Harvest Unit (September 30- October 4)

Please revisit our blog we started to create a big red barn. Next week we will cut yellow paper in a handwriting activity to create hay for our barn.  We will also role play the story of Farmer Duck in our dramatic play area. I will create a blog posting about this fun activity.


Harvest Unit (Week 1)
Books This Week:
Eddie's Garden
Farmer Duck

Concept Questions For This Week:
-What is a garden?
-What cares does a garden need?
-What is a farm?
-What work needs to be done to grow food?
-Why do farmers have animals?

Handwriting Activities
-Theraputty- We will be using a special therapy putty to pull "seeds" (really tiny beads).  We will use our "alligator fingers" to remove all the seeds
-Yellow paper cutting to create hay for barn
-Clothes pins to create animal gates- We will place an animal in a pen. Then as a team we will use alligator fingers to put clothespins around the gate to keep the animal safe.
-Mat Man- We are using "Mat Man" to remind us of how to draw a person.  We will sing songs about Mat Man and then see if they can draw him will all of his parts and add details.

Small Groups This 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. Art- Creating textured animals to add to our farm mural (to be created at center time)
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:Farm Mural

Block Area:blocks and farm animals

Sensory Table:dirt and popscicle sticks to make rows for seeds

Book Area: books about farms and growing

Easel: painting with primary colors

Writing Table: creating seed packets

Dramatic Play: playing farm (role play being farmer and animals)

Puzzles and Manipulatives: farm related puzzles

Science Table: Acorns from the playground

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.

      New Life Skill:   "When I give you an instruction, do it right away."

      Previous Life Skill: "When a teacher calls your name, you stop, look at the speaker, and say "yes".