Stained glass Leaf

Ok so it is not glass, but it is intended to look like stained glass. Today we couldn't work on our number, letter, shape, or color card, I put them in a book that I took back to the library. I will have to get them back:0( We still reviewed colors red, orange, and Yellow today as we read Hooray for Fall. I had the kids use English, Spanish, and sign language today to say their colors. S was very cute trying to say the words in Spanish, he did a really good job for being just barely 2. I also read a weekly reader Early Learning Library book called Autumn/Otono. It is written in both Spanish and English. I just read the English portion, my Spanish is not that great. I actually read 2 books upon request from the kiddos, they wanted more. After reading books and talking more about fall mainly review, repetition is a wonderful thing to children at this age, we made our craft for today. We made Stained Glass leaves. I precut the squares of cray paper in red, yellow, and orange (the colors we have been working on). I drew a leaf shape on the clear non sticky side of a 10 X10 inch square of contact paper. I peeled the backing off and stuck the non sticky side onto the table using tape. I put out the containers with the cray paper in them on the table and had the children stick the cray paper to the contact paper. Then I placed another sheet of contact paper onto the side they stuck the cray paper to. The ones that AP, AR, and I made are hanging up in our window letting the sun shine through colorfully. AP cut hers out today by herself. I cut out the others, while the kiddos played on riding toys today. M was gone on a playdate, but I am sure that he had a lot more fun with the older kids then he does here with the little ones. He tends to get a little bored, but the others are not big enough to do more involved crafts or lessons so he will just have to put up with me:0) S and AR once again really got into sticking the cray paper on the contact paper, I think they like sticky stuff. G was very careful where she stuck the cray paper and was the last one to complete it, she wanted to get it just right. It is was a fun way to make leaf decorations for the window.

Today we reviewed the color, number, Shape, and letter that we worked on last week and then added Yellow, 3, square, and F for this week. We talked about what we do when the leaves fall down. We rake them up and sometimes even jump in them. I read the story The Cinnamon Hen's Autumn Day by Sandra Dutton. The story ended with 2 friends having a great time raking leaves together, very nice time to talk about how much fun friends can be when we work together. I lead the kiddos in the song 5 little leaves, which they seemed to enjoy. This lead us to our leaf man picture, which was fun to watch the kids make. They glued a leaf on a sheet of paper. The older ones made faces and legs on their leaves and then drew a landscape picture around it. I helped the younger ones draw their legs, arms, and face on their leaves and then just let them color where ever they wanted on the paper. I have posted pictures of how they turned out. I have also added some pictures from our pool party last Friday, which is always fun in the fall, since you never know when the last pool day will be in Wisconsin. Tomorrow I am excited to see how our craft will turn out it should be loads of fun and really neat in the end.

Yesterday I just let the kids play in the pool after we picked M up. Today I was up early. I ran my very first 5K and I have to say I am addicted. I can't wait to run the next one. I know there were some mistakes that I made that I want to correct, just to see if I would or could get a better time (I have no idea what my actually time was). I couldn't believe how challenging it was to get around the people who had chosen to walk. Makes me understand why they have time trials. I had a really great time doing it though and I can't believe how fast the time went. I met a very nice couple while I was there too. They had some good advice. I have a tendency to talk to people where ever I am. I was in line to use the restroom, before the race and that is where I met the woman of the couple. She couldn't find her husband before the race and just ended up by me. We chated for the couple minutes before the race. After the race she found me and we talked again about the race. She has run in 10 so it was good to get some advice. She said she saw me at one point and thought about catching up to me again, but didn't want to push herself too hard. It was very interesting. The kids were even engaged in the race. C said M didn't want to leave after I was done, he wanted to continue watching. How cool is that. I would love for him to have a passion for running. He gets to do his first run in 2 weeks. It is a fundraiser for West High School. I am excited for him and all of the kids want to do the Fun Run next year. Enjoy the pictures of me, but don't laugh too hard. The one at the end of the race is really bad. The one with the kids and I after the race looks like we were all crabby, but really the sun was directly in our eyes.

Apple picking to apple pies

Wow today was an exciting day. We left the house at 8:05 to take M to school. We then headed out to Star Orchard to pick apples with about 15 other families. I had a bit of road rage due to the fact that I had to drive about 15 minutes out of the way since the college ave. bridge is closed, but felt much better upon arrival at the orchard:0) AP and AR were very excited about the whole trip. They were conversing before we left this morning. AP kept trying to explain to AR that we were going apple picking not strawberry picking. I just listened in on the whole 5 minute back and forth conversation, very humorous. While we were out there AP managed to climb into a tree, but was unable to get herself back out. I helped her, but she sort of jumped at me. She landed on my face and almost gave me a bloody nose. It was actually pretty funny. They ran all over the orchard with some of the other children. We ended up picking 35 pounds of apples. Some were Mackintosh and some were Galas. Once we were home I couldn't wait to make dutch apple pie. It is the only apple pie that I like. I made it for the very first time at a MOPS meeting back in fall 2005. I have been using it every year since. I made 2, to make sure we had plenty to share with neighbors. I also made a pan of apple crisp for my husband to take to work. I was really in the mood to bake. I think apple picking brings that out in me. By the time I got the kitchen cleaned up and the rest of the activity planned for today it was time to get M from school. Today I only have apple picking pictures and not preschool lesson pictures. I was busy helping the little ones do the project today. We continued working on leaves and fall. I read, Hooray for Fall, an Oswald from Nick. I read 2 poems about fall.

The leaves are falling down.
The leaves are falling down.
Red, yellow, green and brown.
The leaves are falling down.

Down, down, Yellow and brown.
Fall the leaves All over the ground.
Rake them up In a pile so high,
They almost reach Up to the sky.

We also sang 2 songs

5 Little Leaves

5 little leaves so bright and gay
Were dancing about a tree one day
The wind came blowing through the town
1 little leaf came blowing down,
4 little leaves, etc...,

Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel
Shake your bushy tail
Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel
Shake your bushy tail
Wrinkle up your funny nose
Put a nut between your toes
Gray Squirrel Shake your bushy tail

Once we were done with that we talked again about the colors of leaves. I helped them make a book with different leaves. There were 6 pages in the book. Each page had a different color leaf, green, red, orange, yellow, and brown. The last page had the leaves are falling poem. There was also a cover which read My Leaf Book and had there name on the cover. I gave them fall stickers to decorate the cover with. I wrote the color word under each leaf. The younger 2 had a hard time on their own, but enjoyed it with my help. Both AR and S really seem to enjoy glue. The older 3 seemed to catch on to what needed to be done. By the time we were all done with that S and G's dad came to pick them up.

We ate dinner and rushed over to soccer practice, which I thought went amazingly well. I have been doing a bit of reading on how to coach 5 and 6 year olds soccer and I think the people who wrote the book really know what they are talking about:0) We play our 3rd game on Saturday. I can't wait. I think sometimes I am having more fun then they are even, though that would be hard, because they all really seem to love playing.

We finished our day with a piece of freshly baked apple pie, which was very tasty.

The chapter about leaves continues

Today we started with our snack, as they were all finishing snack we recapped what we talked about yesterday (color changes, where they grow, what fall and Autumn were). Then I read them the story Four Friends In Autumn, by Tomie Depaola. After reading the story we talked about our letter, number, color, and shape of the week. Finally we got to the really exciting part of our lesson. We did the craft. We once again went on a "nature walk" on our way to pick up M from school. AP and G had bags they used to collect as many leaves as they could to use for our craft that I would not tell them what was. Keeps them anticipating what we might do with them. I gave each of them a paper plate with the center cut out, a bowl with glue, a q-tip (after explaining that we were not going to put them in any of our holes on our body), and we dumped the leaves out in the middle of the table. I had them listen to me as I explained that we were going to make leaf wreaths. I demonstrated how to do it and then let them try. S really loved to put the glue on the leaves and was very excited about it at first, but after about 6 or so he decided he was done. He is the youngest so he will become more engaged as he gets older. AR really got into it, the second youngest of the bunch, she didn't want to stop. She was the last one at the table. M was done relatively quickly since he is the oldest and has had many experiences, such as this, in his life. I started painting with him at 6 months of age. I didn't with the older 2 as soon, but they still have had their fair share of painting. In fact AR kept calling the gluing that she was doing "painting the leaves". I helped the younger 2 put their leaves on the paper plate. They didn't quite get how to flip it over to make it stick and were just leaving the leaves glue side up. AP and G seemed to catch on quickly and I was impressed with how much they all enjoyed such a simple craft. Once again they went to peacefully coloring on the sidewalk. Except for the Bee that got S. He was trooper though and barely cried. All in all I would say that today was a success:0) I hope yours was too.

Falling leaves

So here goes. Today we started working on Autumn, by talking about leaves, adding in the letter L (for leaves) and the number 2, as well as the color orange. I generally work on one letter, one number, and one color per week or 2 weeks. We had an orange for snack and discussed the fact that it was orange and how you say it in Spainish, as well as how you sign it. I have cards with this information on it to to allow for visual learning as well. There is a picture of some of what I used today in this blog. After we were all done having the snack I read 2 books to the children, which were Leaves, by Kristin Ward and Natures Walk, by Ann Burg. We talked about where leaves grow and what colors they become in the fall or autumn. The next activity was a leaf rub, using leaves we collected on our "nature walk" on the way to pick up my son from school. I had prepared cups with peeled crayons in green, yellow, orange and red, for them to use to make their leaf rub. They really didn't get the whole rub thing, but had fun doing the project anyway. They colored the paper, made the rub, or just colored on the leaves. One of the children had a bit of a problem with that, thinking that they would be unusable after being colored on. I assured him that "yes they would work just fine for using to make the rub". Overall I think it was a success due to the fact that it kept them in some organized play for a short span of time, before they went about their free play. Which was spent mainly chalking on the sidewalk, peacefully.

Preschool activities

Well I love to do preschool activities with my children and the little ones I care for. I didn't know what to blog about before, but today I was inspired by a dear friend:0) (Shout out to you Jen Cat.) I will be blogging about the activities I do with them. Sometimes they are elaborate and other times they are no more then movie day with popcorn. I will have more to post tonight. Hopefully I will figure out how to post pictures today. Have to run for now I have to get the little ones ready to pick up my oldest one from school.