Halloween Party!

It's party time!

For the kiddo's gift bags I gathered various Halloween things from Walmart, the Dollar Store, and Target.  (You know:  spider rings, pumpkin straws ... those sorts of things.)  I wanted to steer clear of candy, since the kiddos will get plenty tonight. 

Also, I made monster slime for each kiddo.  (The Elmer's glue and borax concoction, see recipe in next post).  I just added some googly eyes to it and popped it into a condiment cup.  Cute, huh!




Next on to the food at the party... most of the following ideas I pulled from pinterest.  (Love that site, slightly addicted.)

Mummy Juice Boxes - (4 for $1 at the Dollar Store), crepe paper and googly eyes.

Jack-O-Lantern Clementines - just need a sharpie or two.

Edible Bones - pretzel sticks with mini marshmallows on the ends, dip in white almond bark.

Halloween Party Mix - Golden Graham cereal (monster scabs), candy corn (goblin teeth), mini marshmallow (ghost poop), and milk chocolate chips (witch worts).  Very tasty!

Now a few party activities ...

Ghost Bowling - just painted tp tubes and a nerf ball.

Tp Monsters - tp tubes, googly eyes, crepe paper, glue.

Pumpkin Science

This week we are learning about pumpkins.

Each kiddo got a special pumpkin science journal.  First we measured around our pumpkins with a length of string, then matched the string up on a yard stick to find how many inches around (circumference) our pumpkins are.  Next we weighed our pumpkins on a scale.  We also did an experiment to see if pumpkins sink or float.   After making our predictions we found that pumpkins float!

Candy Corn Counting

We started off today with a particularly tasty learning center.  The candy corn count.  The kiddos had to roll the dice, count up the dots, and then eat the candy corn on the corresponding number.  Nice, tasty counting!  It was quite a hit with my fours today.  Some of them are still learning to recognize numbers, so first they carefully counted the dots.  Then if they weren't sure what the number looked like, they could simply count the candy corn spots.  It worked out nicely.

Birthday Crowns

I have been trying to decide what the kiddos could create on their birthday so they felt special.  As I've been hunting for ideas, I remembered what my daughter's kindergarten teacher did for her students.  She had a simple foam crown and foam stickers for them to decorate.  Perfect!  So I found these "crowns" at Zurchers and wrote on them:

The girls had a blast decorating them and then wore them (backwards for a visor - so they had a tiara of sorts) all day!  They were very cute in them!

Follow up on our pumpkin planting!

I am always a little worried when I plant something that it will never grow.   Confession:  I have a very brown thumb.  So when I do planting activities with kiddos I'm always a bit nervous.  But no need this time!  It has been two and half weeks since we planted and look how it's going!  Yahoo! and Shwoo!

Smelling Bats

We learned today that momma bats find their baby bat by smell.

So I set up a smelling test for my Fours.  I dipped two Q-tips into mint extract and two into orange extract.  The kiddos had to smell each Q-tip and match up the same smells.  They did a good job finding the matches.

I think next time I'll add a few more smells.  Then have the "momma bats fly" and smell to find their "baby bat".  That would be a bit harder.

This year's preschool birthday gifts!

I have finally decided what to give this year for my preschool birthday gifts!  (And just in time too!  I have 2 girls with birthdays this weekend.)  I wanted to give something educational of sorts.  So I came up with a writing bag, notebook, pens and pencils etc.  I love it!

I got the bag idea from a friend when she brought over her 8 month old little boy for us to babysit.  She had a small bag like this that fit 2 diapers and a small package of wipes.  It was great!  So I lifted the idea to create this writing bag!  See what you think! 

I cut the fabric at about 7" X 20".  Added a velcro closure with a button sewed over it to cutesy it up!

    The notebook I got on clearance at Michaels for fifty cents and all the other items are from the dollar store.  The notebook of course has the initial of the kiddo's first name.  I'm real excited.  I think they'll like them!  I hope they will!  I do!

Bat projects

Continuing our week on bats.  Here are two projects I did with my threes today.

We made a finger puppet.  There wasn't much for the kiddos to do on this project besides pick out the eyes because I hot glued everything on.  They did enjoy flying around the classroom though.

What you need:
black knit glove
black felt
googly eyes
hot glue and glue gun

What to do:
I cut a finger off of the glove for each kiddo.  Then cut wings out of the felt.  I think I'll have my fours do the cutting tomorrow.  Then I glued it all together.  Fast and cheap!  I think it would be really cute to use white gloves and make ghost puppets!

 

Our second bat project of the day was these cute TP bats. 

What you need:
tp roll per kiddo
googly eyes
brown construction paper
hole punch
yarn
crayons

What to do:
Have your kiddo glue on the eyes and wings (they can cut them out or you based on their skill.  My fours will cut out their wings tomorrow).  They can draw a face or other features.  Then punch a hole and hang them up!

Bat Pin

This week we are learning about bats.  Here is one of our art activities.  It's a bat pin.  My fours painted the wooden spoon sticks with water colors, arranged the eyes and I glued them and the felt wings on with a hot glue gun.  I also glued a pin on the back so they could decorate their school bags.  In retrospect I should have pinned Porter's bat hanging upside down on his bag!  Before we pinned them on their bags, the kiddos enjoyed flying around the room with their bats.

 

Dinos and play doh

I love play doh.  This day I pulled out my plastic dinos (with a few other animals mixed in) and the play doh.  The kiddos enjoyed making dino tracks and prints from the dino's skin.  I loved this photo, all the dinos squished into the play doh.

Spider snack

I love snacks that the kiddos can create themselves.  Here is a fabulous spider that only requires a few items: ritz crackers, peanut butter, stick pretzels and raisinets.

One of my kiddos doesn't like peanut butter, so she enjoyed her spider in pieces.  Here she is feeding her plastic spider a pretzel.

 Here is one of my threes working on spreading peanut butter on his spider cracker.

Masking Tape Spider Web

This week we have been studying spiders.  So I created a spider web on the carpet with masking tape and scattered letters on the web.  My fours then had to take turns walking carefully along the web and retrieve the asked for letter. 

 Then I spread the letters for their names out on the web and had them retrieve those.  For the kiddos still learning their name, I had a name card for them to help them get the letters in order.

This activity was great for balance and large motor skills.  It was also fun to find letters along the way!

Fruit Loop Lacing

To close our our week on colors, we decided we'd best do some fruit loop lacing!  Always a tasty activity.  This kiddo carefully put them in rainbow order, then ate them. 

 

 The kiddos were wondering whose was longest (who was lacing fastest), so we measured.  It was fun as we continued to measure as they continued to lace.  The kiddos (my fours) were thinking of how many fruit loops they needed to lace to make it to the next inch.  Great pre-math skills.

3D Rainbows

For our color week, I thought I'd have the kiddos make rainbows, 3D rainbow!  I cut strips out of construction paper and showed them how to bend feet (for gluing) at both ends of the strip.  Then I let them go.

 It was interesting to see how my fours created their rainbows.  As I planned the activity, I expected the kiddos to put their rainbow strips all over the paper, but instead they stacked them up like a proper rainbow.  Ha.  Kudos to them!  I love that!  It'll be interesting to see how my threes do this tomorrow.

Colored Milk

Keeping with our color theme this week, we decided to try our hand at some science.  I found this great idea at:   http://flutterflutter.ca

What you need:

milk (2% or higher)

cake pan or plate

food coloring

dish soap

What you do:

Pour a thin layer of milk into your pan or plate.  Have your kiddos drop food coloring into the milk.  Now squirt a bit of dish soap onto the food coloring and sit back and watch the swirling colors.

Fizzy Science!

Baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring... a recipe for fun!

I dyed the vinegar and showed the kiddos how to use a pipette, then let them go.

 
 I love how the vinegar fizzes, the dye just made it more fun.  The kiddos tried their hand at color mixing, but it didn't work so well.

I asked them: "What does it sound like?"  -  "Bubbles!"
I asked them: "What happens when we mix the baking soda and vinegar together?"  -  "Fizz!"

All went well until a pipette that had some baking soda on it was dipped back into the vinegar.  We quickly held the cup over the pan of baking soda and as it fizzed up and out of the cup and splashed down into the pan, LOTS MORE FIZZING!  So that began a new game.   Pouring cups of vinegar into the pan of baking soda.  Fizz, stir, fizz some more, pour some more.

Soon our pan of baking soda became a pan of green slurry, but the kiddos merrily kept playing.  Scooping and pouring and smooshing....  It was great fun and not to bad to clean up.  I think we'll be doing this one again.

Pumpkin Planting

We decided to try our hand at gardening today.  We opened up some little pumpkins and scooped out some of the seeds:

 Then we added soil and some water and placed them in our windowsill.  We're hoping they'll sprout by Halloween!  Wouldn't that be wonderful!

Homemade Lollipops

Supplies to Make Your Own Lollipops:

    Jolly Rancher candies

    Lollipop sticks

    aluminum foil

    Baking pan

Line a baking pan with aluminum foil.

Place the Jolly Rancher candies on the foil.  Use two candies per lollipop, just lay them side by side on the foil.  

Place the baking pan in the oven at 225 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the candies have completely melted.

Remove the baking pan from oven.

Place one end of a lollipop stick in each melted candy and roll the stick to cover all sides.

Let cool for about 20 minutes until hardened.

(I found this recipe on kidsactivitiesblog.com)

Apple Muffins

Now, I'll be honest, this isn't my favorite recipe.  So if any of you lovely folks out there have a better one, please share it.  This one is a bit bland.  Perhaps it just needs some good tweeking.  Let me know if you do that too!

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Grease muffin tin.

Sift together:

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Beat:

1 egg

1 cup milk

1/4 cup oil

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix only until all moistened.  Add 1 medium apple, cored, peeled and cut into chunks (or grated).  Stir.  Pour into muffin tin.  Makes 12 muffins.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Work Order Booklet

While perusing my local Goodwill store (Love that place!) I came upon a couple of old work order booklets.  I grabbed them right up!

Today one of my four year old kiddos discovered them in the writing center.  She had a blast taking our food orders.  I was a bit disappointed when she told me they were all out of french fries.  Drat.  I had to settle with ice cream for my dinner.  Ha.

Writting

In my apron pocket, I carry a small notebook and pen so I can quickly write down the kiddo's phrases and what not.  Well, I whipped it out to write down a comment and this cutie-pie saw it and got quite excited about it.  She asked if she could write in it.  I told her sure and handed it and my pen to her and off she went.

Such great early writing skills!  Ha!  Here writing looks better than mine!