Halloween Week

Monday October, 27th Our Preschool class spent the day talking about HALLOWEEN! We talked about why we trick-or-treat, "To get Candy" was the common response. I glazed over that long ago people would give out treats to pretend witches, and ghosts and monsters, so they wouldn't play tricks on them. We talked about pumpkins turning into jack-o-lanterns, and how it becomes a "lantern" when a candle is put into them, this is how they would walk around at night, long ago, however, now we use flashlights, but we still like to carve pumpkins and set them out on our porches. We made ghost out of glue, water, and Muslim. (I had a couple of boys who did not want to touch the gluey paste, I thought was pretty funny considering all the other things they could be afraid of.) We read many Halloween stories, " The Runaway Pumpkin", by, Kevin Lewis. We're Going On A Ghost Hunt", by, Marica Vaughan. And "The Friendly Monsters", by Marcus Pfister.

Halloween Party

Our Highlight of the week of course was our Halloween Party!! Dressing up is always fun. We played Halloween Games, Colored a BIG Frankenstein, had Orange floats, took turns "trick-or-treating" and best of all we got to ride on a tractor bed loaded with bales of hay to sit on. We rode to a pumpkin patch to pick out our very own pumpkin to take home.

The Boys
The Girls

Musical Chairs

and

Trick-Or-Treat

Hay Ride
Pumpkin Patch

Let's Be Safe!

Fire! Fire! Hurry! Hurry!
Fire Safety is a fun and important day! Talking about fires especially in our homes, can sometimes be frighting. We talk about how not to be afraid of a fireman in the home, if he is trying to find you. Also how to Stop! Drop! And Roll! Smoke rises to the ceiling, so to stay close to the ground. We talked about how Firemen are heroes! They save people, not only from fires, but also from accidents, or other places, where we might need their help. Trying to explain a hero to a 4 year old is kind of tricky. Many asked if firemen could fly. After putting out fires, Fire Fighters get really hungry, so for snack time, we made "Pigs in a Blanket", again, another thing tricky to explain to a 4 year old!

Officer Friendly (in a book) showed us how to be safe where ever we go. We all pretended to be a police officer for the day.

My proud moment however, is when we talked about signs that we see while driving in our cars, also keep us safe. My own son yelled from the back seat to make sure I look for children crossing the street, because he saw a "School Crossing Sign". Then he noticed a "rail-road" sign and informed me that we should never play on rail-road tracks.

Let's Play Catch Up!

"Wee" Love Preschool started on September 8th. Two Very fun and energetic classes to be held on Mondays and Wednesdays. The morning class begins at 9:00 a.m. until noon, while the smaller, afternoon class is from 12:45 until 3:45 (my only 2 three year olds go home at 2:45).

Morning Class

Afternoon Class

I wasn't too surprised that the children were very excited. New friends, toys and things to do. We learned about what we do in preschool, a welcome song to sing each day, and fun and safe rules to follow at school. We read stories about going to school and since we were "wild about preschool" we made Monkey masks to take home. The high light of the day however, was making and eating vanilla and chocolate pudding.

5 little monkeys?

The Rest of September we focused on self awareness, our friends, and our family. We recorded our height and weight so we can watch our growth through the school year. We played games to help with getting to know new friend's names and talked about who is in a family.

My preschoolers are so smart, we basically just need to review our colors and shapes and devoted a whole class to each.

We ended September with a Birthday Party for Johnny Apple Seed. First of all we needed to find out who Johnny was with a fun story about him. The children were real excited to see the inside of the apple and find the actual seeds. (Good thing I have an apple tree in the back, because I think I cut open a least a dozen apples to dig out the seeds for the children.) We also tried to find any worms in the apples. We found plenty of holes from the worms, but no worms. (I think the boys were very disappointed we didn't find any.) We made easy apple crisp, and dried apple necklaces. At the end of class, Brock asked when Johnny was going to show up for his party. (He must of missed the part, "he lived a long time ago".) That was my chuckle of the day! It must seem weird to celebrate someones birthday who isn't even going to be there! I love to see how these children think.

October started with surrounding awareness. We talked about where we live, country and city, and different types of homes. "Community Helpers" and "People in our Neighborhood" is always a fun day. This is where they get to see different types of careers and express what they want to be when they grow up. When this question was asked, I had many Batmans, Spidermans, and Princesses. As we talked about each community worker, and their importance, luckily the children's minds had changed to doctors, teachers, and construction workers, (many claimed that their dad was a super hero for his job, however).

Skills too where focused on. Scissor cutting, paper riping, and tracing helped with our fine motor, while bean bag tossing, music movements, Hokey Pokey and Simon says, games focused on large motor skills. We talked about sizes, opposites, things that are the same, things that go together, reading from left to right, and my favorite, Position Words.

Around the Table

Under and On Top of the Table Behind the Table