Thanksgiving Week

Layered Turkey - The kiddos layered up this cute turkey and added feathers. 

Pine Cone Turkeys - I glued these together and then the kiddos added feathers.  They turned out pretty cute!

Weaving - The kiddos tried their hand at weaving, they did a great job!  Over and under and over and ...

Learning Station - Scooping Whipped Cream

Well, sort of.  Ha.  The kiddos rolled the die, counted and then put that many scoops of cream on their pumpkin pie.

Learning Station - Sticker Color Sort - Toddlers

We worked on our fine motor skills and our colors today as we sorted smiley stickers.

A week with Pilgrims, turkeys and fall!

Pine Cone Turkeys - The kiddos added these pipe cleaner legs, beak and eyeballs.  No one wanted feathers oddly.  But they turned out super cute!

I made the feet for the kiddos, they shoved them in and added a beak, then picked out eyeballs.

 

Fall Cookies - The kiddos created yummy, fall colored cookies.  The funny thing is, Ms. Sara doesn't have any leaf cookie cutters, so the kiddos chose other shapes.

Bean Indian Corn - We glued beans, dried corn and pom poms to create Indian corn today.

Pumpkin Clay (of sorts) - Today the kiddos enjoyed creating all sorts of things with this fun clay-dough.  Check your kiddo's bag, they of course got to take it home.  They worked at it for quite some time.  The dough is just canned pumpkin and corn starch.

Fall Votive - The kiddos made beautiful fall colored votives for your Thanksgiving table.  They painted with Modge Podge and then added tissue paper. 

Finished product complete with Dollar Store battery votive candles.

Lego Builders - I challenged two kiddos to a building contest.  We were building to see who could create the tallest tower.  We quickly realized we could make one huge tower by putting all of our towers together.  We were hoping to go from the garage door to the table, we nearly made it!

 

We measured how long our tower was:  21.5 feet! Then we counted how many Legos we used to create our tower:  297!  Holy Cow!  We used some random pieces at the end!

Story Bracelets - The kiddos and I made story bracelets to help us remember the story of the pilgrims.

I saw these several places online.  Super cute idea.

gray-ish bead - the pilgrims boarded the Mayflower to sail to the new land.
3 blue beads - the trip across the ocean took a long time.
green bead - "Land-ho!"
3 white beads - hard long winter
green bead - spring is here!
tan-ish bead - the Wamponoag tribe helped the pilgrims
heart bead - 
funny shaped bead - represents the fish planted with the corn seeds
the last 3 beads represent the foods served at the last thanksgiving - turkey, cranberries, corn, pumpkin

Learning Station - Nut Sorting

The kiddos were intrigued by the different textures, shapes and colors of the nuts.  They also enjoyed the challenge of sort while using tongs.

Learning Station - Corn Counting

The kiddos rolled the die, counted the number, then counted out that many "corn kernels" (M&Ms) onto their corn.  Once their timer was out, they munched their M&Ms.  Tasty counting!

Learning Station - Turkey Count

The kiddos rolled the dice, counted the number and then added that many items to decorate the turkey.  They worked until the sand timer was done.

A week on Native Americans

Welcome to our week on Native Americans.  We are learning with the letter "A" (Americans).  Here are a few of the books we will enjoy this week and next:

Painted Vests - We chatted about what Native Americans made their clothes from (animal skins) and how they could decorate them with paint made from berries and flowers.  Then we painted our grocery sacks (soon to be vests).  We'll decorate them on Wednesday.

Drawing on our Vests -  We have been talking about how Native Americans used pictures to tell stories and to mark important events.  We decided to try it out on our vests.  The kiddos did a wonderful job of depicting traditional pictures.

Here is a canoe over a rain cloud.

 I found pictures of traditional Native American drawings online.

 
Corn Shakers -  We chatted about dances that Native Americans do, to tell stories, to help bring rain, to get them ready for battle.  We decided to make some shakers that we could dance with.  Ours are made from tp tubes and corn kernels.  The kiddos painted their tube with bingo paints, then we used colorful tape to seal up the ends.

Shaking and dancing!  The kiddos loved it!  They also loved working with the tape.  After their dancing, they came back to add more tape!  

 

Our Thankful Turkey - We started adding feathers to our turkey today.  As we worked on the shakers, the kiddos told me things they were thankful for, I wrote them on feathers and they stuck them on.

Journals - In our continuing chats about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, David announced that he could draw the Mayflower.  Cool.  He did so in his journal.  Charly also drew it.  Both of them added a shark to the story.  Ha.

Thumb Pinch Pots - The kiddos created some pottery today.  A couple of the kiddos remembered how to make these pots from last year.  They were super cute about helping the others create theirs too.  Our pots are drying, we hope to paint them on Friday.

Science - Corn Kernel Removal - The kiddos were super intrigued by the idea of removing corn from these dried cobs.  I let them problem solve the removal.  They tried fingers, scissors and finally found that a long block (used like a hammer) was perfect (and noisy, and quite fun) to knock those stubborn kernels off.  I'm afraid we'll still be finding kernels even after Christmas time!  Ha!

The husks were super soft once all the kernels were removed.  The kiddos and I thought that was cool.

Tortilla Teepees - Back by request, today we made our own teepees from the hide of a flour tortilla.  Again the kiddos drew pictures to decorate with markers. 

Learning Station - Lacing Noodle Necklaces - A classic activity for fall, so much fun.  The kiddos enjoyed the fine motor work of lacing noodles to make beautiful "beaded" Native American necklaces.

This kiddos loved lacing the noodles on his fingers as well as the string.

 Love the colors...

Native American Kids - The kiddos added a face and decoration to the clothing of their Native American kid.  Here is a maiden and a brave.  For my toddler class, I attached the hair and eyes, and the kiddos did the rest!  Pretty darn cute!

 

Here are the preschooler's...

Tp Canoes - The kiddos laced the sides of their canoe, then they added Native American stick people.  Super cute.  I love how they each did their people differently.  

Learning Station - Pattern Making - We are just developing this skill.  We talked about making a pattern with colors or shapes.  Some kiddos got it and some are still working on it.  Fun to glue!  The shapes are ones I punched out of scrap paper.