We have been addressing our friends with the nicest of manners, while playing our "Yes Please and No Thank You" game! It's wonderful to hear the children use their most sophisticated language when we pretend we are passing food at our Thanksgiving dinner. I love that they all want to have salad in our game. I am laughing about the looks when I pass them the stuffing with mushrooms. "No thank you!"
Math and
We played a game with pom pons and tweezers, utilizing our counting, sorting, and fine motor skills, where we roll dice and fill our card with different color balls. The children are helping each other as they negotiate through the games we play, and discuss different strategies. Their patterning abilities and reasoning skills are all improving.
We began talking about the Pilgrims and how they arrived in America. We watched a video animation, and compared things the children played with to things we play with today. We made bread, measuring and adding ingredients as we talked about how the Pilgrims baked and cooked. The first answer given after asking how the Pilgrims traveled from England was, "they took the bus!"
We used pieces of (paper) pumpkin pie to talk about above, below, and beside. We also compared small, medium and large pieces of pie. We are always working on sequencing and this week we acted out a skit as we read "I knew an old lady who swallowed a pie." We have a perfect little old lady puppet who eats the items as the children howl with laughter!
Literacy:
We worked in our Word Books during writing center time this week, and practiced writing "Hh" words and illustrating "Hh" pictures. They like being able to have their own workbooks and ask for them when they observe others in the center before them. It's funny how just using words like, "okay, you get to do your Word Book now!", or "it's your turn!" can make a task seem like a treat. We read many fun books this week, and located letters and letter sounds as we read. We read: Turkey Trouble, Fancy Nancy Our Thanksgiving Banquet, The Night Before Thanksgiving, A Dragon in my Backpack, Henry and Mudge in Puddle Trouble, Iguana On Ice (Alpha Tales), The Littlest Pilgrim, How to Be a Friend, and Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving. I am pointing out some common sight words as well.
We used stamps to locate the letters in our names, using the correct upper and lower case letters. We also played a "fill in the letter block" to complete words on a dry erase board.
We are talking about what it means to be kind and how we can show others our kindness. The children did a "turn and talk" where they faced each other and took turns sharing ideas on kindness. They shared with the group pieces of their conversations. We have so much to be thankful and it is so important to pause in our crazy lives to recognize this.
Fine Arts:
We made bracelets and necklaces for each other and made started making our pumpkin pie thankful wheels. Being thankful is something we talk about each day before we have snack, as we recite our thankful poem. One table a day takes turns sharing for what they are thankful. Mostly they are thankful for their mommy and daddy, and sometimes the snack, or their teachers!
Please let me know if you will have grandparents attending on Grandparent's Day November 21st. If a grandparent will not be attending, I encourage all of the children to have a special friend or even a parent so everyone will have someone with them to perform for and enjoy the classroom activities. It's such a special time for them to be proud of their classroom and share it with someone they love.
Have a great week!
Ms. Massey
