Monday, November 4, 2013

From Community Helpers to Spooky Spiders and Everything in Between

    We have had a great few weeks learning about community helpers, fall favorites and having an opportunity to sing and donate our lemonade stand money.

    Some of the books we read include Curious George and the Firefighters, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Alphabet Rescue, Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy, Pumpkin Town and various selections from We Give Books.

    For our letter activities, we used the books along with our dry-erase wipe-off letter cards and books to look at the letters. We also used shaving cream on trays to write our letters.

 
 
   Later, some of our favorite cars and men were added to the fun. During sensory play the following week, we used shaving cream for our hands and created beards.
 



   Our dramatic play activities included playing with grocery store items, delivering letters, working for the fire department and using chain links for police officer belts and handcuffs. The craft idea can be found at this site.




 
 
     We also had fun using laundry baskets as our cars, boats and more with our community helper theme.
 


     Our continued look at the seasons included pumpkin art, raking and playing with leaves, oat sensory play and a fun craft from Making Learning Fun.











     Our look at spiders inspired a couple of our school-age friends to create their own.


     We used our yarn spider puppets to sing along with Raffi's Spider on the Floor. Other spider crafts and activities included spiders on the light table, a spider hat, a spider craft from this site and using tweezers with spider rings at the sensory table. One of our party games included tossing the spider.







 



   Other sensory activities included Popsicle sticks, pasta, pom poms with egg cartons and turkey basters with water. We also explored containers with our favorite table toys.









    One of my favorite activities included painting the windows in the front with a mixture of cornstarch, water and food coloring. My recipe ended up being a "guess and test" due to finding a recipe that did not work.


    Our Fall party included making spider impressions in our play dough, exploring skeletons from Google images printed on translucent card stock on the light table, playing in colored Oobleck with google eyes and decorating cupcakes. We also danced to our favorite fall music, played "hot potato" with a pumpkin and played the spider toss game. Prior to this, we also made a version of There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly from this site.






 
 
 

    We also had time to use our Do-A-Dot markers with worksheets from Making Learning Fun.




    Our candy holder was made from a full size paper plate that had a 2/3 plate attached to the back to make a pocket. We attached a large bat to the front of the plate we had colored.


   Here are some of the other creations on the light table. The last picture was taken by one of my preschoolers.







     I will leave you with a picture of one of our favorite play dough activities... making hats.