Introducing Fall and Lines

We've been exploring a few topics alongside each other this month, in addition to some that are more spooky for Halloween.

We've been thinking about trees in the fall, and other changes that happen during this season.

We've also been thinking about lines: looking for lines in nature (i.e. in leaves, pumpkins, spider webs), and how to use lines to form shapes, letters, etc. 

Fire Safety

During the first week of October, we focused on fire safety and the work that firefighters do in our community.

Fire Art

We mixed yellow and red colors to make some fire art.

Fire Positional Words Game

We played this little game to practice using positional vocabulary, and find different fires throughout the house.

Fire Dramatic Play

The firefighter play kept up throughout most of the month.

Field Trip to the Fire Station

We also enjoyed a fun trip to the local fire station. We are so grateful for the time they took to meet with us, and for all the work they do in our community!

Exploring Shapes...and Friendship!

We wrapped up the month of September by exploring shapes, and how they are the same and different- just like all of our friends at preschool!

While reading the book Friendshape, we worked together to recreate some of the pictures from the book. 

There are a lot of fun ways to explore with shapes- 

a topic that we will continue to visit throughout the year.

We finished off the week by practicing some friendship skills with this simple high-five game from Teach Preschool. You just ask a friend to give you a high-five, and then fill in a finger on your recording sheet.

Simple invitations often lead to deeper interactions, like how these two started talking about and counting each other's fingers. :)

After a month of getting to know each other and exploring things together, I asked each class to come up with some rules or guidelines for being a good friend in preschool. I loved hearing what was important to them, and will use that understanding as the foundation for building up our community as we move forward this year!

Book Love: Bernice Gets Carried Away

I shared this book during our birthday theme, and the kids keep asking to read it during center choice time, so it's making it to the Book Love list. :)

I feel like kids and grown-ups alike can relate to this story, because at times we all feel like things aren't going our way and it's easy to get caught up in those emotions. I especially love the illustrations in this book, and how they become brighter along with the main character's mood.

Read-Aloud Tip: Some ideas in this story may not be as obvious to young children right away during the read-aloud. I like to take the time to point out what the characters are feeling and why they might be feeling that way, encouraging them to connect to the text. Sometimes there are clues in the illustrations that help us to understand, and other times we need to think of our own ideas.

Connecting Activities: There are a lot of fun balloon activities you could do alongside this book. We kept things pretty simple this year, but I was thinking it would be cool to explore helium balloons, and why more or less balloons would lift something off the ground for a STEM connection. Maybe if the interest in the book keeps up, we will try it! Anway, we painted with dot markers, played with balloons, and did some loose parts exploring this time around.

 This activity was one of our first for exploring loose parts this year. As I watched the students interact with the materials, I noticed a lot of one-to-one correspondence practice happening as they created the balloons. It's always fun to see what learning experiences the students create for themselves!

Exploring Colors and Numbers

We have continued to be explorers this month is preschool, and I have been taking the opportunity to introduce basic topics that we will expand upon as the year goes by. This gives me the chance to get a better idea of the student's interests, needs, and abilities in those areas so I know where to take things in the future. Last week we spent some time thinking about colors.

We read Bear Sees Colors, and passed around different colored bears as we read the story. Then we looked around the classroom to see if we could find the same colors as Bear.

We explored using colors in art and in the sensory table with a little experiment using baking soda and colored vinegar.

We also explored the different shades of skin colors that people can have.

We read another Bear book called Bear Counts, along with starting our Math Bags routine. So we added a counting element to the colored bear table we had set up. For this simple game you just roll the colored dice and add a bear (or bears) to the grid. I let the students interpret how to add the bears, which gave me a chance to observe some of their number sense and counting skills.