This last week the kids did many Thanksgiving activities as well as continuing to learn about North American plains and prairies. On Monday the children listened to an Osage Indian legend and then made pictures of Indian Corn. Popcorn was dyed with food coloring which produced some very beautiful and brilliant colors.
The children made turkey apples on Tuesday! Turkey feathers were created using miniature marshmallows skewered onto toothpicks. The kids couldn't wait to take them home to eat.
On Wednesday everyone helped to make a pumpkin pie for the afternoon snack.
 |
 |
| Create a free digital slideshow |
The children have learned about several desert animals this month. During the past week they made Jack Rabbit ears, bats and snakes. While working on these projects the children are practicing fine motor skills such as coloring, drawing, and learning to use scissors. After each project was completed they played in the gym and pretended to be the animal they had made. 
The children have been studying the letter "d" and met DeeDee Deer last week. They know her sound and her body movement and have completed several activities related to "d". Recently the children created Polka-Dot-D pictures with rhinestone jewels.
On Monday the children listened to The Beautiful Dream, a Navajo story about Coyote, Skunk and Porcupine. They found a piece of meat and were undecided about which of them should get to eat it. After one solution didn't work Porcupine suggests they all take a nap and whoever had the most beautiful dream should get to eat the meat. Porcupine outsmarts them and eats the meat while the other two are sleeping. After listening to the story the children put on masks and pretended to be Coyote.
Yesterday the children read a book about the differences in desert environments during the day and the night. They also learned that people who live in deserts often build adobe houses. After looking at pictures and participating in a discussion about the desert the kids painted an adobe house to play in.
The Zoo Phonics lessons this week are all about the letter C. The children have met Catina Cat, learned her letter sound, and her body movement. Yesterday the kids enjoyed making C shaped chocolate chip cookies.
The preschool class began learning about deserts yesterday. They read a pop-up book about many different desert creatures, looked at animals on the bulletin board and learned some new Chinese vocabulary. Today they painted a Saguaro Cactus with green paint mixed with salt. When the paint dries the cactuses should have a prickly texture. The cactuses will be hung in our classroom where other animals will join them.
Zoo Phonics is a new component of our curriculum this year and most of the posts have been about that or September's dinosaur theme. The children are continuing to study Chinese as well. We decided to begin the year with zoo animals to compliment the Zoo Phonics curriculum. Yueying has done several activities with the children to teach them animal vocabulary. She has also worked on dinosaur vocabulary. Next month the children will focus on learning about their classroom and school.
The children have discovered that dinosaur feet are huge! They learned that a Tyrannosaurus foot is about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. Next the children traced their own feet and cut them out to compare them with the Tyrannosaurus foot. They also tried to see how many steps a Tyrannosaurus could take walking across our gym and then counted their own steps. The discussion also led to how tall the dinosaur might be. Some guessed it could be as tall as our gym.
Bubba Bear helped the preschoolers to learn the letter "b" and its sound this past week. Many activities were used to reinforce these concepts. The children also enjoyed making blue collages.
The children have been learning about dinosaur fossils and made casts of dinosaur imprints at preschool. Before beginning the project the children watched a video at YouTube - How to make a Dinosaur Fossil. The children mixed sand, dirt, and water together and then pressed a dinosaur into the mud. The imprint was filled with plaster of paris to create the cast.
This week the preschoolers have been learning all about the letter a. They began the week reviewing the letters and their sounds and body movements. They traced puffy paint letter a's with their fingers, drew a's in applesauce and completed pre-writing worksheets. They learned that Allie is one of the hardest workers since she can be found in so many words. The children took their homework folders home including a worksheet to be completed with their parents featuring Allie Alligator wearing a hardhat and holding a shovel. The children looked at words on the bulletin board and all took turns finding Allie and the letter a. All of the children were able to recognize the merged letter a with Allie.
