Harvest Festival

Another successful Harvest Festival! I think our first one was 10 years ago. We invite the parents to join us during the last hour of class. They watch us parade through the building, and then we go into the gym where there are 7 stations of activities. The children are divided into groups and when the bell rings, they move onto the next station. What I love most about this event is how many mothers, fathers, and grandparents join us!

Happy Halloween!

Something About A Box

Both my 2's class and my 3's class have been enjoying boxes that have been recycled. These are pictures of my 2's class last week. If someone was in a box, another preschooler would peek in and squeal with delight. Some boxes had small cut-outs for handles on the tops and sides. This allowed great peek-a-boo fun!

A Trip to the Farm

Last week was our annual trip to the farm. The parents attend this event with the children, so we don't need to worry about transportation or chaperones. It's one of my favorites! The tour includes seeing various farm animals, learning how cider is made, learning about different types of pumpkins, going through a hay maze that ends with a ride down a slide, walking through a corn maze, picking out a pumpkin, and then going on a hay ride. The weather was very iffy, but we were lucky it didn't rain until the very end.

Record Absences

Yesterday we had 7 out of 16 preschoolers absent. That is a record for us! When someone is absent, we place their name under the "Who is absent today?" card. I have 4 Velcro spots. Well, as you can see, we had to double up!

It was a good day, though. And I heard a couple more children sneezing as the morning ended.

I got my flu shot today!

Lots of Orange!

I love fall colors! Last week we explored the color orange by mixing red and yellow. We also printed pumpkins and made orange collages. Next week we go to the pumpkin patch!

End of Week 3!

We ended week #3. Some days I feel like we are moving on, some days I feel like we need to continue to simplify until they are ready. Today was one of those days. We didn't even have small groups because I knew it would be too much. This is why I do not have our schedule set in stone. I spend a great deal of time observing, and today I could tell immediately that the energy level was high and some of the children seemed very tired. Not a good mix! Plus, one little guy fell and cut his lip, causing the rest of the class to be upset and worried. So, instead of small groups, we spent extra time outside and in the gym. And they were happy.

Some pictures from this week:

Learning to take care of our environment. Sweeping the sand we spill.

It's amazing how much fun a rope can be! (As long as there is a teacher right there to supervise.)

We are learning to throw away our garbage when we are finished with our snack.

The tubes were everything from horses to fire hoses to vacuum hoses.

We introduced the easel this week. They loved it!

Painting With 2 Year Olds

We love to use paintbrushes....

But we also love to drive little cars through paint!

We cover an entire table with one large sheet of paper and let them go. Today I did add their birthday crowns, in case they wanted to add some color to them also.

I found it interesting that what they loved most was lining the bottles up. I've never seen previous students do this. (Although we all know that 2's love to line anything up!)

Today we introduced the painting easel.

And these two decided they wanted to paint together!

Smocks? We don't worry about them, unless we are using a medium that isn't washable. We tell the parents at parent night not to dress their children in fancy clothes. We make sure to use washable paint and we squirt some detergent in there as well.