Week 9 Wrap Up

Week 9 trickled into a couple days of Thanksgiving week.  There were some things I wanted to get finished up and I didn't want to start a new letter Thanksgiving week.  We had plenty to do to prepare for the holiday there was no reason to stress over completing work.

Bible
We continued using the white board as a learning tool for David and Goliath.  Little Dragon did not seem bored of it.
I set up a David and Goliath sensory sink that I will talk more about below.

The dragons had a bible verse race.  I wrote the bible verse on rocks and they had to race to pick up a rock, race back to the other end of the room and match it to the correct word in the verse.
Isaiah won the race.

The dragons put on a small play for Jerry after nap time, acting out the story of David and Goliath.
Isaiah was Goliath.  He stood on a desk with a 'sword' and said "Come fight me!"
Doll Dragon was Queen (King) Sal.  She gave up her armor to David.
Little Dragon was David.  He got to throw marshmallows at Goliath.

The dragons all chose their own parts and played them out well.  It was adorable.  After the play was finished they all switched parts and acted out the pieces of the play they liked the best.  I left them to their play for the remainder of the day.  Unfortunately I did not get any pictures. :/.



Alphabet/Numbers

I really feel like the kids had a grasp on the letter this week.  We took time every day to focus on the letter.
My two dragons used rocks to paint their letter r print out. 
Letter r rock paint
Materials

• Rocks
• paint
• letter r print out or handwritten letter r
• something that closes securely

Each dragon chose what color of paint they wanted on their letter r.  Because they were both so excited for this craft we taped Little Dragons r on the lid and Doll Dragons r in the bottom.  This allowed for more color mixing.  

They each added 4 rocks to their letters.  They could place them anywhere they wanted to on the letter r. 

Then we closed the lid and each took a good turn shaking the tin. 

We opened the lid to find a wonderful mix of colors on each paper.  Each paper looked different too.  We let the letter r dry then cut it out and taped it to the alphabet wall. 

This rock was kept by the kid's name tags during our lessons so they could always remember 'r is for rock'. 

After over a month of the binoculars sitting in the explorers boxes I finally took the chance to set up an activity for some exploring. It is in my lesson plan each week to do this activity I just never take the time to do it.  No reason why.  

 I used scrap paper and wrote the number 4 on it.  Different sizes, colors, and shapes.  The dragons had to use their explorer binoculars to search and find all of the number 4's I hid around the house.  The original lesson is to just go on a hunt for the number 4 but there are not many number 4's in my home so I provided some extras.

This activity didn't take long to set up and kept the kids entertained long enough for me to get the kitchen cleaned and lunch on the table.  It was a nice independent learning exercise.


Crafts
Turkey Name Tag
Materials

• Clothes pins
• tape or glue
• fall colored construction paper
• markers

These were a fun simple craft for the kids to make for Thanksgiving.  I picked this craft because it was something they could contribute to the Thanksgiving feast. 

Each child colored at least 4 clothespins. 

None of the preschoolers were interested in scissor practice so I cut out all of the feathers and heads for the turkeys.  They did keep me company though. :)  Then they helped tape the feathers together and pin them in the clothespin.  Jerry wrote all of the names for the family members on the turkeys.  All dragons helped me set them up on the table. 

This was a fun family project the kids were proud to show off on Thanksgiving. 

I am very happy we did this craft.  I wanted to have each family member write what they were thankful for on their turkey and make a piece of art out of the left overs but everyone got busy after the meal. 

Turkey Poem and Hand print

Materials

• Preschoolers hand
• fall paint colors
• white paper
• colored construction paper
• pen

I saw this craft on http://www.teachpreschool.org/ and fell in love with it.  Not only is the hand print turkey adorable but the poem melts my heart whenever I read it.  I did this project a little last minute.  I knew I wanted to and hadn't found the time previously so I just whipped out the paint, sat the boys down, and painted their hands.  It kept us busy when we were all going a little stir crazy.  

You want to paint the fingers first and then the palm otherwise the palm will dry by the time you stamp their hands.  

After the stamp wash their hands and complete the turkey by adding feet a beak and a wattle.  Bing Bang Boom! 

The boys took the extra step to cut around their turkey's and glue it onto a second piece of paper.  It looked nicer that way.  

I wrote out the poem for them and the project was finished. 

Turkey Poem

This isn't just a turkey as you can plainly see

It is made from my hand which is part of me

It comes with lots of love especially to say

I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Sensory Sink

David and Goliath Themed

I couldn't think of a sensory bin I wanted to do for the letter r.  All week we have been discovering, touching, feeling, examining rocks.  I felt that a sensory bin of just rocks would not hold the interest of the kids.  So I left the idea of the letter r behind me and moved to our bible theme.  This worked out perfectly. 

I bought a pack of army men at the dollar store.  I made a small mountain out of cardboard and set out a bigger character from the dragons toy stash for the giant. (I set out 1 for each dragon)

Inside the sink I made the river David went to to pick out his rocks.  I simply placed rocks on each side of the sing and dropped some blue food coloring down the middle.  

I explained to them that the theme was David and Goliath and they played out the story a couple times then moved on to creating and imagining new stories of their own! 

Science

The crystal project from last week you can find here.

The crystals took a couple days to form.  Both dragons kept a close watch on their crystals to see if they grew each day or more.  Finally we came downstairs on Thursday and they were all dry!  The dragons were tickled.  Doll Dragon wanted to touch hers to see what it felt like.  It felt dry and brittle. It did not feel hard.  It kinda of looked and felt like clumped sugar. 

They are still in their trays out for observation.  I am not sure what we are going to do with them now.  :) But they are a good memory to have out. 

Other

Rocks being our theme we had to do some activities with rocks. 

We spent time 

• sorting
• stacking
• patterns (big, small, big, small, etc.)
• picking out favorites
• examining with magnifying glass

Little Dragon really enjoyed taking time to go through all of the rocks.  This activity had no time limit.  Little Dragon looked at rocks until he lost interest.  

For the month of November we were working on a thankful wall of leafs.  Each day we would each say 1-3 things we were thankful for and tape it on the wall.  This was one of my favorite November activities.  

It was nice to spend time thanking God for the wonderful blessings he has given us and teaching the kids the meaning of 'thankfulness'. 

It snowed almost the whole week.  After much begging I finally took the kids outside to play in the snow.  I was reluctant because we were all just getting over our colds but they were so excited about the first snow of the season we had to spend some time outside. 

Right after this picture Little Dragon pelted me with that snow ball.