November tomatoes

I picked the rest of the tomatoes this week (ignore my weirdly wrinkled hand).  It's November and I'm still pulling red ones.  I have one last plant that seriously would make you think it's still summer, but all the others got picked and knocked over.  There were bunches for us, 

and bunches for my friend's chickens.  They prefer the green ones and love some good bugs. I had a lot that fit that description.  I've been meaning to get this done three weeks ago.

I also picked the last daisy.  It was a random stray bloom. 

Now if I can just get out to trim up the berry bushes, we'll be in good shape.

banana carving

Have you seen this around online? 

You carve in a banana peel with a needle.  Not too deep, just enough to break the skin.

Then, it instantly browns up along the lines. 

The top name is immediate and the bottom banana is only a few minutes old.  I've been sending these to school with the kids for snack. I'm sure Lou doesn't show anyone, but Bee has shown her friends because they've mentioned it to me. 

blueberries for sal -part 2

It's Blueberries for Sal, part 2.  I'm calling last year part 1. Last year was also bear day, so I took it that directions with a class bear book from the teddy bears they brought in, a directional word activity, a Bb letter identification activity and a nature walk outside.  This year, I worked it in on review day since bear day was weeks ago and fell on my co-teachers day.

But, I love this book and will work it in wherever I can to get it in each year.   It's a little longer than a lot of books, but I think the kids need that sometimes.  It seems to keep their attention though. 

I added a fun little bear paw game.  The kids each wore a pair of mitts as paws and we passed a blueberry.  I think we ended up passing three or four at once. We didn't play 'hot potato' with it, but just had a few of these balls going at once to see how hard it would be to do our normal things if we had paws.

 I used the class set of fleece oven mitts from my Thanksgiving 'hot potato' game.  I'm glad to get more use out of these guys!  They'll come back out in two weeks for the Thanksgiving party.

 Instead of hunting around the room for just B and b berries, we hunted for any berries, two for each friend.

Then we sorted them out.  Theses are all the letters we've worked on so far this year. Turns out we are going to need a good deal of continued review!

I can't think now if we sang any songs or did any related movement songs.  I'm sure we danced to something, but it was probably random.

Halloween and such

We did the whole Halloween thing this week.  I say week, because the festivities really do last a whole week, with all the fun places you can wear your costume.  I really like Halloween, not the spooky stuff, but I'm all about an excuse for us to costume up!  Here, the kids are with some friends at a hockey game.  

We ended up getting free tickets.  We were walking downtown to go to the game when we spotted a group of people and a radio station van.  I said we should cut through that way just to see what's going on.  It turns out it was radio station hosting a 'zomie walk.'  Everyone was dressed as zombies and they were going to walk a few blocks in costume to earn some prize. As we were walking by, a zombie asked if we were headed to the hockey game and if we had tickets yet.  She gave us all tickets!  We met up with some friends there and it was a fun time.

 

I had intended to make a Ms. Frizzle costume, but ended up with an easier and faster, Pipi Longstockings.

The kids wore their Indian costumes from this summer.  (Lou and Bee)

Except we had to layer layer layer up!    Lou started out very shy with the actual candy gathering, but once he got in the grove, he was leading the pack.  I think he did not want to stop for a photo here.  

We also went to a fun event out church hosts each year.  We went in costume and saw several of my students.  They didn't know my costume, but their parents did.  One little friend guessed I was a baby.  

Bee cried at dinner two more nights.  She asked one night why I would 'mess with' our food like that.  I think she felt tricked (although she wasn't actually tricked) or like I was trying to fool her.

She picked the almond slice 'finger nail' off of the witches finger and threw it on someone else's plate. When I said the stew was bat eye stew (recipe here), she lost it.  It did make for a nice warm (and hearty) meal in our bellies before going out to gather candy.

The  mummy hotdogs and deviled egg eye balls fared no better for her. 

Pumpkin pie seemed ok though for her!  It's my first pumpkin pie.  I don't like pumpkin flavored anything, so I never bother.  This was made from scratch with real pumpkin from the patch, and with the right amount of whipped cream, was pretty tasty.  I watched a video on youtube to learn how to make it.  I don't know how Ma Ingals went without the internet!

We gathered several pumpkins this year from our various field trips to orchards and pumpkin patches.  Both kiddos were hesitant to touch the guts again, but we managed to get some pumpkins carved. 

Or poked, as in Bee's case.

This picture was from last Sunday.  Poor hubby has been the photographer this month I guess.  

I did take some pictures of a friend's family after church.  When she asked me if I would do it.  I said, "You know I don't do that, right?"  She said, "You've got a nice camera right?"  So we took pictures.  I took 150 and got 20 we could work with.  I believe the method is called 'spraying and praying.'   I didn't ask permission to post their picture, but I'm doing it anyway.  Aren't they are beautiful family.  They are so sweet to and those kiddos are just darling!

Ee elephant day- preschool style

We had a lovely Ee elephant day.  I was able to pull most of our activities from last year.   There are just a few new items.  Here's elephant day from last year.

I read the same elephant story, But No Elephants.  It was a favorite of mine from when I was little.  We used the story sticks.  The kids are very careful with them and it's going really well with using them to help retell stories. 

We also sorted E and e from a few other letters, written on peanuts. The baby elephants eats little e, the big mama eats big E.  We decided the daddy elephant would eat the other letters because dads always eat the scraps!  Those kids are funny. 

Same end of the day activity, the letter mazes. Here's Lou from last year. The link can be found here.

 Same two-cut elephant. 

We did these elephant action cards, which they thought was fun. They participated at least.   I think you'll find the link on this post about last year's elephant day.

I saw this on pinterest this summer; stamping the kids hands with the letter of the week.  We have been doing it and the kids like it and we are able to look at our hands during paperwork.  

Here is the journal page for the week.  It reads, "What just hatched out of the egg?"  Several did baby birds, a few did dinosaurs or snakes, etc.  One friend did a cat and other said a man. 

Here are the E pictures for the week.  They were pretty sure the Eagle was flying because a hunter was coming.  The two elephants are mama and baby.  I just love the little stories the kids create from these pictures.

Now that I've written all that, I see that most was a repeat.  It did make for an easy planning day!

Crying Bee

This is what made Bee cry tonight.  CRY.  Spider web nachos made my 7 year old cry.  She said she would not like me making anymore Halloween food this year.  Poor thing has a rough life. 

D journal page

D week wasn't anything new (dinosaurs), but here's the D journal page. 

______'s dog is __________.  I had intended to make it dinosaurs, but couldn't find any dinosaur stickers.

Some kids had me write what their dog was doing,

others described their dog or named it.

In other news, the lightbox is back.  it was sadly broken a week after school started.  I might have shed a tear.  A little friend in the class after mine shattered it.  Thankfully she wasn't hurt.  I had Lou sit on it to test it out and nothing happened.  She must have leaned in just the right spot.  I will be keeping it in the cabinet when our class is over!

crazy shirt

 So, this friend of mine from Lou's school makes the cutest kids shirts where she takes a t-shirt and turns it into a really cute ruffly, trendy little outfit.  She uses knits from other shirts and does the whole remake thing.  They are darling.  She used stripes and dots and funky colors together.  I noticed that she had made the two kindergarten teachers hoodies from their school shirts and I had to have one.  I begged and begged and tried to make a deal with her, but she said she was too busy right now to make any adult shirts. She encouraged me to make my own. 

I hit the thrift store on ladies 50% off day and went to the XL section.  I figured I'd get more shirt for the money.  I found 5 shirts that sort of coordinated with my unfortunate colored preschool t-shirt.  I have $12 in this project and that's only because the hooded shirt was not included in the 50% off event- it stood at $4.  

I chose a shirt with an existing hood, so I could have a hood without trying to figure out a pattern for it.  I tried to work the construction of the shirt all out in my head first, but there was some cutting and sewing and guessing at parts.  There were no side seems in my shirt and I  tried to work around that.  When I looked again at my inspiration pieces, I noticed that she added side seems.  That makes more sense now.

It all worked out though.  Hubby said it looks like Punky Brewester.  My sister said, "But, do you like it?"  which means that she doesn't like it.   Well, I do. I like it.  It works for teaching preschool.  It's loose and comfy and colorful.

Yes, I'm taking nighttime bathroom mirror pictures.  I'm classy like that.  These are the pictures I sent to my friend as I was working on the shirt. She seemed to think it was ok, or she was kind about it.

It was 45 degrees the Friday I made this. I'm wearing sweatpants as I try it on.  I planned to wear Monday to school (and get some pictures), however it was 81 degrees.  It's fall in Indiana!  We'll try again next week.