Harvest Time Preschool - Week 11

Harvest Time Preschool - Week 11

Primary Book: The Very First Thanksgiving

Enrichment Book: Sarah Morton's Day

Activity: Handprint Turkey Placemats

Art: Baseball Players

Poem: Thanksgiving

Flower Fairies: Nasturtium Fairy

Paint in Ziploc bags. I was glad I just left the bags on the table because they came back to them throughout the day.

They were wearing hoodies because they were pretending to go trick or treating. They have also been playing "No Noggin." Something they learned from Curious George's Halloween Special. It's similar to the Headless Horseman but more kid friendly. No Noggin stole hats, not heads. They put blankets over their heads and walk around. They also put blankets over balloons and put hats on the balloons for their No Noggins.

Science experiment time. Colored vinegar dropped into baking soda. We've done this before but it has been awhile. Tavin asked me to get this activity out for them again. Using the muffin tin was fun and less messy than two separate containers.

This was supposed to be the hand print turkey place mat activity but they just wanted to paint with the brushes.

Matilda decided to paint her hand though, something she usually does anyway.

Here she is trying to make her hand print.

They decided that trains making tracks in the paint would be fun, and it was. I'll laminate their art work for place mats even though they didn't make hand prints. It was fun to try.

Counting with horse chestnuts.

Tavin and Matilda discovered my glass jar stash. They unscrewed the lids, lined the jars up and put different little objects in the jars. This kept them busy for about an hour. Who needs toys when there are glass jars? I was only slightly nervous about this activity, we kept a close eye on them.

Here they are playing with the groceries after a rather exhausting trip to the grocery store. (Exhausting for me.)

Here are our little No Noggins!

We had a nice snow fall this week on our library day. We still made it to the library for story time and made it home before there was too much accumulation.  After we got home and had a snack the kids were ready to play in the snow. They didn't care that it was still snowing, it was too exciting to pass up! 

We all made some new friends at a play date today. It was a great week!

Harvest Time Preschool - Week 10

Harvest Time Week Ten
Primary Book: The Ox-Cart Man
Enrichment Book: Farmer's Market Rounding
Activities: Beeswax Candles, Gingerbread Cookies
Field Trip Idea: Farmer's Market 
Art: Pinatas
Poem: Thanksgiving
Flower Fairies: Strawberry Fairy & Coloring Page

What a busy week we had! When I was uploading the photos for this post I couldn't believe we did all of this all in this last week. No wonder we're all so tired. There were also two trips to the library, a trip to Hobby Lobby and a trip to the grocery store. One evening the kids and I went out to eat too. Ted was traveling, the kids had late naps and we needed to get out of the house.

We didn't do the Beeswax Candles activity yet. I ordered a beeswax candle making kit and it was on back order. That will teach me to order supplies earlier. It should arrive next week though. I did manage to come up with many fun alternatives.

We collected a few rocks, washed them, painted them and decorated them. This photo above is right when they started painting. They were very excited about painting the rocks. Don't you love Matilda's wild hair?

Here they are a little further in to the painting project. They added wiggly eyes and yarn for hair. Pet rocks! 

Playdoh, straws and wiggly eyes. Wiggly eyes are a good item to have on hand with these two. I should buy a variety pack soon.

Fun with Sandpaper Letters from Etsy. We matched the upper case with the lower case and sang the alphabet song.

The Mighty Mind puzzle game. 

Pasta letters and cutting practice, an idea from Slow and Steady Get Me Ready. I would have liked this activity to have gone a little bit differently but they still had fun...and that's the point, right? We'll have to try it again soon.

Tracing stencil shapes with my homemade paper plate stencils. Another idea from Slow and Steady Get Me Ready. Awesome book.

Painting on tinfoil with Q-tips, straws, pom-poms and pipe cleaners. Matilda also painted her hand, as you can see here.

They thought this was pretty neat. The Q-tips and pom-poms were definitely their tools of choice. Matilda is fine with using her hands too.

Their finished art. Matilda's is the one above, Tavin's is below. Tavin's reminded me of Starry Night by Van Gogh.

Convoy fun in the kitchen.

Halloween! Here they are in their costumes. Matilda the police officer and Tavin, Woody, the sheriff. Aren't they sweet?!

A group photo of the trick or treat gang. They all had fun trick or treating. The extrovert in Tavin came out. Halloween must be his thing. He led the group during the trick or treating and was the first one to go up to the doors 95% of the time. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

We were "supposed" to make gingerbread cookies but the baby and I thought sugar cookies sounded better. The sugar cookie process is rather similar anyway.

Matilda was all about this. Tavin was rather oppositional at first but he eventually came around to join in on the fun. 

This got a little messy, flour all over. We didn't mind, it was worth it. The cookies turned out great. Very fluffy and delicious. We will bake more tomorrow and frost them. We were all too worn out to do much more. We all have the sniffles....so we probably shouldn't share our cookies with anyone. Darn it.

Harvest Time Preschool - Week Nine

Harvest Time Week Nine
Primary Book: The Biggest Pumpkin Ever, 
Enrichment Book: Pumpkin Circle, 
Activities: Pumpkin Carving, 
Field Trip Idea: Pumpkin Patch, 
Art: Domino Players, 
Poem: Thanksgiving, 
Flower Fairies: Pansy Fairy & Coloring Page

We visited a pumpkin patch a couple weeks ago when the weather was actually beautiful. We were going to go again this week but we decided on other activities. The weather wasn't the greatest anyway so I am glad we already got our pumpkins. The kids did play with their pumpkins this week though. Turns out that Matilda is a bit of a brut. She can carry both her pumpkin and Tavin's pumpkin at the same time. Don't mess with her.

(This photo will not rotate for some reason. Very strange.)

I got this activity idea from the book Slow and Steady Get Me Ready. I varied it a little. The activity was to take your leftover egg carton, number the egg slots, number some pieces of paper and have your child match the numbered paper with the numbers in the egg carton. We have a lot of wood blocks and I thought they would be more fun. They were. The kids thought this activity was great! Tavin matched the numbered blocks with the numbers in the carton no problem. They both found many other ways to play with their carton of "eggs."

Tavin thought the blocks needed to go for a ride in a truck. Notice the egg carton in the background? I tried to keep the blocks with the carton for a little while but decided to give up. I have better things to do. The egg carton has become a rocket ship now anyway.

 We picked some leaves in between the rainy days so we could do a leaf craft. 

Matilda and her leaves. She was apparently thirsty that day. Wow for all the drinking apparatus. 

Tavin with his leaves.

Another craft project. Pasta, stickers, wiggly eyes, crayon rocks, scissors.... The stickers weren't anything fancy either. They used some star stickers, the circle stickers that you would see at a garage sale and the stickers that one would use to protect paper for a three-ring-binder. They don't care as long as they stick.

And what toddler and preschooler doesn't enjoy good old fashioned water in the sink play? Never mind the messy kitchen, we actually cook and eat around here. 

We stayed close to home most of the week. We did go to the mall one day to buy Tavin some new pants. After the mall we went to Great Harvest Bread for lunch. Tuesday, of course, was library day. The stories at story time were about grandparents. We went to visit Great Grandma today, the correlation just occurred to me. How's that for tying things together? The kids had fun and were well behaved, that always helps.

I also took the kids out to the Tea playground for about 30 minutes. That was about all I could take. It was incredibly windy that day. Matilda fell asleep on the short car ride home almost instantly. 

Harvest Time Preschool - Week Eight

Harvest Time Week Eight
Primary Book: Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree
Enrichment Book: How Do You Know It’s Fall?
Activities: Quilt Square
Pumpkin Muffins
Art: The East River
Poem: Johnny Appleseed Song 
Flower Fairies: ABC Review 

We are a little mixed up on our activities. This week we decorated the pumpkins  that we picked out last week and next week is supposed to be about pumpkins! Oh well. Pumpkins and apples both are a part of fall and we're having fun anyway.

We saved the Curious George table cloth from their birthday party, I knew it would come in handy again. They put glitter glue all over their pumpkins and then added wiggly eyes. 

Lots of wiggly eyes....

Lots and lots of wiggly eyes.

We finally got our membership to the Kirby Science Discovery Center. I think we'll have frequent, fun visits to the Discovery Center this winter.

Astronaut Matilda. She couldn't get enough of this. Once the kids are in the space suit they are able to see themselves in a full length mirror. She loved it.

Astronaut Tavin.

Playing with rocket ships.

Matilda at the controls.

Meet Sue, the T-rex!

The water table room. We spent the most time in this room. Go figure.

The stories for story time at the library this week were also about apples, that worked out nicely! The kids had a play date with friends on Monday. Library day on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we were mostly home playing, painting, coloring, reading and playing with playdoh. Friday was our trip to the Discovery Center. It was a good week! I feel like I'm forgetting something but that has been the norm for me lately. It was a good week for napping. 

Harvest Time Preschool - Week Seven

Harvest Time Week Seven
Primary Book: Leaf Man
Enrichment Book: Why Do Leaves Change Colors?
Activities: Wax Paper Leaves
Field Trip Idea: Leaf Collecting Walk
Art: Snap the Whip 
Poem: Johnny Applesead Song 
Flower Fairies: Ragged Robin Fairy

Another week with some beautiful weather! We went to the zoo again on Monday. The peacocks got a little too close for comfort. We were resting on a bench, having a snack, when I heard someone or something coming closer and closer to us...I turned to look and whoooaaa, there was a peacock right next to me! 

Tuesday was story time at the library. The theme was shapes. The last book was a very unique pop-up book that stays in the back room for safety. Someone like Matilda would have it destroyed within seconds. After story time we went to a friends house for play.

Wednesday was our leaf collecting walk (and rock collecting too, of course). We also made it to the new Costco and ate some free samples. The kids love the extra large cart that they can both sit in right next to each other.

Thursday we went to the pumpkin patch and met up with some new friends from church. We are supposed to go to the pumpkin patch in a couple weeks for this curriculum but it was too nice of a day to not go. Plus, it was a great place to meet up with new friends!

Friday Dad stayed home and played with us and we made our wax paper leaves. I also had the first prenatal appointment for baby #3!

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Leaf collecting walk...and other treasures.

Tavin started out just coloring and then decided to make all the crayons into "T's" for Tavin. He then named all the "T's" after his cousins. 

The pumpkin patch/orchard. This little area is set up especially for cute pictures. Neither kid wanted to just sit and smile for me, naturally.

The tractor train. They could've easily spent an hour or more just playing on this.

The pumpkin patch for the wee little ones. We went on a tractor pull to get to this little pumpkin patch. The kids thought the tractor pull was fun!

Tavin picked up and put down quite a few pumpkins before he made his final decision. I think next week we will paint them or put stickers on them...or both!

The wax paper leaves project. The first part was rather natural for them; peeling the paper off of the crayons. They love to peel paper off of anything. 

Then the pounding of the crayons. Tavin learned the valuable lesson of waiting his turn and listening to mom. His fingers got in Matilda's way one time. Luckily she wasn't at full swing.

The finished product. They turned out alright, not that you can see them very well in this picture. The colors melted together nicely, very pretty.

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Here is Baby Lewis! We were unable to hear the heartbeat today with just the doppler. The doctor just wanted to make sure....we not only heard the heartbeat but also saw the little bean moving around! He/she is measuring right on track for a May 10th due date.