Halloween Popcorn Party

As a little girl, I loved this Halloween book called Popcorn by Frank Asch. When I went to look for it as a teacher, I couldn't even find it at the library because it had been out of print for a long time. I found out recently that it has been published again and bought my own copy- mostly out of nostalgia.

I'll be honest, after reading the story again with my adult eyes, I can't say it impressed me as much as it did when I was a little girl. But I do still think it's fun to imagine popping so much popcorn that it fills up a whole house. And the story can lend itself to some great discussions about choices, consequences, and problem solving- if you are looking for a way to make the read more meaningful. Sometimes though, I think it's also great to read silly stories that are just for fun. After we read it, we made popcorn for our own Halloween snack.

Popping popcorn is one of my favorite ways to introduce the five senses, and reading this book gave us a good excuse to do just that. So we focused on using our five senses as the popcorn cooked in the air popper. First we could hear it and smell it, and then we could see it popping out of the top. After it was finished, we touched it and tasted it as we ate it.

It was our own little Halloween popcorn party...but luckily we made just the right amount so that we didn't have to eat a whole house-full like in the book. :)

Book Love: The Sweet Smell of Christmas

When I saw this book and awesome interactive read-aloud idea on one of my favorite blogs, Teach Preschool, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into our holiday activities this year. It fit in so well with our overall theme of families and the things that they do together.

The Sweet Smell of Christmas by Patricia M. Scarry

This cute story follows a family of bears as they get ready to celebrate Christmas. From baking in the kitchen to picking out a Christmas tree, each event has a smell associated with it. The scratch and sniff stickers inside the pages already make for a fun interactive element, but I loved the way Deborah at Teach Preschool also added real items for the kids to touch and smell. So we did something similar!

We read this on the same day that we made our gingerbread cookies, so we were really able to imagine what the bear's kitchen must have smelled like when they made the cookies. Using our sense of smell (and taste once or twice...) really brought this story to life. This book is definitely a new holiday favorite for me.

Senses Exploration: Leaves

This week, I introduced the five senses to my preschool class. It's a concept we will be visiting regularly throughout the year to explore and experience different learning topics. Since fall leaves are abundant in my neighborhood right now, we used that as a backdrop for using our five senses.

First, we read (and acted out) this book:

Then we went outside and went on our own leaf hunt. I prompted the kids to use their senses as they looked for the leaves by asking questions. What does it sound like when you walk through the leaves? What do the leaves look like? What colors do you see? What does it feel like? etc. When we came back inside we made a simple chart to process the experience. It was hard to come up with a word to describe how leaves smell- they just kept saying "it smelled like leaves!" :)

We decided as a class that there was no need to taste the leaves. We were pretty sure they would not taste good. :)

We ended up with a nice collection of leaves to use for some activities in class.

I also went on my own leaf hunt in preparation for these activities because I wanted some leaf manipulatives that might last a little longer. I have made laminated leaf bookmarks before with classes that have turned out pretty well, and so I tried laminating some leaves and also made some leaf color pages for the kids to work with.

Unfortunately, not all of the leaves kept their vibrant color after a few days went by, but it still worked as a learning tool. (I used laminating sheets and my desktop laminator to make them, and wonder if the colors might last better with a professional laminator -which is what I have used in the past).

I also made some leaf pages to use for building math vocabulary words such as big/small, taller/shorter, size, shape, etc. as we describe, sort, and work with leaves.