Thanksgiving

For the past two weeks we have been focusing on Thanksgiving. 

We learned about the Teepees that the Native Americans lived in and that the Native Americans used many colors and patters to decorate their beautiful homes. To have the children have a full experience of teepees we constructed our own life size teepee. The children helped by decorating sheets of butcher block paper with different colors and patterns. The children all got a chance to play in the teepee and pretend that they were Native Americans and pilgrims. 

We also discussed the similarities and differences of Native Americans and Pilgrims. We created this Venn diagram below. 

We also made festive Thanksgiving mats. We decorated them by making a patterned border and then made handprint turkeys. We also continued to discuss what it means to be thankful. The children shared two things that they are thankful for and we dictated their words onto their placemats. 

Furthermore, we also decided it would be fun to investigate a pumpkin. They shared that they thought the outside of the pumpkin was hard and bumpy. After feeling the textures and looking at the skin the children made prediction of what they thought it looked like inside. After cutting it open we discovered that the pumpkin felt smooth and squishy, with many seeds inside. 

We decided that we should take advantage of all of the pumpkin seeds and bake some to see what they would taste like. There were mixed reviews. We also decided to leave a few seeds inside the pumpkin and we added soil and water inside. We are conducting an experiment to see it anything will grow. Only time will tell. 

We ended our Thanksgiving unit with a lovely feast. We wore our Native American headdresses that we decorated by making patterns. 

Our song of the week:

Turkey Song

(Tune of "Yankee Doodle")

The turkey is a funny bird 

His head goes wobble wobble

All he says is just one word

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble 

Fall

Leaves

We focused on the changing of the season. We asked the children to bring in various colored leaves. They brought in so many! We were able to sort them by shape, size, and color. We even made a chart of our color sorting. 

                                                       

                        
     

Wind

We also learned about wind. We explained that when air moves it is called wind. Air is invisible to the human eye and impossible to feel until it moves. We asked the children top hold up a hand, in front of their mouths, and blow into it. This way they were able to feel the air. We did a science experiment using straws and various objects, including: pom poms, leaves, Legos, a tissue and a block. The children experimented, by blowing through a straw, to discover which objects they were able to move with their breath (the wind) and which items they were unable to move. 

Apples

We additionally discussed that Fall is the season of apples! We had an apple taste test where each child tasted a red, green, any yellow apple. They chose which color apple was their favorite and then we graphed the results. We then has the opportunity to bake some delicious apple crisp with the majority of the children's favorite apple type.  

We discussed what describing is and then came up with many words to describe apples. We wrote down their words and were impressed with what they come up with. 

We enjoyed some more apple fun by estimating how many apples tall we each are and then measuring to see if our estimations were correct. We also made beautiful apple prints. 

              

Apple Poem:

Apple Tree

Five little apples sitting in a tree

Five little apples smiling at me

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down fell an apple

Mmm was it good

(And so on until no apples are left!)