Helen Keller Preschool Lesson

Today we learned about Helen Keller. We read a book ("Young Helen Keller: Woman of Courage ") all about her and the amazing things she did even though two of her senses didn’t work.

We played a cold/hot game with the blindfold on so they could get a tiny glimpse at what life is like without vision. We did a few of the favorite activities from last time (freeze dance and touching game). The kids finished up their five senses books (they worked really hard on these) and had a wonderful time!

Five Senses Preschool

Today at preschool we learned all about the five senses.

Seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing, and touching!

First we tried taste testing: Sweet

Sour

Bitter

Salty

Then we tried mixing sweet and sour together to try some lemonade...much better!

Then we did freeze dancing to use our sense of hearing (a very entertaining experience)!


Then we played, "I Spy With My Little Eye...." and tried to guess what everyone was thinking of while we used our sense of sight!


Then we tried our sense of smell by smelling cinnamon, vinegar, vanilla, and molasses.
To try out our sense of touch we closed our eyes and reached into a bag and tried to figure out some common objects were without looking at them. They were pretty good at it!

We also spent some time working on a project, which they will finish up next time to bring home.
We missed you Maylie and Bradford...hope to see you Thursday!

Learning about Native Americans at Preschool

I guess I should probably start off today's post with a confession. I know it's much more politically correct to say "Native Americans", but for simplicity's sake today I just called them Indians. Sorry, I hope no one is scarred or offended.

After circle time we started off by getting into our own "teepee" [you know the classic blankets draped over chairs].
Right there in the teepee we looked at a globe and reviewed Christopher Columbus' voyage to America. We talked about how he thought he'd found a way to India, so he called the people he met Indians. We looked through a couple of Thanksgiving/Columbus books and briefly talked about how the Indians helped the new people coming to America. How they helped them grow crops and learn to survive in America. I really emphasized the friendship and help they gave to the newcomers.

Then everyone got to color their own teepees (a cute kit from Oriental Trading Company).

Although everyone was quite convinced at first that they'd just made themselves some cool hats! [Gavin was smiling two seconds before I pressed 'click']

Then we talked about how they were actually supposed be like the tents that Indians lived in.

Then we had a little pow-wow, while they wore these cute Indian headbands...

eating popcorn (just like the Indians)...

and doing some good old fashioned Indian whooping and hollering!

I think everyone had a fun time learning all about Indians!

A is for Autumn

We had lots of fun with this subject. We talked about how the leaves feed the trees and how they all wanted to make a huge pill of leaves to jump into. We read a few books, "Why do leaves change color and Leaf Jumpers".The kids enjoyed putting the leaves on the paper trees or they loved to spread the glue everywhere. We tried to learn a peom. All in all they had a good time.
*Don't forget to wear you Halloween Costume on Thursday!!!!!!!!

Geography at preschool

We talked about geography, the world, continents, the U.S. and the state of Virginia.
We worked on a puzzle of the U.S. and they pointed out the state of Virginia.

We colored a geography book.

We painted and cut out Halloween bats.
The children all did a great job!!!

Rebecca

O is for Oceans Preschool

For the past two Thursdays we have talked about the ocean and life in the ocean. Last week we worked together to put together a Rainbow Fish puzzle, we read the story,

and made our own rainbow fish.

We talked about sharing and being a good friend. We played a game (Balloon Lagoon) together to practice our taking turns.

We also colored textured starfish and then ironed the shapes onto paper to watercolor. We really missed James and Gavin.

Today we continued our ocean theme. We played Hullaballoo. It was a version that has special National Geographic clips mixed in with the game. So while we were spinning, crawling, and doing octopus arms we saw actual whales, dolphins, turtles, and octopuses in their natural environment. We read about dolphins and read a beautifully illustrated book about the ocean and what it sees. Then we went on a finding Nemo treasure hunt and searched for different sea creatures until finally we found the treasure- Finding Nemo fruitsnacks.

We made our own oceans in a bottle

and glued "O's" onto our octopus paper.

The kids are playing really well together and seem to be getting into the preschool rhythm.

Looking forward to Halloween and autumn celebrations next week.

Andrea

Fire Station Field Trip

Monday morning we headed over to Eve's house for the kids to have a great time building (or at least hammering) their own fire engines.

Then it was off to the Dunn Loring fire station, where despite repeated phone calls from Becca our visit ended up as a complete surprise to them! Luckily they were in the station and were great sports about accommodating us on such short notice.

By my count there ended up being about 14 preschool aged kids plus the moms and younger siblings attending....so it was a great turn-out!

The firefighters were kind enough to let the kids try on some of their gear...Ellie's modeling Firefighter Rebecca's heavy duty hat!

And Bradford got to stand inside of her boots for a minute!

Firefighter Felicia donned all of her gear and did some fun demonstrations for us...climbing the ladder, dragging the heavy "person", pounding down a "door", and lowering the rope. She was dripping sweat by the end, but still all smiles as she talked with the kids!

One of the highlights from the trip was actually getting inside the fire truck and looking at the world from a fire fighter's perspective!

Of course they each got their own fire hat to take home with them!

In all the fire station field trips I've attended over the years (somewhere in the double digits)...no one's ever let the kids spray the hose! What a special treat for them!

And an unexpected fascination of the day...the fish tanks and candy machines inside the station!

It turned out to be a fun, well attended field trip. Thank you to Becca for making all of the arrangements (even if they forgot to write them down) and thank you to Captain Jackson and all the other fire fighters at fire house #13 for making this a wonderful day!!


Once again I have a ton more pictures than I can post here, so be sure to look at my online photo site where you can right click on any of the pictures and save them to your own computer full sized!

H is for Helper (Community Helper)

We learned about 3 community helpers. The firefigher, the police officer and the doctor. The kids enjoyed the crafts we made. We put together a fire truck puzzle, made a police hat, and made a doctor's bag. We also learned songs to go with each community helper. The songs were all sung to the tune of "I'm a little teapot".

The Firefighter:

I'm a firefighter
Dressed in red
With my fire hat
On my head.
I can drive the fire truck
Fight fires too
And help to make things
Safe for you.

The Police Officer:

I'm a police officer
Dressed in blue
If you have a problem
I'll help you
Call me on the phone
At 9-1-1
And I'll be coming on the run.

The Doctor:

I'm a helpful doctor
Dressed in white
I help people feel better day and night
When you get hurt or sick
Come see me
I'll get you all fixed
Just as quick as can be.

S is for Staying Safe!

On Tuesday we learned all about staying safe! We started off reading "Officer Buckle and Gloria", which is a very silly book about an officer, a dog, and their adventures teaching safety tips to schools. The humor may have been a little over their heads, but they were still fascinated by the silly pictures and situations.


Then we played a little fishing game. With each fish they caught they were asked a simple safety question. I used quite the gamut of questions ranging from wearing seatbelts, what to do when you're lost (look for an employee or other mother to help), never going with a stranger, always crossing the street with an adult, to not touching fire, etc. The kids seemed eager to fish and to learn more about safety.

Then it was on to practicing dialing 9-1-1. I emphasized many times that it was only to be called if there was a real emergency or else the fireman might get mad, but I don't think most of the kids really caught the concept of how to dial the numbers anyway...so you shouldn't need to worry about prank calls from your three-year-old.


Then we went outside to practice our stop, drop....

...and roll!!!
Then we tried running out of the house quickly like we would do if there was ever a fire. Of course they were just having a wonderful time running and rolling! :)

Then we came back inside to make our pictures. The kids had great fun scribbling their fire onto the page and then gluing the other pieces on to make this scene.

I was so happy to see the progress they'd made since the first week of preschool. They played together better, listened better, and participated more. Thank you to all of you wonderful teachers!!!

D is for Dinosaurs!

What could be more fun that a day full of everyone's favorite extinct lizards, the dinosaurs?

During circle time, we sang the following dinosaur song:

I'm a mean old dinosaur (make a mean face),

Big and tall (gesture hands big and tall).

Here is my tail, here is my claw (gesture one hand behind your back for tail and make a claw with the other hand).

When I get all hungry (rub your tummy) 

I just growl (exaggerate the grrroooowwwlll).

Look out kids, I'm on the prowl! (tickle everyone on the tummy)

The kids especially loved the ending.  

We also read books about dinosaurs including Life-Size Dinosaurs, a book that has fold-outs of life-sized dinosaur heads, claws, eggs, etc. - the kids were pretty impressed.  While we were reading the books, we tried to find dinosaurs that matched the plastic dinosaurs we were playing with.

We then started to make Playdoh dinosaurs that we could name, but the kids were more excited about making footprints and squashing the plastic dinos into the playdoh.  We then made a dinosaur diorama using Playdoh and plastic dino figures, complete with an erupting baking soda and vinegar volcano.  I think that was the highlight of the day - that is, until we ran out of vinegar.

And finally, we headed outside and drew outlines of each child on the sidewalk, then laid down a 75-foot rope to see how we would measure up to a dinosaur.  All in all, a great week.

We sure missed Ellie!  Everyone was asking where she was (just like they asked for James on Monday).  Hope she gets better!

Field Trip to Cox Farms

Our first field trip of the year was a success! It was a beautiful fall day, just perfect for playing outside with our preschool friends at Cox Farms!

Look at this good looking group of kids happily posing on the haystacks just inside the entrance! Who knows how long they would've stayed there climbing and playing in the hay, if we hadn't introduced them to the rest of the exciting activities to be found.


Like the rope swing,

which captured the interest and delight of young...

and the only slightly older of the group!

Then it was off to the slides where once again the Moms were having as much fun as the kids!

Giggles, popcorn, hay...


and hugs were in abundant supply!

Thanks to all the Moms and kids who made our first field trip of the year a fun one!

If you want to see all of my photos (in good quality) from that day then click here for our online photo storage. You can just right click on the photo to save it to your own computer. (The first couple of pages of photos were from our Cox Farm trip the day before with my older kids...so head to the end of page 3 and beyond for the preschool photos).