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In a little over a week we will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is time to enjoy family, friends and food. This week at preschool we will be exploring the world of food. At the art table we are making satsuma turkeys with fruity o’s for feathers.  The Pre-3 and 3s classes will be making vegetable prints. There will be measuring cups and kitchen tools in the sensory table, as well as, kitchen tools to use with the play dough. There will be food puzzles at table toys, and of course, lots of opportunities for food conversation in the dramatics area.

Fun Food Activities for Home:
(Due to allergies we will have limited food activities at school, but these are two fun ones to do with your child at home.)

Toast
Ingredients and items needed: wheat bread, milk, food coloring, pastry brush, toaster, plastic knives
Have your child brush the toast with milk that has been colored with a small amount of food coloring (they can paint shapes, faces, etc.). Now, toast the bread!

OR:  Make your toast and then have your child top it with apple butter, applesauce, yogurt, sliced bananas or other fruit you may choose!

Smoothies
In a blender add yogurt of choice, ice cubes, milk or juice, any kind of fruit you like (veggies too). Have your child cut up the bananas with a plastic knife, wash the blueberries, pull the grapes off the stem, etc.
Let them measure, pour and push the buttons on the blender.
Blend and enjoy!

Songs:
I Can Eat a Rainbow
RED as an apple,
ORANGE as a carrot,
YELLOW as a banana,
GREEN as grapes,
BLUE as blueberry,
PURPLE as a plum,

One Potato, Two Potato
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, four
Five potatoes, six potatoes, seven potatoes more!

Patty Cake
Patty cake patty cake,
Bakers man, bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Roll it, pat it, mark it with a B
And put it in the oven for Baby and me.

Jelly Song
(Sung To : The farmer in the dell)
Jelly in a Bowl, Jelly in Bowl
Wibble Wobble Wibble Wobble
Jelly in a bowl.

I Like Apples and Bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas

I like ate, ate, ate aepples and baenaenaes

I like to eat, eat, eat eeples and beenenes

I like to ite, ite, ite ipples and binini

I like to ote, ote, ote opeles and bononos

I like to ute, ute, ute upples and bununus

I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas

Painted Toast

We will continue our turkey theme this second week in November and add feathers to our activities. You can talk to the children about ways animals stay warm – do they have feathers or fur, do they live in a house or outside, do they hibernate when it gets cold or go south where it is warmer? Talk about how some animals like the cold and some do not. You can talk about what they do when it is colder outside. Ask the childen how they stay warm and what they can do when it is colder that they cannot do when it is warmer.
With the change in weather we will have the children filling our bird feeders in the garden area.  We have two seed feeders and one hummingbird feeder. After we fill the feeders we will  have a lot of new guests with wings in the play area. This week, while you are outside, see if you can find any of the birds.  They are at the feeder and in the trees and bushes of our garden.

Along with our turkey Songs and Rhymes from last week we will add:
Five little turkeys
Five little turkeys by the barn door,
One waddled off, then there were four.
Four little turkeys out under the tree,
One waddled off, then there were three.
Three little turkeys with nothing to do.
One waddled off, then there were two.
Two little turkeys in the noonday sun,
One waddled off, then there was one.
One little turkey – better run away!

Turkey Feather Game:
The adults say:
Mr. Turkey is so sad
He lost the feathers he once had
Now he wants us to help him find
All his feathers. Oh that’s so kind.

The children sing:
Found a feather, found a feather, found a feather on the ground
Oh I am so very lucky for a feather I have found.

Thanksgiving Feathers

This first week and second week in November, we will have turkeys, feathers and lots of ‘gobble, gobble, gooble’ at preschool. The kids will be painting our papier mache turkey at the art table, and they will be making their turkey handprints. In the sensory table there will be corn. We will be using the small and large tongs to find hidden items in the sensory table.   Tongs are a fun way to work on fine motor skills.
There will be farm animals at the play dough and in the sensory table. In the blocks area there will also be farm animals – both plastic and soft. We will have a special guest animal when we sing Old McDonald. Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Songs and Rhymes:
Funny Fellow
The turkey is a funny fellow, his head goes wobble, wobble.
He only says but just one word: gobble, gobble, gobble.

Hello Mr Turkey
Hello, Mr. Turkey how are you? Hello, Mr. Turkey how are you?
With a wobble, wobble and a gobble, gobble
Hello Mr. Turkey how are you?
(Good bye Mr. Turkey see you later.)

Mr. Turkey
Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble says the turkey (3x)
Mr. Turkey gobble, gobbles and he wobble, wobble, wobbles.
Gobble, gobble, gobble says the turkey.

My Turkey
I have a turkey big and fat
He spreads his wings and he walks like that
His daily corn he would not miss
And when he talks he sounds like this:
Gobble gobble gobble

Papier Mache Turkey

This week is Spider Week.  During the day we will introduce spider songs/finger plays as well as continue with apple/leaf/pumpkin songs.
With the spider we will be talking about webs – home for a spider.  We will talk about other homes for animals – nests, holes, caves, etc.  We will talk about their home. During the week you can show your child webs outside in the garden. With the rainy/misty mornings it will be perfect for finding webs outside.  Look for nests in the trees now that the leaves have fallen.  Ask your child where he/she thinks the birds live during the winter, where do the spiders go when it is cold and what kind of homes different pets have.  We will continue to talk about homes as we move into Thanksgiving and family celebrations.

Songs and Rhymes:
Itsy Bitsy Spider

Little Miss Muffet

Spider on the Floor
There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.
There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.
There’s a spider on the floor,
Who could ask for anything more?
There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor.
(There’s a spider on my leg, on my arm, etc.)

Spin Spin Little Spider
Spin, spin little spider.  Spin, spin little spider.  
Spin, spin little spider. Spin a web today.
(Spin, spin higher higher.  Spin, spin lower lower.)

Spider Web

This second week in October the children will be exploring pumpkins – in the play area, at the art table and in the sensory table.  There will even be orange play dough and cookie cutters at the play dough table. There will be farm and garden books in the library area.  Talk to your child about where our food comes from and how plants grow.
A pumpkin is a sensory experience in an orange ball (or other colors and shapes!).  Talk to your child about the color, the size, the shape, the texture.  You can scoop out the seeds and roast them or buy some at the store and talk about where they come from. Remember that some children love to explore and get messy while others will just want to look at the pumpkin.  Either way the child is learning and developing new informational pathways in the brain.  These early experiences are stored and used to build the foundation for later learning.

Songs and rhymes of the week:

Have you ever seen a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin,
Have you ever seen a pumpkin, that grows on a vine?
A round one, a tall one, a bumpy one, a squashed one.
Have you ever seen a pumpkin, that grows on a vine?
(You can add your own adjectives to describe it.)

Pumpkin, pumpkin, round like a ball.  Pumpkin, pumpkin, high on the wall.  Pumpkin, Pumpkin, sit up tall.  Pumpkin, pumpkin, tip and FALL!

We are pumpkins big and round, big and round, big and round.
We are pumpkins big and round.  Sitting on the ground.                                                                      
(We are pumpkins, little and round.)

Developing and Cultivating Skills with a Sensory Table…
Is it smooth and wet or bumpy and dry? Is it sticky and gooey or slippery and fluffy? Does it tickle? Can it change shape? These are just a few of the questions that children can explore while using a sensory table. Learning with a sensory table is more than a fun time-filler; it allows them to gain insight and information about the world around them by providing essential hands-on experiences. Investigating materials with no preconceived knowledge also helps develop and refine cognitive, social and emotional, physical, creative and linguistic skills. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to use a sensory table; they are appropriate for all ages, genders and races.
Encourage your child to explore: don’t overwhelm him with tasks and don’t be too quick to answer his questions
By Danielle Steinberg
http://www.littlelandplaygym.com/blog/2015/01/15/developing-cultivating-skills-sensory-play/

Sensory Table

This first week in October we will be learning about leaves – colors, shapes, sizes, and where they come from.  The children will be painting leaves at the art table.  There will be leaf and tree cookie cutters at the playdough table.  We will have magnifying glasses out to examine the leaves.
As you go for walks this week ask your child to find leaves of different colors, shapes and sizes.

Songs:
Leaves are falling to the ground, to the ground, to the ground.
Leaves are falling to the ground. Pretty Autumn leaves.

The leaves are falling down.
The leaves are falling down.
Red, yellow, green and brown.
The leaves are falling down.

The leaves on the trees turn orange and brown, orange and brown, orange and brown.
The leaves on the trees turn orange and brown.
In the town.

The leaves on the ground go crunch crunch crunch.
The leaves on the ground go crunch crunch crunch.
Down to the ground.

The leaves on the trees come tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down.
The leaves on the trees coming tumbling down.
Down to the ground.

Leaf Week

This last week in September the children will have painted with fresh apples. The children will have also made applesause and explored the difference between fresh, crisp apples and warm, cooked apples. Yum!
At home you can talk to them about the apple trees in the neighborhood, the apples they see in the grocery stores and at the market. Ask them if all apples are the same color, if they like them crunchy or soft, what shape do they think an apple is and help them identify seeds/stem/skin.

Songs:
Way Up High in a Tree
Way up high, in a tree, two littles apples smiled at me. 
So I shook that tree as hard as I could. 
Down came the apples, mmmm good.

Twinkle Twinkle Traffic Light
Twinkle twinkle traffic light Round the corner shining bright.
Red means stop, green means go, yellow means – very slow.
Twinkle twinkle traffic light Round the corner shining bright.
(Then we will sing it ‘silly’  Twinkle Twinkle APPLE light).

Have You Ever Seen an Apple
Have you ever seen an apple, an apple, an apple,
Have you ever seen an apple, that grows on a tree?
A red one, a yellow one, a red one, a green one.
Have you ever seen an apple, that grows on a tree?

Have you ever had an apple, an apple, an apple?
Have you ever had an apple and heard it go ‘crunch’?

Fresh Apple Painting