Moving Along!

Chippy, our squirrel, let me touch her on the back yesterday for the first time in 5 years.  Look at her beautiful round belly.  She's ready for winter!  Now that the fruit trees have been picked clean, she has been visiting us often.  

We are plugging along in our preschool schedule!  The triangle shape is being talked about and noticed around the house. 

We worked on the triangle worksheet.  I have been extremely busy with the kids as we have begun a large project together.  No details-- sorry!  It's a surprise that we don't want to give away to parents just yet.  It takes a lot of my time because of the kids' different schedules.  Because of the extra work load, I may have to resort to actually using the worksheets I have planned just to save time.

The kids did a great job finding and coloring only the triangles.

It is now scarf, hat and glove weather!  I've got ample supply of each in a cubby for the kids to use.  Our bus stop walks have been very chilly!

♥♥♥Happy Thursday!♥♥♥

Five Finger Turkeys

It wouldn't be November without a plethora of turkeys.

We needed to create more turkeys.  This one is a classic-- handprint turkeys.  It ties in with our learning of the number five.  We painted one hand brown and printed it onto a paper plate.  We counted the five fingers.

The kids glued feathers onto the fingers, and an eye onto the thumb.  Those who could, drew a beak and a gobble.  I'm not sure what the correct term is for the red thing.  I called it a gobbler, and the kids insisted it is a gobble.  Either way-- I can't believe we made it through creating turkeys without anyone gobbling!  I love gobbling.  It makes everyone laugh.

They drew legs.  

We could have expanded this project to include some yarn lacing around the plate.  The sun was out and I thought we should get outside instead.

It was nice and dry, but very windy and cold.

A nice crisp Fall morning!  We were all here for Veteran's Day.

The primrose is still blooming.  

At the little red table for the past five days has been two trays of legos.  This has been a HUGE hit! I'm dieing to get out something new, but the kids really love this.  I might put them in the playroom permanently as a table toy. 

♥♥♥Happy Wednesday!♥♥♥

Doctor's Office & Jeweled Thumbprints

The dramatic pay area was long overdue for a new theme.  I am feeling myself again, now.  Last summer I found a great doctor play kit at a yard sale for $5.00.   I have hesitated to bring out the doctor kits after I removed them two years ago.   The rules are that the kids must keep their hands to themselves, and with so many young children back then, the doctor idea got out of control.  I feel like the group of kids that I have right now can handle sticking to the rules, so here we go.  Sometimes we have to base our play options on the children we have enrolled and how they play. 

Here is the office.  I showed the kids how to pretend to make an appointment for someone who has an "owie" or is sick.  

Here is the small doctor's exam room.  Adam got out his real x-ray from when he cracked his finger playing football. Neat!

We now all have our degrees and are safe to practice medicine.

I pulled out three white button up shirts from the dress up cabinet.  These are now doctor coats.

Here are our patients!  This will hopefully prevent any doctor problems.  The kids can only use the bandages and tools on a puppet.  There are plenty of puppets, so everyone can play!

The shelves have supplies, ready for little hands.  There isn't anything that they cannot get out and play with.

This is a neat chart that came with the kit!  I'm making it easy, and not giving them writing utensils.  They can use their finger to mark where the injuries are.

They have lots of tools to play with.  No sharp edges, just very realistic looking.  The best part?  We have a working stethoscope.

They spent some time bandaging puppet arms. :)  

I added some gloves, just for fun.

I only had two girls yesterday while everyone else was in school, and they enjoyed dress up!

I mixed up a batch of Jeweled Thumbprint cookies.  It was the first time using this recipe, and I found it in my Taste Of Home magazine.  You can get the recipe HERE.  I used apricot jam.  Adam said they are the best cookies ever. 

♥♥♥Happy Tuesday!♥♥♥

Gifts From The Giant Tree

Finally, the sunshine came out and we had the perfect day to visit our giant tree!  It was a beautiful day! 

We all worked hard on our color sorting activity first.  Then we were off!

We could feel the warmth of the sun. 

 I could take hundreds of leaf photos.  What wonderful gifts from the giant tree!

 The photo above was one of my favorite shots Friday.  See the way the sun is streaming down through the tree in the background?  Perfect!  I love that she is smiling at her leaf collection.

 He was sharing each treasure with me!

The ground was really muddy, so we didn't do any burying of ourselves in the leaves.  It was fun enough to just pick them up and run around on them.  They were all chattering away about the leaves.

 "One, two, three..THROW!"

 "May I see your leaf bouquets?"

 ♥Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch!♥

It was just a really great time!

My favorite photo from the outing is this one, above.  He was tossing the leaves up in the air and had joy on his face.  It screams fall, and of the joy of being a child with only one thing on his mind- leaves falling down! 

How beautifully innocent.

♥♥♥Happy Monday!♥♥♥

Turkeys

Can you believe it is already November?  Time to create some turkeys!  We have also been singing several variations of "5 Little Turkeys" songs in group time.  Singing a count down song is a great way for kids to practice adding and subtracting.  These kids are doing just that-- and they don't even know it.  We have created many different turkey projects over the last six years.  This time we used a toilet paper roll and half of a paper plate. 

The kids painted the t.p. roll brown.  We used Q-Tips to slow down the process.  It was nice to spend more time  at the table since they would be missing their outside time due to rain.  (Not just any rain, torrential downpour.)

When they completed the turkey body, they began to paint the feathers.  I tried not to suggest what they should do.  I just gave them some fall colors, red, yellow and orange and let them paint away.

Concentration tongue!

They were all enjoying small chit chat, too.  The mood was calm.

When they were ready, I stapled the t.p. tube to the paper plate. 

They glued eyes and a beak onto it.  There was some serious gobbling happening by now.  I love turkeys.  They are so bossy.  I have been cornered by a gang of angry white turkeys, too.  They can be mean!

These ones, however, were adorable. 

♥♥♥Happy Friday!♥♥♥