oh, before we turn all advent-y on you, let me wrap up the thanksgiving goodness:

we made harvest corn by taking turns rolling paint down a length of paper, letting it dry, cutting it out and adding brown paper stalks.

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we played thanksgiving bingo that i made.  all the cards had the same pictures on them but in different order.  since we were playing “black out” all the kids yelled “BINGO!” at once.  good times.  no tears or frustration this time around.

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i made a less expensive version of pumpkin pie playdough:  instead of buying pumpkin pie spice, i just used cinnamon, allspice and ginger.  we brought the oven from the family corner over.  there were some interesting pie crust making techniques!

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we made our traditional thanksgiving placemats from pictures/fabric/stickers/photos children chose at school or brought from home.  this is a highly teacher involved activity (helping cut things to size, helping glue things on so the pictures can be seen, covering them in a plastic page protector, etc) but worth it in the end.

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“turkey rob” made by mr. rob last year joined us every day at the snack table.  we turned him around mid snack so everyone got a chance to look at this face…and his bum. hee hee hee

now turkey rob has been replaced with a preschool-made advent wreath…stay tuned.

 

 

for smiles, energy, joy, and fake candlesticks, we are thankful.

happy thanksgiving from us to you!

we used to have tires in our playground  with designs painted on them.  the kids would stack them, roll them down the hill, etc.  we planted flowers in some of them that lined the sidewalk.  we didn’t take them with us when we moved to the retirement home for our 7 year gig there.

i want tires again.  but this time i want these:

image from here

so:  if any of you have old tires around, drop them off in the preschool playground.

paint to follow.

 

 

any guesses why we moved circle time to the block rug for the day?

 

one day there was a class wide game of “house” and “museum play room” going on.  this meant moving furniture and a lot of fake sleeping.

the next day the returning students enlightened the new students on the joys of moving furniture.   it was a great opportunity to discuss “was it worth it?” when it came to clean up time.  in general, the younger think so, the older are still thinking.  : )

 

we had a hairy hamster visit for the week.  take note of her names.  “smokey bacon” was us teachers’ favorite.

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we used some fake hair to make creatures that looked surprisingly like wild things.  and yes, those are permanent markers making those satisfying and bold marks!