Thanks!

Last week we got to celebrate Thanksgiving early with our precious, too-cute-for-words, 2 year old preschool class.  If giving thanks with these little ones won't put you in the holiday spirit, nothing will!

We started our day exploring with feathers and play-doh.

We also worked with our family manipulatives.

Finally, we used the computer to learn a finger-play, 5 Little Turkeys.

Then it was time to eat. 

The theme for our party was "Thank You".  

What a wonderfully simple way to teach young children about this special tradition of gathering with friends and family to say, "Thank You".

Each child's place-mat featured a picture of themselves with the word thank you written in one of many languages.  F's says thank you in Chinese.  

We got to wear traditional Native American jewelry that was shared with us by a family member.

After our delicious snack, we took off on a turkey hunt.  

Look who caught the turkey!

As they left, each child got to take home a flower to plant. 

Hope your Thanksgiving is as happy as ours was!

Time to Set the Table

With all this talk of turkey, our tummies have been rumbling!  

Today I placed a "set the table" basket in the dramatic play area. 

The basket included a die, a set of plates, cups, napkins, a tablecloth, place mats, forks, spoons, and knives.

The task was to roll the die and set the Thanksgiving table for the specified number of places.  

On the surface, it is a simple math task.  When you really sit and watch the children you see how much thought really goes into the activity.  Between these 2 pictures you can see that the boys and girls figured out that the place mats have to go first! 

Although the die clearly states that the number of guests is 5, now, the first time we tried it, didn't seem like the time to interfere... After all, they were still working with one-to-one correspondence.  Each chair had a place mat and each place mat a plate and each plate a cup and so on.

I loved the opportunity to teach the boys and girls about how to set the utensils at each plate.

What a fun and meaningful way to practice left and right!

Before long it was time to serve the food!

Clean up brought us a whole new batch of opportunities.

The cooperation shown here was amazing, as well as the communication exchanges between the children.

They had obviously seen things folded enough to know the basics.

"You get the corners and put them together".

With just a little organizational help from us,

The task was complete.  

The little basket that we placed out held far more the objects inside it.  It was a literacy based, math lesson (seriation, ordinal numbers, one-to-one correspondence) that incorporated science/health (food pyramid), and social studies(holidays and tradition), gross motor skills (folding), social skills( planning, coordinating, sharing, conversation) and  much more!

Fire Safety Week

When I left for maternity leave, everyone promised to not have too much fun without me...

Well, now that I am back from a short, but sweet leave, I am getting to see pictures of all the fun I missed.

Here are some pictures from our 3s adventures during Fire Safety Week.

Look at those future firefighters!

Thank you to Firefighter Buckner for visiting with us from the Rose Hill Fire Department.

R sure is proud of his daddy!

The boys and girls learned about the tools that firefighters use to do their job, as well as fire safety tips.

One of the most important parts of the visit is teaching the children that firefighters are our friends.

No matter what they are wearing, they are always here to help. 

Firefighters LOVE to ride in the back of the truck!

They got to spray water, just like real firefighters.

What a fun morning with some of our favorite community helpers!

The 3s were also treated to a visit from Smokey Bear and his friends in the Forest Service.

Thank you to the Riley family for helping coordinate this special event.

No visit from Smokey is complete without a delicious campfire snack!

Glad they have water in case the fire gets too hot!

Pumpkin Party for our 2s!

How awesome is that line?!  Everyone looks ready for the party!

So much fun to share a fun snack with our friends.

Thank you to the party moms and dads who made the day special.

We played games...

and visited the pumpkin patch.  What fun :)

Pet Show

During the month of November we are focused on things for which we are thankful.  Although we try to maintain and "attitude of gratitude" all year, it doesn't hurt to do some serious blessing counting at this special time of year! Last week we were feeling thankful for our warm, cozy homes.  This week we are thankful for our families- specifically, our furry, finned and feathered friends, our pets!  It is apparent to anyone who gets to pray with us in the mornings, that our pets and other animals are important to us. They are often added to our prayer list; sometimes there are more pets on the list than people! 

Today we celebrated our pets with the 4th Annual SDS Pet Show.  We started our day with reading Ezra Jack Keats' book Pet Show. Then we kicked off the event with a celebrity guest, Mr. Curt and Maggie.  Each pet was shown, followed by a time of question and answer.  I love to hear the children share about their pets.  This is such a good way to get them engaged in conversation, not to mention the endless opportunities for vocabulary development!

Maggie won first place for most fashionable!

Belle won for best tricks.

We were treated to a pet parade by our sweet 3s!

They were the best audience for our show.

Isabelle won first place for most spots.

Dixie won first place for most friendly.

Nemo won first place for best swimmer.

Benji won first place for most quiet.

Cody won first place for best curls.

Luke won first place for most excited.

Pinky Pony won first place for best sparkles.

The snake won first place for most slithery.

Gus won first place for best flips.

Goldie won first place for the brightest color.

 Paisley won first place for best hunting dog.  

Mae won first place for longest dog.

This was another great day at preschool.  Our room was a buzz for days preceding this event, and will be for days to come, I am sure.  Can't wait to get together on Monday and write about our experiences at the Pet Show.  Thank you to all who came and made the event possible.