Pumpkins, Names, Exercising, and the Letter D

Our theme this week was Pumpkins.

• We sang songs and rhymes about pumpkins at music time.

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate,

 The first one said "oh my its getting late," 

The second one said "there's a chill in the air," 

 The third one said "but we don't care,"

 The fourth one said "we're ready for some fun," 

The fifth one said "lets run, run, run," 

 So woo went the wind, and out went the light,
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

• We read both fiction and non-fiction books about leaves and fall.

This wasn't a pumpkin book, but our kiddos really enjoyed it!

• At small group:
• We used pumpkin cutouts to make AB patterns.
• We used magnifiers to find and identify tiny letters in a picture of a pumpkin and a ghost at small group.
• We used our senses to observe pumpkins inside and out. We got this page and many other things we used this week at: 2 teaching mommies .com

• We taste tested pumpkin doughnuts and pumpkin dip. They were surprised to find out that pumpkin tasted so yummy! We also had pumpkin shaped cookies for my birthday treat :)

While they ate, I overheard them talking about the shapes of the parts of the pumpkins face (triangles, circles, etc.)

They also talked about the pumpkins faces and what they might be feeling (some said sad and some said silly).

We ate our pumpkin dip with animal crackers and apples. It was a big hit!

•  We made paper jack o' lanterns using pumpkin cutouts and many shape cutouts. While we made the pumpkins, we talked about what each shape was. 

The big pumpkins are our paper jack o' lanterns. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the kids', so these ones belong to myself, Lorri, and our supervisor Angie (who visited that day). The smaller pumpkins represent our pumpkin taste test. The friends on the middle line were absent.

•  We also made a "Book of Pumpkin Faces". We practiced making the face that matched the feeling (sad, mad, silly, shy, happy, and scared) and then drew the faces on our pumpkins. They loved this activity!

• At choice time: 
• We painted pumpkins.

• We used golf tees and hammers to poke holes in pumpkins. This is an excellent to strengthen hand muscles.

It took a while, but they finally figured out how to pull the golf tees back out with the claw.

 

•  At small group:
• We worked a lot with our names this week. We made each child's name out of scrapbook paper and letter punches and they put the letters in order. We practiced writing and spelling our names also. 
  
   
















•  At large group:
• We played a Halloween matching game. They got so excited when they made a match. We'll definitely be doing this again. There are just enough so everyone has a chance to find a match!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• During Music & Movement: 
• During our rainy day this week we used our activity cards to get moving. They loved this so much that we used the cards every day this week. 

 

Crab Walk

Sit and Reach

Sit and Reach

Hop

Squat (This word sent them into a fit of giggles!)

Balance

Jumping Jacks

Stretch

•  At Choice Time:

They went crazy in our writing area this week! It was great!

Building Castles!

He was trying to build a tower as tall as him.

She was measuring everything with blocks.

He was making shapes with blocks.

She was sorting blocks by colors.

He was using golf tees to balance the scale.

• Outside Time:
• Wednesday (which happened to be my birthday :)) we had BEAUTIFUL weather! It was almost 70º. We gave our kids the option of having choice time inside or outside. They chose outside so we took some paper and crayons outside and spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine. Our class and Miss Lisa & Miss Pauline's class went outside together in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun!

We took the activity cards outside with us. The kiddos from the other class joined in on the fun.

They used the picture clues to help them figure out what it said.

Miss Pauline - The Frisbee Queen!

• Our “Letter of the Week” began this week with the letter 'D’. Some of our activities include:

• Identifying the letter.
• Saying the sound. 
• Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the “letter monster”.

 

• Letter tracing pages in the writing area.
• Bingo Dobber letter pages in the art area.

• Using white boards to practice writing the letter at large group.
• Making our alphabet book page for each letter at small group.