Fall: 3D Thankful Pumpkin

Arielle (Mommy):

Everyday on Facebook I have been noticing my friends posting day by day what they are thankful for.  Today we began thinking about Thanksgiving at our house as we continued our pumpkin theme.

First I cut orange strips out of construction paper (the long way).  Then Lil and I talked about Thanksgiving and being thankful.  I asked her to name things she was thankful for, and as she did, I wrote each thing on a strip of paper (Jesus, God, Mommy, Daddy, O, our dog Charlie, and dolls).  Next we layered the strips in a star formation on top of eachother, then we folded them so they all met at the top.  We taped the top from the inside and the outside, then added a green circle to hide th tape.  To make a stem, I rolled a green strip of paper up, then cut and folded the bottom so it had a base I could glue it to.  Next I cut out a vine and wrote "I am thankful for..."

About Me: My Family Tree

Cynthia(Nanny):
Using the handprint art tree we made last week we created the girls family tree.
They glued their pictures on and then added a pic of their mommy and daddy.
We will hang it in their room along with their All About Me poster.

About Me: Paper Dolls

Today we created dolls using paper bags and construction paper.
We talked about hair color, style, and clothing they were wearing so they could identify that they were making a fool that looked like themselves.
I pre cut the items they needed to glue on but they were about to do all the gluing.
After that they gave the dolls voices and got a kick out of taking to each other with the puppets.
These are great, easy to make tools that promote many things including language, imagination, and are even used in therapy when kids undergo traumatic events.

About Me: Family Photos

Arielle (mommy):

One thing I have done to help O learn family members' names/titles is to create for him a wallet with laminated photos of the family.  He enjoys pulling out the pictures (I also made him a fake drivers license, credit card, and money) and saying the names of the people in the pictures.  I wrote the names on the back too so he can make the connection between the written and spoken word.

I made a purse for Lil with the same thing and she pays more attention to the labels and it has helped her learn to read write the names.

About Me: I like to ____ Journal Entry

Cynthia(Nanny):
Taking Arielle's advice, we are keeping a journal to record ideas. Today the topic was I like to ______.
I first asked the  girls to think of their response. Then, I had them draw themselves and then the activity they chose.
I gave them prompts about what they needed to draw next to keep them focused.
After they drew their picture I wrote a dictation of what they said they drew.

About Me: My Family Portrait

Arielle (mommy):

To begin our unit on families I had Lol draw a family portrait.  I gave her a rectangular sheet of paper and a triangle to make a house.  Thenstart dhappy to draw all the members of our family.  As she drew we discussed the hair color, eye color, features of each family member.  We also discussed the color of clothing each family member is likely to wear.  Lil used pencils, markers, and chalk to add color to her portrait.

When she was finished with her art, Lil wrote the names of each person under their picture as I helped her sound them out.

The last thing I had Lil do was create sentences about each member of our family as I recorded what she said.  It's always good for preschoolers to see us write what has been spoken to help them make the connection between the spoken and written word.

Cynthiaa(Nanny): 

To create the girls' family portrait, I divided a journal page into 4 sections so they had a space for each person. 

We talked about how each face needed to start with a circle and features they should include. 

They drew in crayon so I had some construction paper sqaures ready in case we needed to cover any mistakes. We used a few squares but instead of getting upset they were happy to see they could cover it up and start over. 

About Me: Picture Patterns

To incorporate math patterns into our All About Me theme, I printed pictures of the girls and reviewed patterns we've made before. I gave them their set and had them "take turns" placing their picture in line on the table. I found that using the idea of items taking turns they seem to grasp the concept a lot better. We glued the pattern we made on a sentence strip (can use a wide strip of paper).

Then, I gave them a different picture of themselves along with a picture of both girls together to create a new pattern. We will add these to our Morning Meeting pocket chart to review daily.

Guru Moment: Patterns are heavily introduced in kinder and first grade so early exposure is a great way to prepare pre schoolers for important concepts such as patterns. 

About Me: Poster

Arielle (mommy):

Today Lil made an "about me" poster.  I wrote the sentence prompts and had Lil dictate some, had her write others on her own (dog, 4) and had her copy write some (pink, and play).   I also had her write her own name and draw her self portrait.  I am going to add a picture I took of her as well (as soon as my printer is up and running.   

Cynthia(Nanny):

I used a piece of poster board to decorate for the girls All About Me posters. You can be creative or simple as you'd like. The goal is to showcase your child as being unique and important. :) 

About Me: My Feelings

Arielle (mommy):

Today for our about me we talked about feelings.  We talked about different ways we can feel and how we should act when we have those feelings.  We discussed what things can make us feel certain ways.  Lil used feelings stamps and dictated sentences to me. 

We made little feelings puppets with the stamps as well (if you don't have stamps you could use clip art, draw pictures, or take pictures of your kids acting out each feeling).  We made sentences using the puppets, we also played a game where we acted out the feelings of each puppet, and of course we used them as puppets, and made them act out the feeling they had.

Our next project is to make a feelings poster using pictures of the kids' faces acting out all the different feelings.

About Me: Self Portrait

Arielle (mommy):

Since we had some kids over to work onyour  today, and one activity we did was chalk drawing, I had Lil do a self portrait using chalk.  We talked about her hair and eye color as she selected colors to use. We also discussed the paas nd hrts of her face and body she should include in her picture to make it look more like herself.

Using the chalk was a fun new experience and made the picture more vibrant than past pictures she has created with crayons or pencils.

Cynthia(Nanny): 

Today we started our Journals with a self portrait. I read the book It's Ok To Be Different by Todd Parr to tie into our All About Me unit. 

We practiced drawing faces on dry erase boards and discussed features and shapes of our faces so we knew what to draw. Then, the girls drew their self portrait on the first page of their journal. I prompted drawing the circle, 2 eyes, mouth, and nose and they were able to add the other details. 

Another idea for a self portrait activity is to have your kids create a picture frame using popsicle sticks. 

I printed a picture of the girls and had them paint popsicle sticks to glue around the picture after I attached it to a tagboard backing.

We will attach a magnet strip to the back and hang it on the fridge.