveled to the land of gingerbread, Germany! Today in small groups Ms. Lori and the students created the flag of Germany while strengthening their fine motor skills. By ripping bits of paper and gluing them in the right spot we worked together as a class to create the flag of red, black, and yellow. Along with a new destination comes all new activities at our centers. Some of the activities were introduced and practiced during small groups to ensure that everyone understands how to play and will benefit as much as possible during free choice time.

During weather we have learned that Christmas Trees are actually Evergreen Trees until……

Christmas Time!

As we round out our farm month, Ms. Lori took the opportunity to have the children create the letter H using pieces of corn.  With Ms. Lori’s help the children dotted glue along the letter, and used their fine motor skills to place the corn on the dot of glue.  Starting from top to bottom and working from left to right, the children created their own H masterpieces!

As a preschooler, numbers and matching are two skills they will become very familiar with.  Today, we merged the two by having the children use number puzzles.  Each child had puzzle pieces with numbers and had to match the number to corresponding pieces with pictures on it.  The children enjoyed the challenge of the hunt and practiced those number recognition and counting skills.

As we usher our way back from a restful holiday break, we got back into the swing of things by practicing our rhyming skills and matching upper and lowercase letters.  When rhyming, the children discovered that it does not matter what the first letter is, as long as the ending of the words sound the same.  When we found words that matched, the puzzle pieces fit together.  As the children matched the capital and lowercase letters, they had to find the picture that began with that particular letter.  If the letters match, the puzzle pieces fit!  The children did an excellent job exploring the letters.

What is on your Thanksgiving plate?  Mr. Turkey!  Today, Ms. Lori worked on fine motor with the boys and girls as each child painted his/her own turkey.  Using water color paint, the children did an excellent job of dictating where the paint should go with a very tiny brush.  They made quite the array of Thanksgiving masterpieces!

As Thanksgiving nears, it is that time of year to learn about Native Americans.  Ms. Penny and Mr. Ron joined our class today to teach us all about the Native American culture.  The children rotated between four centers: crushing corn to make corn meal, jewelry making, learning about weapons used to hunt, and corn shucking & eating.

In the first center, the children learned how to pick the corn off of the cob, gather it onto a rock (similar to a mortar) then using another rock (similar to a pestle), crush the corn into cornmeal.  The children learned how to work together towards a common goal by helping each other pick of the corn and crush it.

In the second center, the children learned Native American traditions when it comes to jewelry.  The boys and girls were able to try on different pieces, learn about the different textures, then make a necklace of their very own!

In the third center, the children were able to discover bows and arrows, arrow heads, different animal skins & furs, and real bear claws.  The children enjoyed learning about the need for Native Americans to hunt and gather their food.  Holding a bow the proper way showed the children just how difficult hunting can be!

In the fourth center, the children were able to shuck the corn, just like the Native Americans did, and eat it right off the cob.  This was our most delicious center!