November: Gratitude and Environmentalism

Featured November Activities

Decorative Corn on the Light Table: Cooperation, fine motor, self regulation

Decorative corn cobs appeared on the light table. The children worked tirelessly to "pop" each kernel off of the corn. This was tricky work, and for many, the first time they tried, they were unable to get the kernel off. Luckily, their friends helped with some good advice:

• Use a corn cob with less corn kernels on it.

• Push the kernel away from the rest of the kernels.

• Wiggle it a bit first so it's loose.

• Push with your thumb because it's the biggest finger.

• Pull it down, not out.

​​Pumpkin Seed Designs: Fine motor skills, flexible thinking, representational art

Painted pumpkin seeds make for colorful fall artwork!

Pumpkins are Circles: Visual discrimination, shape identification, scissor skills, fine motor skills, scientific observation

The students noticed the beautiful paintings of pumpkins that the kindergarteners had done. The 3s wanted to paint their own! We started out with paper printed with a circle (since the children decided that pumpkins were shaped like circles). Then they practiced their cutting skills to cut out the pumpkins. They carefully looked at pumpkins and some students decided to add lines to the pumpkins. After careful observation of real pumpkins and photos of real pumpkins, they picked out which colors they needed, and beautifully filled in their pumpkins with watercolors!

Pumpkin Patch Names: Letter recognition, sight symbol recognition, name recognition, sequencing.

Gratitude Boxes: Self Regulation, Fine Motor Skills, Color Sorting

After pulling all of the corn kernels off of the cobs, the children were asking if they could glue it onto paper. When we tried it, the corn was too heavy and tore the paper. We decided to look for something stronger. It turned out cardboard worked perfectly. At the same time, the children needed boxes in which to store their thankful thoughts! The two projects merged seamlessly! They used masking tape lines on watercolor paper to create gorgeous cards and glued their thankful thoughts right on.

Thankful Jar

Getting outside!

Raking and playing in the leaf piles!

From developing our creative problem solving and social problem solving, to challenging our gross motor, to our understanding of scientific processes (prediction, experimentation, and observation), to growing an appreciation of, and respect for the natural world, getting outside is so important. For these reasons we go outside daily!

Letter practice!

In addition to singing the abc's every day, and noticing the letters of our names, we also have been practicing writing letters in corn, and interacting with sensory letters. We have been practicing the letters a, b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t!

Letter Tracing in Corn: Fine motor, Letter recognition

After we had pulled off most of the kernels, the children enjoyed moving the corn around in the bins and using the empty cobs to draw designs. When letter cards were placed underneath, the children were able to trace the letters through the kernels!

Pumpkin Letter Sort: Visual Discrimination, Letter recognition, Fine Motor

Each pumpkin patch grows three kinds of pumpkins. The children worked hard to match the letters!

Turkey Blending Challenge: Pre-reading skills, letter recognition, blending sounds

The children tapped on the turkey's feathers to sound out short CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words

Math practice!

Scarecrow Math! Some of us practiced counting 1:1 and matching the numeral to a number of fingers! Some of us played with different ways to build five! We all had so much fun with this friendly scarecrow and his feathered friends!

Acorn Cap Number Match Numeral Recognition 1-10, 10 frames

We counted the dots in each ten frame, then we searched to find the top with the matching numeral.

Featured New Songs and Finger Plays:

The Turkey Werkey

You put your wings in.

You put your wings out.

You put your wings in,

and you shake 'em all about.

You do the turkey werkey

And you turn your self around.

Thats what it's all about.

You put your beak in.

You put your beak out.

You put your beak in,

and you shake it all about.

You do the turkey werkey

And you turn your self around.

Thats what it's all about.

(Repeat with left talon, right talon, waddle, tail feathers, whole turkey self)

The Turkey Trot

Waddle to the left.

Waddle to the right.

Flap your wings.

Day and night.

Jump up high.

Spin around.

Swish your tail.

Touch the ground.

Bob your head.

Gobble out loud.

Flap once more.

Take a bow.

Featured books:

Thankful for the Earth! (A recycled collaborative art piece)

We focused on how we can be helpers! One thing the children said we can do is try to keep garbage away from the animals. One way to do that is to turn garbage into a beautiful work of art. We found out that each class would be decorating one slice of a beautiful circle. When the children saw all the colors of tops in the bins, they immediately wanted to make our slice into a rainbow! We brought down a book to help remind us of the order of the colors!

Our completed "slice!"