{Proud to be Drug Free} & {Pumpkin Patch} Week

Even though we have really littles, we joined the district in participating in Red Ribbon Week to show our support. The ECDC held a door decorating contest and we had a lot of fun finding ideas. Here are just a few of the doors, there were too many to post!

Pre-K 2

2's-"Our Class Leaves Drugs Alone!" 



PPK (1st Place Winner!) You can't tell from the pictures, but the windows actually open up with pictures of her class dressed up like goblins and monsters. It was SO cute.

Pre-K 1 (2nd Place Winner) Those are the kids handprints, so cute!

We also dressed up all week for Red Ribbon Week, this day was "Give Drugs the Boot" and we all wore boots. The girls wanted their picture taken with their boots on, and as you can see the boys were clearly disinterested. SO funny, 4 & 5 year old boys have no tolerance for posing pictures, lol.

Since we won 2nd place, we recieved a $50.00 gift card towards a classroom purchase. Since the election was right around the corner, we talked about voting and decided to hold a Toy Vote. First, the kids found things under $50.00 in a catalog I put in the Library. Next, we held a vote and took the 3 most popular items to hold a final vote. The kids got really into it! They lobbied for their favorite and used very persuasive arguments to point out why their choice should win. We used the opportunity to discuss that everyone had the right to use one vote, we respected everyone's choice even if we disagreed, and after the voting process, we accepted the results with happy hearts. It was a huge success! A cash register with fake money and toy phone won by the way by a 2 vote margin. :)

For Halloween decor, Pre-K 1 made a word ring from Halloween words. They wrote the word and then added a ring.

I LOVE Pre-K handwriting.

We made spider little books.

And added spooky spiders, jack o' lanterns and lima bean ghosts to the sensory table.

We continued to play games that teach us how to use a die and take turns. This was a witch's brew game where you add lizards, spiders, bones, bat wings, or worms to the pot until you don't have any left. It was pretty popular.



Pre-K 2 had a game, too with spiders and jack o' lanterns.

Love this morning message.

Pre-K 2 also did marble painting spider webs and added ring spiders!



Pre-K 1 made this cooperative witch for morning message. She looks pretty friendly!

Do you know the best Fall/Pumpkin story ever? It's this one:

If you ever buy a pumpkin book, make it this one! We added the words to the story in the pocket chart and the kids did it over and over by themselves!

We also built houses in block center to make them into Haunted Houses. Here's one in progress.

Each group built a huge house, then we printed them in black and white and added stickers for our book.

Each house turned out unique!



Each class had a pumpkin and did a pumpkin investigation. We did this chart in Pre-K 1 and a sweet mom pointed out that it was missing a "K", whoops! I fixed it, don't worry.



Our pumpkin had WAY more seeds than we would have thought. We took them out and placed them in cups by 10's.

The kids got to reach in and feel the inside of the pumpkin to describe how it felt.

Then we turned him into a happy Jack O' Lantern!

After drying the seeds we made mini jack o' lanterns with orange string and seeds inside!



Pre-K 2 sequenced the life cycle of a pumpkin after reading Pumpkin Cirle by George Levenson.



They drew pumpkin circles and then added seeds to the inside, too! Here is the birthday girl working on hers!







We also journaled about our pumpkins. I love this pumpkin patch with our big pumpkin in the center!

So sweet, friends helping eachother spell "pumpkin".

Ms. Amy had a snack craft for everyone to enjoy...pumpkin pies! These pies were really easy for the peas to put together. We crushed graham crackers for the crust, then added it to our bowls. Then we stirred together vanilla pudding and pumpkin pie mix (with the seasonings added.) We topped it with whipped cream. Yum!





One of our last pumpkin activities was making "Starlight Pumpkins" from this site. She has some amazing art lessons! We drew our pumpkins first, added lines, then used red and yellow paint to create orange. We also made green leaves using yellow and blue paint.

Afterwards, we cut them out and glued them to black paper. We made a chalk moon and stars and added our leaves and some vines. I LOVE these.

The kids really enjoyed all of our pumpkin activities and our busy and fun month continues!

{Fall} and {Creatures of the Night}

We kicked off fall with themes about Trees and Leaves and Creatures of the Night.

Pre-K 1 started with a fun pocket chart rhyme. It says:

The leaves are falling down,

Red, yellow and brown.

The leaves are falling down,

All over ______ and all over town!

We had our name cards out to take turns reading our names in the rhyme and then we added some really silly name cards with ideas from the class. Santa Claus, Ms. Molly, Luke Skywalker and Happy all had their names added to cards!

Pre-K 2 cut out owls for a door bulletin board after reading Owl books. Owl Babies by Martin Waddell was very popular. You can watch the story being read on YouTube here.



Pre-K 2 also had adorable owl sheets numbered 1-5 that they cut out and sequenced.

This owl roll and cover game was very popular, too. The peas made progress with counting, taking turns and visually discriminating numbers.

Pre-K 1 did a cut and color tree sequencing art project.

At circle time we discussed what grew on trees. These are some smart kiddos! They guessed many fruits, leaves, apple blossoms, etc.

We studied leaves and examined them under magnifying glasses.

We make little books usually once a week to use for guided reading, learning predictive text and sight words. They are very short but the kids love making them.

More pics of the roll and cover game. I love how serious these guys look!

Pre-K 2 worked on visually discriminating between different types of leaves.

They also played a beginning sounds game on the white board.

Ms. Rhonda did the coolest project of the week! She talked about day and night and brought this really cool prop to demonstrate how the sun provides daylight.

Then she made a night box! As you can imagine, the kids LOVED it. Pre-K 2 played with it and then let Pre-K 1 have a turn. Here she is making it with a little help!

How clever is this? She punched holes for a string of Christmas lights that fit into the holes. They illuminated the inside of the box with this lovely glow.

Acting silly in the night box.

And you know that old lady who swallows EVERYTHING?!

She's done it again.

And since we are working on sequencing right now, we used the story to sequence everything she swallowed. Don't you love that concentrating tongue bite? Love it!



Lastly, Ms. Rhonda had a really neat art and literature connection activity. We read this story:

It is the perfect mix of spooky tale and practical explanations! When a brother and sister are sent on a late-night errand by their mother one evening, they realize that they'll have to pass by the Ghost-Eye Tree to reach their destination. They may think they're tough, but what will happen when they have to face the tree in the dark of night? After reading the story, we made our own Ghost Eye Trees!


Pre-K 2 also made these festive fall leaves. They are sun catchers, and the picture doesn't do them justice. They are so pretty hung in the windows of their room.

Pre-K 2 made this adorable sad scarecrow and crows, too! The scarecrow was done during a cooperative project where groups worked seperately on the head, arms, legs, body, etc. I really love him. Those crows are pretty adorable, too.

Pre-K 1 rounded off the week with these scarecrows. Their favorite part was stuffing the bags!
Happy Fall, ya'll!