Hands on Harvest Happenings

Can you believe we have finally shucked all the Indian corn brought in!!!!  This activity has been going on for many days but the kids never seem to tire of it.  It's obviously wonderful for fine motor but also involves the children in working together as they teach each other the "shucking techniques" they've learned.  Running their fingers through all the kernels in the table is very relaxing too.

What to do with the corn cobs now?  We're estimated how many cobs would equal the length of the rug. After everyone gave us their guess, we measured the rug. Jack used problem solving skills to figure out how many cobs were needed to complete the measurement.

Another day the children decided, on their own, to use the cobs as building material. Using the cobs like blocks provides the children with new challenges!

The boys are back to estimating; this time how to find out how many cobs long the bench might be. It was fun to listen to their ideas. Should we measure the top or the bottom?

We put out a tray of feathers near the play dough, hoping the boys would incorporate this new material into their play.  Sure enough, we soon had an abundance of beautifully feathered turkeys.

The next day the feathers and playdough were available too.  But instead of gobbling we kept hearing popping noises.  James David decided to make a rocket ship and Lukas made fireworks.  It really didn't matter what object the kids made....our goal was to encourage fine motor work and conversation.  From the happy smiles on their faces they had a lot of fun in the process.

Matthew is signing in.  Choosing between pumpkin pie and turkey can be difficult.



The turkey is a funny bird.
His head goes wobble wobble.
And all he says is just one word
___obble   ___obble   ___obble
When you are the poem reader you get to choose a letter to place in front of all of the ___obble words.  Then, using the phonemic awareness skills we work on, the child figures out what the word would say.  Sammie chose to put the letter r in front of the word so it would read "robble".  We often call the children to get in line by changing the first letter of their name and the  poem activity is a great extension of that.



There are  many feathers on that turkey's body, all with brightly colored shapes.  Charlie's job as "question mark helper" was to match the feather he was holding to the identical feather on the turkey's body.  This is great for visual discrimination because you really have to look carefully as many of the feathers use the same shapes.In this activity, we also are learning the math concepts of left and right, how many in all, equal, more and less.

Zero the Hero came and Sophia spotted his clue.  After looking at the zero, she told us that the inside of the roll of tape was a zero. We were so pleased to see her apply the skill of prior knowledge in order to compare two different objects!

Zero brought us apple straws, a long crispy straw shaped snack.  We asked the kids to help us think why Zero would have brought them since it is not in a zero shape.  Charlie quickly suggested that we look at the ends and we would see the zero.  Throughout each day we try to pose questions that will make the kids think about their world in different ways. 

Empty bottles, bottle caps and beads provided fine motor fun for Sophia and Sammie.Some of the beads were shaped like pumpkins. The girls quickly discovered that these beads would not fit in every bottle!

We did a tasting of cranberry products:  sauce, juice and Craisins.  The resulting graph and the children's observations are on the bulletin board out side the room.  Stop by and read them!

Anna is painting her costume for our Thanksgiving feast with a variety of fall colors.

Last week the children used Indian symbol cards to tell stories.  This week we revisisted the idea of using pictures to tell a story.  Each child squeezed dot paints to trace along the lines of the picture.This week, we'll all work together to tell a story using their decorated cards.

Shelly brought in Mrs Gobbles so the kids could see (and hear!) a real turkey.

Shelly invited each child to come and touch Mrs. Gobbles.

Max was very gentle as he touched the wattle.  He couldn't wait to tell us how bumpy it felt! We want to thank Shelly for this hands on experience.

A Native American story teller came to  school to entertain us with stories, music and dance.  The children were all polite and attentive. They really got into the movements of the dance and the sound effects of the stories.


We hope to see you at our Pre-K feast ,Tuesday at noon!