Thanksgiving

In class we learned about the Teepees (homes) that the Native Americans lived in. We learned that the Native Americans used many colors and patterns to decorate their beautiful homes. To have the children have a full experience of teepees Nursery 3B constructed their own life size teepee. The children helped by decorating a sheet 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.

Additionally, we discussed how pumpkins are a very common food during this time of year. So, we decided it would be fun to investigate a pumpkin. We each had a turn to feel and smell the outside and inside of the pumpkin and described what we saw and felt. We thought the outside was hard and orange and the inside was cold and wet, with a lot of seeds.  We then used pumpkin to make delicious pumpkin, chocolate chip muffins. 

For our feast we had the children decorate headdresses. Each child got to choose two different colors of feathers and make up a pattern of their choice. All the headdresses turned out beautifully and the children enjoyed wearing them to our Thanksgiving feast.

Song of the Week:

(To the 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

This week we have been focusing on the changing of the season. We discussed how the leaves are changing colors and falling to the ground.We asked the children to bring in leaves and did so many fun activities involving leaves! We sorted the leaves in so many different ways: color, shape, and size. 

We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and made predictions of where Leaf Man was going to travel next in the book. As a fun art project the children created their own leaf man using leaves cut out from fall color construction paper. After assembling their leaf man they got to write where the wind was going to take him. This gave us an opportunity to have the children practice writing.

                               

Since the wind took Leaf Man to all kinds of interesting places we decided to next focus our attention on 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 to hold up a hand in front of their mouth and blow into it. This way they were able to feel the air.  We did a science experiment using straws and various objects. Will our air blow the object across the table?

We made beautiful and tasty fall covered sugar cookie leaves.

Fall Leaf  Song

5 little leaves so bright and gay

Hung on a tree one nice fall day

The wind came blowing ‘round and ‘round

And one little leaf came tumbling down…

Now how many are left?

4 little leaves so bright and gay…..

(And so on until no leaves are left!)

Under the Sea

This week we focused on the theme Under the Sea. We began our week by listing all the things we can find in the ocean.

 The children then each chose a sea creature from our list that they wanted to learn more about. They then went home to do research and returned to school with the knowledge of three different facts about their creature. It was so great to watch the children stand up, in front of their friends, presenting what they had learned. Everyone had a captivated audience and we all learned so much!

Research Board:

For a fun exercise we pretended to be different ocean animals practicing walking/moving around like they do. For example, we practiced a crab walk, a fish swim, and octopus arm movements. We also made our own ocean waves in a bottle. We put food coloring, water, and oil in a bottle and gently rocked it back and forth, and watched the waves form and crash from side to side.  

As a math activity we played an octopus counting game. The arms were numbered 1 to 8 and the children had to place the correct amount of unifix cubes on each arm.