Ghost Poop Mystery Revealed!

Here is the scoop on the "GHOST POOP"!

Today we explored ghost poop and had quite the giggly Halloween Fun joke.  At first we talk about how everyone poops, even ghosts.  I asked if anyone had ever seen, touched, or smelled ghost poop.  Of course that brings on the laughter and the "eeeewww" noises.

I then show them a big clear tub full of ghost poop.  They can't believe it when I put my hand right in it.  Then I ask them to give it a try and tell me what they are feeling.  Some of the replies today were, "I feel something, it is slippery, there are balls in there, it's cold (the water was chilly), it is wet".

Then we pull some "poop" out so they can see the clear spheres that we were feeling in the water.  They were amazed that the clear balls disappear when you put them back in the water.  We do this a few times and talk about how the balls are clear (not white), they are round spheres, they are small and slippery, etc.

Then I drain the water and they are amazed at how many little spheres there are.  We get to play with them for a little while without the water.  Then I tell them that the ghost who gave us the poop wants to give us a secret message.  To do this, I place a paper underneath the tub with the spheres.  Since there are so many of these little balls, you cannot see the message underneath the tub.  As I begin to pour water back into the tub, the message becomes clearer.  You can now see though the clear water, clear beads, and the clear tub!  Underneath, the message shows a little ghost and the word, "boo!"  We will get to play with the poop tomorrow in big tubs.

The clear spheres are actually water beads.  They start out as hard, tiny, round beads.  When you place them in a tub of water overnight, they absorb the water and grow exponentially in size.  They are meant to put in flower vases to help with the watering or to help hold the stems upright.  You can find packages of them in the flower section at craft stores like Michael's.

Now you know the whole story!!  Happy Halloween!

Big Pumpkin story

Here are two links to Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman.  One is the the story being read by someone where you can see the pages of the book as he reads it.  The second is the story sung just like the CD we used, but no story book pages.  Enjoy!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHkuZKAW7bs  (story CD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDZSfUlKx98  (picture book being read)

Pumpkins Are Everywhere!

We are gearing up for the Halloween preschool frenzy as we start to wind down our Fall Unit.  Pumpkins invaded our preschool classroom!  The kids loved the pumpkin play clay that was made out of a can of pumpkin puree, cornstarch and pumpkin spice.  The room smelled delicious as the kids made pumpkin creations using google eyes, sticks, black beans, green pipe cleaners and curling ribbon, colored plastic straws and yellow beads.  We also used that same clay to practice rolling balls to fill up a pumpkin playdough mat.  We played a pumpkin dice game with the numbers 1, 2, & 3.  During circle time we pulled a magnetic letter out of a pumpkin bucket and then found the same letter on the ActivBoard.  When they located the letter, the made an orange dot (pumpkin) to cover the letter.  We used our pincer fingers to pick up and fill pumpkin ice cube trays and our strong hands to pound golf tees into a pumpkin with a hammer.  We matched pumpkin faces, built pumpkin floor puzzles, and created pumpkin potato head people with real small pumpkins!  We had a giant pumpkin game board we rolled a dice and moved our pieces to the end and a pumpkin number line vine (boy that was a mouthful!).  We also let loose all of the wonderful milk weed seeds you sent in.  The kids had a blast letting them fly!  We filled up the playground with all the white fluff!

Apples continued for a bit more this week now that we found our missing plastic balls!  We pretended that the red, yellow and green balls were apples.  The blue balls were rotten apples and the orange were pumpkins.  Mrs. D and Mrs. Hill spilled all of the apples and the kids ran around chasing the apples and sorting them into the correct colored bins.  We took turns using snowball scoops to pick up the balls.  They had a blast and we repeated the activity several times!  Below you can see how we matched pumpkin patterns and pumpkin face letters.  We used our strong fingers to put ribbons into a soda jar, pick up small pumpkin and halloween things with tweezers, lace up pumpkin shapes (not pictured), and put pumpkins onto a curvy straw.  We played pumpkin shape lotto, put together popsicle stick pumpkin puzzles, and played in a pumpkin sensory bin. 

During circle time, we learned the Five Little Pumpkins fingerplay, where the lights go out!  It was actually Mrs. Hill being sneaky, but it took the kids several times before they figured out the magic of the lights going out during our song!  We went pumpkin picking in a pretend pumpkin patch and had to follow the movement directions written on the pumpkins (such as touch your head and then turn around).  We sang a fun song about turning a pumpkin into a jack'o lantern and some others too.  We had fun with a book on CD, Big Pumpkin, one of Mrs. D's favorites!  The AM kids got to act out the story wearing witch, ghost, vampire, mummy, and bat hats!  The PM kids will get to do that next week.  I will be trying to include a link on our blog of the story.  Check it out!

Fall Fiesta

Our Annual Fall Fiesta is a special event in preschool.  We had so much fun with all kinds of fall activities.  Thanks to all of the parent help, our day was super successful!  We scooped our pumpkins to see and feel all of the pumpkin pulp.  We talked about the inside and outside of a pumpkin, how slippery everything felt, and so on.  After the gooey part, the kids got to vote which Jack 'o Lantern face they liked the best (happy, sad, scary).  We made fall hats that will come home this week as we did not get time to measure all of their little heads!  We stamped out trees, leaves, and apples and did leaf rubbings with a crayon.  Our "drip, drop leaves" are so beautiful!  We use special diffuser paper that the kids color with watercolor markers and then spray with water.  The colors all blend and mix with the water.  We also make apple cereal necklaces that were so tempting to eat at school!  Of course the favorite activity is always the pumpkin bowling.  We use small round pumpkins instead of bowling balls to knock down the pins!

One of Mrs. D's favorite stories is "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything".  Below is a link to the story read aloud.  It is not as exciting as our version, as Mrs. D adds the motions to each of the clothing parts and uses a little old lady voice to jazz it up a bit and to make the story more interactive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fvUFo-Y0ZM

Apples and Fall Unit

Thank you all for being so understanding and sending well wishes my way during my absence.  Unfortunately, I only have one week of photos for you.

Fall is such a busy unit as it can go on and on in so many directions!  For the first two weeks, our focus is on what "Fall" is as a season and what changes are taking place.  THANK YOU for all of the wonderful fall goodies!  We have our whole science exploration area filled with milkweeds, pinecones, acorns, leaves, flowers, cattails, pumpkins, gourds, sunflowers, apples, etc.  You all did a great job!  Magnifying glasses are spread throughout and the kids are starting to learn how to use them!  Take a look at our picture below.

We played an apple tree game with a 1, 2 dice.  We rolled the dice and filled up our apple trees.  The second day, our older students rolled a second dice with the words, "add" and "take away", on it.  Once they realized that "take away" was not a bad thing, there were lots of giggles and apples came and went.  We had several scarecrow puzzles, matching games, and pattern blocks (not pictured).  Craft foam apples floating in the water table was a huge success.  Our apple poster was all about using our visual discrimination skills to match leaves to the correct apple.  Felt trees and acrylic leaves and apples were added using number cards.  We used strong hands to roll colored playdough to fill up the colored leaf cards, used our little pincer fingers to pick up beads and match them to the colored apples, and using tweezers and small scoops to pick up apple colored pom poms.  One favorite activity was creating a tree on sticky paper using tree parts (trunk, branches, foam leaves).  It is always fun watching how each child creates something different with all of the parts.  Each one unique, just like all of us!

Circle time focused on BIG and little.  We sorted big and little apples using their attributes ("It is a BIG, green, apple" or "It is a little, red apple").  We weighed small pumpkins and decorative gourds.  We made a prediction on which item would be heavier and then we tested it using our balance scale.  We explored sunflowers and talked about the seeds in apples.  Did you know there was a star inside an apple?  If you cut the apple side to side (not stem to bottom), the seed core makes a star shape.  To find the star inside, Mrs. D told a story (no picture book, just a verbal story) about a "Little Red House with No Windows, No Doors, and a Star Inside).  Our discussions continued on how "things" are houses for seeds, an apple is a house for a seed, a sunflower is a house for a seed, milkweed pods, pumpkins, etc.

We tasted the three colors of apples to see which one(s) we liked best.  In gym, we became leaves floating in the breeze with our scarves and bounced leaves on our parachute.

APPLESAUCE!  This is such a fun cooking project as the kids get to be so involved from start to finish.  We used a special apple peeler, corer, slicer machine to cut and peel our apples.  Everyone loves turning the handle and watching the "apple spaghetti" (skin), roll off the apple.  Even though we did all that work, we add the peels to the cut apples to give the applesauce a nice pink color and to keep all those great nutrients!  After we cooked the apples down, the kids are amazed to see how the apples changed and were so mushy.  We used a food mill to squish the apples and to take out all the peels and any seeds that snuck in.  Afterwards, we added some cinnamon and ate our yummy applesauce.  Most kids came back for seconds and would have eaten even more if we let them!

Pineapple Lions Cooking Project

We made delicious pineapple lions to complete our zoo unit.  Amazingly, most everyone ate the whole thing!  Most children loved eating his nose first and there were many giggles about eating the lions face.

Finishing Up Zoo Unit

We completed our Zoo Unit with continued exploration and games to go along with learning about animals you might find at a zoo.

For table time, we made alligators using pattern blocks and put together animal zoo puzzles.  A favorite activity was pretending to be zookeepers and giving our animals a bath.  We used shaving cream to wash them and then spray bottles filled with water to squirt them down.  We practiced our pre-writing skills tracing animal pictures.  AM kids matched characters from the Brown Bear story, while PM kids matched the animals to the color words.  We made zoos with playdough, matching colored popsicle sticks for the cage, and then we put plastic animals inside.  We used our pincer fingers to clip colored clothespins to match the Brown Bear animals too.  AM kids fed the elephant peanuts, while PM kids practiced feed the elephant only letter or number peanuts.  Graphing was our main math skill this week.  Our younger kids rolled an animal dice, found the animal on their graph and added a paint dot.  Our older students took it a step further, by rolling a number dice, finding the animal that corresponded to the number rolled, and then making a mark on their graph.  With practice, kids are learning to figure out the "most, least, and the same" amounts by "reading" their graphs.  Amazing huh?  Other fun activities included matching animals, making zoo and jungle scenes with vinyl animal characters, and a super fun activity...the barrel full of monkeys to hang from the tree in our sand table!

More table activities included a feeding the monkey game to practice our counting and one-to-one correspondence skills (that each number has a corresponding item).  We practiced making simple AB patterns by making zebra necklaces (black, white, black, white...).  Stringing beads is also a great fine motor activity.  We also helped our zebras find their stripes by matching their patterns.  Our letters the past two weeks were K for Kangaroo and B for Bear.  We continue learning about ways to say hello from around the world.  Recently, we have found China and Korea on the globe!  During circle time, we sang silly songs like "5 Elephants went out to play, out on a spider's web one day"!  As we sang the song, kids put an elephant on our sticky spider web.  They thought that was very funny.  Our gorilla beanie baby (he got cut off in the photo) climbed the banana tree to catch a banana treat as we rolled a dice and moved him piece by piece up the tree.  For the older students, we counted how many rolls it took to get the gorilla to the top!