October 31-4

***Please have your child bring in a stuffed animal for our story time on Monday***

Books This Week
Possum's Harvest Moon
Frederick by Leo Leonni
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything
Concept Questions For This Week:
-What are nocturnal animals?
-What are the phases of the moon?
-What are animal habitats?
-What are good manners for our soiree?
Small Groups This Week:
Monday- We will create a life sized scarecrow by stuffing clothing from the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything. We will label the clothing and label the actions each clothing makes.
1. Making Lanterns for our Soiree- We will be decorating lanterns for our soiree on Friday.
2. Sorting Nocturnal and Day Time Animals- We will discuss animals that come at at night and day.
3.Moon Phases-We will discuss how the moon affects us. We will look at the phases of the moon. We will also sequence the moon phases. Then each child will use black paper and white paint on a toothbrush to flick paint on the paper (fine motor skills). Then they will choose one phase of the moon to paint with yellow paint in their space sky.
Friday- We will be having a Harvest Soiree.(Just like in Possum's Harvest Moon). We will bake a special snack and set the tables for our Soiree.
Happy Harvesting.
 

Centers

Art Table:Making harvest decorations and hats for the Soiree
Fine Motor: using black paper and wet white and yellow chalk to make night skies
Sensory Table: milking cows(with plastic gloves filled with water)
Book Area: books about farms and growing
Easel: brown and yellow paint to create fall scenes
Writing Table: making invitations
Dramatic Play: tool shop
Puzzles and Manipulatives: farm related puzzles
Science Table: Observing our new gerbils from the Science Center

October 24-28

Books This Week
The Little Red Hen
Possum's Harvest Moon
Frederick
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
Concept Questions For This Week:
-Seasons on a farm
-How do we store and preserve food?
-Why do we buy some food in cans and boxes?

Small Groups This Week:
1. Following Direction Activity- Using a scene from a farm, children will be asked to follow a series of directions.  This focuses on following directions, color identification, positional relationship, and fine motor skills.
2.Pumpkin Sequencing- We will read a book about how a pumpkin grows from seed to fruit. Then we will create our own sequencing books.
3.More and Less Comparision- We will talk about the concept of more and less. First exploring with manipulatives, then looking at crops from farm. We will compare two sets of veggies. We will identify which number is more and less. Then we will trace the numbers, cut the sets, and glue them on a chart.
1. Listening Farm Bingo- We will listen to sounds on a farm. Then place cubes on the sounds we hear.
2. Syllable Sounds- We will clap out sounds in words. For example, farm has one clap and harvest has two claps. We will create a graph to show vocabulary words that have one syllable and two syllables.
3. Little Red Hen Board Game- We will play a board game inspired by our unit book. We will reinforce turn taking, counting, number recognition, and following directions.
Centers
Art Table:sponge painting rock walls on mural paper
Sensory Table:Beans and Seeds
Book Area: books about farms and growing
Easel:watercolors like in Frederick

Writing Table: writing farmer's market lists

Dramatic Play: Farmer's Market
Puzzles and Manipulatives: farm related puzzles
Science Table: Observing our new gerbils from the Science Center

Our "Field Trip" to the Science Center

Our field trip today to Parlee Farms was cancelled due to rain. However, with the help of one of our favorite parents (who happens to drive a bus in the town) and some of our parent volunteers, we went on a field trip to the Burlington Science Center. We boarded a school bus in front of our school and rode the bus around the high school to go to the Science Center. It was a great experience to ride the bus. Then we went to into the Science Center to go on an animal scavenger hunt.  

 We wanted to say a special thank to Michelle for making our trip even more special!!! Also thank you to Karen, Monica, and Becky for coming on our trip.

 

 With clipboards in hand, we searched for animals in the center. We saw an alligator and a snapping turtle swimming in their tanks. We also saw snakes, guinea pigs, salamanders, beetles, birds, and even hissing cockroaches.We were able to find most of the animals on our scavenger hunt. We were not able to see the chickens and the rabbit. Hopefully, we will see them on our next visit.

 

 The children were even excited to see a tiger, a fisher cat, and a leopard(even though they were stuffed). It was an amazing field trip and it was only a short bus ride away.

The Cub Cadet Classroom had the best field trip today. Thank you Burlington Science Center for always providing such a wonderful experience for your friends at The Burlington Early Childhood Center.

October 17-21

**Please remember our field trip to Parlee Farms is Thursday. Please arrive by 8:30. Children in our class are welcome to have lunch and stay until 12:30. Please send in a lunch on Thursday as usual if you plan on having your child stay until 12:30.

Books This Week
The Little Red Hen
Annie Farmer Annie
Farmer Duck

Concept Questions For This Week:
-How does food get from the farm to your house?
-What can we make with apples?
-What can we make with potatoes?
-What happens to wheat before we can eat it?

Small Groups This Week:
1. Comparing Weight of Fall objects- We will be using a balance scale to predict which objects weight more or less. We will then graph our results on a classroom chart.
2. Animals on the farm book-We will create a textured book of animals on the farm. We will also be writing the beginning sounds of words for each page.
3.Vocabulary from The Little Red Hen Memory Game- We will first browse the book and discuss vocabulary words. We will use memory card with pictures of the words in a memory game.
**We have 3 small groups a day that rotate with different children.

Centers

Art Table:gluing colored pom poms in apple barrels(OT-using our pinching fingers to sort the pom poms and improving our fine motor grasps)
Sensory Table:"dirty dishes" with soap, water, and sponges(We will wash the dishes "All by ourselves", like the Little Red Hen)
Book Area: books about farms and growing
Easel:watercolors to create farm scenes

Writing Table: writing farmer's market lists

Dramatic Play: Farmers Market with a cash register, market bags, food scales, and a variety of foods to buy.
Puzzles and Manipulatives: farm related puzzles
Science Table: Observing our new gerbils from the Science Center

September 11-14

Books This Week:
The Little Red Hen
Eddie's Garden
Farmer Duck

Concept Questions For This Week:
-Where does food  come from?
-How do machines help farmers?
-How is food prepared?
-What happens to wheat before we can eat it?


Small Groups This Week:
Last week we did not complete our small groups because we were busy creating a garden outside of our playground. We will be finishing these small groups this shorten week. 1. Planting seeds- We will decorate cups with markers, add soil, and add grass seeds. We will be watching our seeds grow over the course of this unit.
2. Sequence the life cycle of plants- We will color, cut, then sequence 4 pictures to show the life cycle of plants.
3. Math- We will be cutting pictures of farm animals. Then we will sort the farm animals to count them. We will then graph them to determine the most and least. We will discuss the beginning letters of the animals as well.
1. Bingo Game- Our bingo boards will have tools that can be found on a farm. (rake, tractor,hoe, shovel, sickle,.....)
2. Animals on the farm book-We will create a textured book of animals on the farm. We will also be writing the beginning sounds of words for each page.
3.Math- we will create patterns to reinforce left to right progression. We will add a farmer at the end to illustrate the farmer getting chased by the animals.(Just like in our story Farmer Duck)

**We have 3 small groups a day that rotate with different children.

Some activities will continue next week. **

Centers

Art Table:Animals for our farm mural(sheep-with shaving cream and glue)
Block Area:barns and farm animals
Sensory Table:dirt and popscicle sticks to make rows for seeds with seed packets
Book Area: books about farms and growing
Easel:painting pumpkins with tissue paper and glue to create "stained glass" for our windows.

Writing Table: farmers to do lists

Dramatic Play: role play of the little red hen. Props will be baking pans, mixers, bowls, pretend bread, and animal headbands to show who they are pretending to be.
Puzzles and Manipulatives: farm related puzzles
Science Table: Observing our new gerbils from the Science Center

Preschool Life Skills

Every week we will be reinforcing previous skills and introducing new skills. Some weeks we will spend more time with a previous skill before moving to a new skill.
-Manner 1-"When a teacher calls your name, you stop, look at the speaker, and say "yes".
-Manner 2- "When I give you an instruction, do it right away."
-Manner 3-"When I give you instructions, you do them right away."(following multi-step directions)

Pictures from this week

We planted a garden today.

 We dug in the earth(our vocabulary word). We then planted daffodils and crocus bulbs. We talked about waiting for spring to see the flowers. So to get some instant color, we planted a mum. It was a fun day.

We created a mural for our farm unit. Along with having some gerbils visit our classroom from the science center. We are going talk about how snowball and snowflake get ready for the winter like animals outside do.

We also discussed in our unit how animals help make gardens grow. We read a book about an earthworms life. Then we looked at bait worms from a fish shop. They look and feel like worms.

We also had dirt in our sensory table this week. We used popscicle sticks to make rows in the dirt. Then we "planted" pumpkin seeds. We then used seed packets to label the rows of pumpkins.  

Last week we surprised Pat for her birthday. We made her a card and had popscicles. Happy Birthday Pat.