last minute turkey things

Here are a few last minute turkey and Thanksgiving things from preschool this week.  These have been two of my favorite Thanksgiving books so far.  Neither are Pilgrim and Indian stories, but both are about giving thanks to God.  

Give Thanks to the Lord is by Karma Wilson.  It's about a little boy celebrating Thanksgiving pretty much Norman Rockwell style.  He's thankful for the cousins and the warm cozy house, his dog and the leaves, etc.  The pictures are lovely.

Thanks for Thanksgiving  is by Julie Markers.  It's the shorter and simpler of the two, but we read them both to both age groups.It's a similar sweet story about all the great things about a family thanksgiving.

This was a fun activity.  I cut out a simple brown turkey with added beak and legs (made last minute from post it notes) and slid him under a sheet of contact paper (sticky side up).  The contact paper is taped to the table.

 The kids added feathers to the top of the sticky contact paper and decorate the little guy.The feathers are easily removable and the turkeys slid out unharmed.  I'll be setting it up again Wednesday. 

Our leader parent brought this fruit and veggie turkey.  We had a cute one last year too.  If the kids and I get around to it, we might make one for the day after Thanksgiving too. They're so fun.  The students are every bot of him, the pear, the honey dew melon (even the skin) and the peppers. 

Lastly, here's a craft from this past week.  The kids used water color paint to decorate a coffee filter.  You could do many variations.  The kids could color with marker and then spray it with water, they would water color on an already wet coffee filter.  Here they did some circle sponge painting using diluted liquid water colors.  The turkey body and face are added later. 

We have preschool on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but my own kids are out of school.  Not fair.  I'm going to try to be really quiet and let them all sleep in.  I want everyone in a happy mood for our travels.

Tortilla shell Teepee

 At Bee's book harvest party, they made these cool teepees out of tortilla shells.  They've been talking about Native Americans in social studies.

The kids drew on the half shells with sharpies.  They also had ink pads and glitter available.  

 
The kids looked off a sheet of Indian symbols for ideas.

 
The teepees get held together with a toothpick.  Within just a few hours, the tortilla is dry and gets really hard. 

They added wooden rods in the center for a teepee look, but those are not necessary or needed for it to hold up.   Bee and Lou both made one and they are sitting on our kitchen table.  I figure they'll mold at some point, but we can probably enjoy them through Thanksgiving.

a few leaf - fall preschool ideas

My co-teacher taught on leaf day and she had several really neat things I asked her if I could share.  

First, our craft for the day was a new one for us. I love it.  I think it's just so sweet and a nice fall piece to hang up at home.  

The kids hands were painted with reds, oranges, and greens.  They rubbed their hands together and then stamped them. They turned out so sweet. 

We use a white flat sheet as a  parachute in the classroom.  We bounce around all kinds of things.  Here we are bouncing (silk) fall leaves.

We sang:  (to the tune of London bridges)  

Autumn Leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.  Autumn leaves are falling down, red, yellow, orange and brown.   Then we shook it hard and the leaves went everywhere.  The kids love to clean up after this, so it works out great.

Another song we snag was with these paper leaves.  Each child got an orange, a yellow, a brown, and a red.  We held two at a time in the air and sang:  (to the tune of wheels on the bus)

The leaves on the tree are red and brown, red and brown, red and brown.  The leaves on the trees are red and brown., all around the town.  

Other verses can the added like more color combinations, the leaves could wiggle and fall or they could float in the air.

Here are a few things on the tables this week:

This is tonging activity.  The yellow plastic acorns as from target.  They are advertised as table scatter.

This is from last year.  They are just cards I made up with fall words.  

Here's the sensory table for the first part of fall. 

We also were talking about forest animals this week in the younger class, so I brought in some plastic forest animals.  Apparently, we are a little sparse on the forest animals. 

Also, we set out this real leaf matching game.  I went on a walk last weekend with my mom and sister and picked up all sorts of leaves.  I pressed them for a few days and then laminated them.  There are two of each for some matching potential.  

I brought these fun toys from home.  I loved this set, but Lou and Bee hardly ever play with them.  I gave them to the kids for last Christmas, and was bummed out when they were indifferent to them. 

My job share partner set out this forest foot prints booklet.  She made it and used animal pictures, their foot prints and their name. 

We have a little friend that likes to count acorns.  He will really like this activity.  

Here's another one from two years ago.  This leaf matching activity is from  File Folder  Fun.

Here are a few things from last year or the year before.

Tt turtles- preschool style and other Tt things

We are cruising through the alphabet; we are already on Tt!  Last week we had turtle day.  I wish I could have found a real turtle to bring in, but the pet shop in town is not very friendly when I ask to borrow pets.  I've asked twice and they stare at me like I'm crazy.  I haven't been volunteering at the nature center this school year, so that was sorta out too.

Anyway, this nonfiction (told in a friendly picture book style) called Turtle Crossing  by Rick Chrustowski was a really good one.  I added a little bit of description and other turtle facts I wanted the kids to learn so that I didn't have to read a number of books.  I also skimmed the mating part.  There was a lovely turtle wedding and then some eggs.  Before I started reading, I told them we were listening to learn about turtles, so we were listening for turtle facts.  After reading, I asked some questions about important aspects from the story.   They are SO getting ready for kindergarten.

Before the reading, I shared a few turtle pictures from old calendars and old magazines.  Then I showed them these pictures of images I found online. 

I had them describe what was happening in the pictures.  They are learning to raise their hands (It's so nice) and this was a good opportunity for them to speak out using complete sentences.  They loved the yelling baby turtle.  They pretty much all agreed that the black and white picture was taken in the snow.  Even when I explained that it was black and white and the background was probably sand, the next person said something about snow again.  That picture could be tracked back to here, but no farther.  The other two could not be tracked back any farther than pinterest. 

I passed out these turtles to each friend.  We sang a little song and that child brought the turtle up and added it to the flannel board.  I had the white cards read in case they needed to check their turtle with each letter.  

 (to the tune of bingo)

"I have a friend who has a turtle, and on it is the letter _L__.

/l/ /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/,  /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/,  /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/ /l/,  and on it was the letter __L_.

Here's another song I wanted to do that we did last year.  I picked up the little finger puppets at the party supply store and had to change the song a little to fit my characters.  It's just the mosquito and flea song.   

 "There was little turtle, he lived in a box. 

He swam in a puddle and he climbed upon the rocks.  

He snapped at a mosquito and he snapped at a flea, 

he snapped at a bumble bee and he snapped at me.  

He caught the mosquito and he caught the flea.  

He caught the bumblebee but he didn't catch me."

I wanted to do something else with first letter sound so I made up with little bing- like turtle game.  I found a black and white clipart turtle and added a few letters, then printed them on green cardstock.  Each kiddo got a turtle and a handful of glass beads for markers. 

I showed a clipart picture and we sounded out the beginning sound.  They looked for that letter on their turtle and covered it.  The kids thought the turtles looked angry.  I think so too!

Then we hung the pictures up on the flannel board sort of graph style.  The kids only cooperated through the first dozen or so, so we stopped.  Surely we can use these cards again.  They are from PreKinders.

I made up an eye spy sheet for the letter Tt.  We however didn't get time for it.  That's rough.  Sometimes I spend an hour working on something and then it either doesn't go or we run out of time.  Stinks.

Here's the craft, triangle turtles.  Lou's might have extra legs. 

At arrival and dismissal time I set up Lou's Tepee.  We used tickets and a timer to help make the tepee a pleasant experience.  I considered not bringing it.  I really thought they'd get crazy, but the tickets and timer made a difference. 

 Here are a few things from our other Tt day.  The kids used toothpicks to build towers.  Good grief, they could have worked on this for an hour!  They were not satisfied with the 15 minutes they were given.  I took these pictures with my ipod, which I can now use with our new classroom music players!  I feel weird getting it out during class; I don't want someone to think I'm checking my email or texting with someone or something.

Some built 3-D, others built flat.  Some chose to work with a partner, others wanted to create alone.  The kids are old enough this year that we can just say, "the marshmallows are not for eating" and they just wont do it. It's lovely.

The kids also used toothpicks to move around teeny tiny letters.   There was so much silent concentration!

They spelled their names out with the teeny tiny noodles.

 

And here's our Tt letter craft, a tree. 

U is for umbrella, I have some more fun things coming later in the week.

Hot turkey and corn- preschool style

As part of our Thanksgiving party at preschool, we played a hot potato style game with a stuffed turkey leg.  I think I saw this in Family Fun magazine, but it could have been years ago.  I am no longer getting it, but did get it for about 7 years.  I tucked this idea away in a file in my brain, and only this year recalled it.  Or I saw it more recently... it's hard to say.  I used to remember things better than this. 

 I made each child a set of fleece oven mitts.  I also worked up a fleece and felt turkey leg and a fleece and felt ear of corn.  We played some peppy music and passed the corn and turkey.  When the music stopped we "gobbled" at the people with the items.  You could certainly have the person be 'out' but this was a party.  No one wants to be 'out' at a party. Especially when you're 4.  When I played at home with Bee and Lou we earned letters to spell hot.  It could certainly be done with any word.

Here they are:  40 fleece oven mits. 

Bee and Lou thought it would be fun to take them to Great Grandma's house when we went for Thansgiving and have everyone play.  I think they got 9  people to play withe them.  We put Grandpa in charge of music and we played and played.  There was lots of giggling, especially from the aunts and uncles.

dental health

I'm pretty sure that Dental health month is in February, but we are just getting to it as part of a larger community helpers unit.  Today's theme was technically dentist.  There are lots of pictures from today.  It feels like we did a ton.  (new addition at the bottom- 5/2013)

Here are the books I read.  Max Goes to the Dentist by  Adria F. Klein  and Clarabella's Teeth by An Vrombaut.  The Max book was a good follow up to our special guest today and the Clarabella book was just a short cute book about an crocodile who spends all day brushing since she has a tiny brush.

Our craft was a gluing activity.   The kids glued paper squares for teeth onto a printed mouth sheet.  I don't get to choose the crafts, we all do the same thing.  I do miss planning the crafts but I don't miss preparing all the pieces.

I didn't prepare this, so I'm not sure where he image of the mouth came from, but you could probably google image something and find a similar mouth. 

We had a guest speaker today.  It was actually the first thing we did for the day.  My dentist came in to speak. He's very good with the kids and was happy to come in.  He's younger than I am, but it's cool.

We did a sorting activity.  I found all these pictures in just a small stack of magazines I borrowed from the paper recycling center. The little sad tooth says, "Sad tooth, sad tooth, full of tooth decay.  Sweets and soda pop made me this way."   The happy tooth says, "Happy tooth, happy tooth shiny and bright, brushing keeps me healthy and white."

Bee gave it a test run at home.  I laminated all the cutouts and they worked pretty well. 

We talked about cavities.  This apple showed how a little hole in your teeth can get pretty yucky inside.  I only left this out 1 night, I probably should have cut it out two or more days before so it would be super gross.

Here was our snack, which we recreated for a snack at home.  It's two apple slices with a layer of peanut butter in between.  Mini marshmallows make the teeth. 

I boiled an egg in tea and stained it brown.  I showed the kids a white egg and the brown egg.   We took turns brushing the dirty egg (like a dirty tooth) with real toothpaste.  During each friends turn, we sang:

Brush, brush, brush your teeth

at least 2 times a day

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, 

fighting tooth decay.

This picture is us trying it at home in advance.  It really does come clean.  mostly anyway.  When we did it in class, I put the egg in a small bowl and place it on a tray.  I also had a damp rag on the tray so the kids could wipe off their fingers. 

We also talked about flossing.  I saw this activity somewhere years ago when I taught 2nd grade.  The play dough represents food and gunk that gets in between your teeth.  The yarn is the floss.  You use the yarn just like floss and easily get out the food.  The kids asked for this to be out after snack time and they took turns flossing and resetting.

 I'm sure I saw this counting activity somewhere online or I adapted it from another idea.  I made up a paper mouth with marks for the teeth.  We rolled the dice and added that many teeth.  First I just made up one set, then I decided to make one for everybody.

For the circle marks, I stamped a marker lid in some black ink.  The teeth are mini marshmallows.  These are the same marshmallows from a snow project so we had a good talk about not eating them.

The last four pictures are activities from Musings of me.   They are activities that I set out after snack.   We aren't into the tooth fairy, so I downplayed that part and worked around it.

We have another guest next week for firefighter week.  Should be another fun one. 

addition 5/2013
Here's this years dental craft:

I am linking up to some of these fine kiddo related parties:

Wednesday's A story + art = A Great stART  @ A Mommy's adventures,   Wednesday's Kids Get Crafty @ Red Teg Art's Blog, Tuesday's Show and Tell blog hop ad ABC and 123,  Tot Tuesdays at Delicious Ambiguity,  For the Kids Fridays @ Sun Scholars