Missing in Action...

We have done several stories since the last I've posted and I can honestly say... again I've fallen behind.  There has to be a better way to find time to post more frequently but I have not found "my" solution.  I read so many wonderful blogs who seem to have it so much more together than I... they share almost daily, they create, they run classrooms/homeschool/provide care in homes, and they have families.  I truly admire how you "get it all done" and must say I love reading all your blogs.  You can't guess what my New Years Resolution is, can you?  Or at least one of them as the list of things I need to start doing again is growing quite long this year... haven't decided how I will tackle the list as of yet.

I thought before I'd share a few of the things we've done... I'd share my newest addition to my family and daycare...

This is Magnolia... known as Maggie for short.  We adopted her at a shelter close to our home right after Thanksgiving.  She is currently 13 weeks old and is a Shepard/husky mix.  She is probably the one of the luckiest puppies alive... she gets so much attention all day from so many... and the little daycare children all think this is "their" dog.  What a great blessing to our family and daycare along with the wonderful learning experience that is involved with the everyday life of having a puppy around.

Here is a real quick overview of the books we have read and a few of the activities we did. Warning... this is a llllllloooooooonnnnnnnggggggg post!

"It's Pumpkin Time" was both a fun and informative book for my preschoolers.  We had a lot of fun learning how pumpkins grow.  Here are a few of the activities we did.

 We did many activities to sequence the growth of pumpkins.  Here we made a 

vine with pumpkins and as you lift each flap it sequences the life of a pumpkin.

 We talked about the parts of a pumpkin.

 We painted paper plates and turned our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.

 We sorted pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns.

We learned the fingerplay, "5 Little Pumpkins" and made 5 pumpkins sitting

on a gate.

And we worked on letter Pp and did our letter book... I only posted 3 of the pages.

"Silly Sally" was our next story.  This is a favorite of my current group and they still talk about and recite parts of the story.  Here are a few activities we did with this book.

 3 part cards to go with the story.  

 We talked about where we live and made houses (since my whole group lives in a house). 

We drew our families in our house.

 We talked about where the animals in the story live and put them in their house... upside down of course!

We did many activities with shoes ~ we paired them, put them in order from smallest to

biggest, and decorated them.

We made a book with all the characters in the story... above are a few of the pages.

We drew Silly Sally's crazy hair.

We put the right color bow in Sally's hair.

And we put the right number of bows in Sally's hair.

"Duck for President"fit nicely in with the Presidential elections.  We had a lot of fun with this book.

 We started off talking about what an election is.  We used toilet paper tube puppets to represent 

the candidates and our block people to represent the people of our country.  We talked about how

all the people vote and how the winner gets picked.  

 We talked about how the candidates get their platforms out to the people using commercials, ads, etc...

and then we made our own "Vote for Me" poster.

 We used sponge stars and red paint with brushes....

...to make candidate posters.  I thought it was a good way of using that ridiculous amount

of "junk" mail I received around that time and turn it into something the children could 

relate to the voting process.

 We made the White House and talked about how the President lives here.

We fingerpainted flags for our country.

We did a Presidential Roll and Graph.

 We talked about what promise we might make to the people if we became President.

Here are our Duck's For President.

And then we had our own classroom election...

The candidates... Cat and Dog!

Each candidate gave speeches about themselves... telling the qualities about themselves and 

why they would make the "Best Pet" as that was what we were voting for.

We made our election posters...

...and campaigned for our favorite pet.

We did a Favorite Pet Roll and Graph.

We filled out "voter registration" cards that they would take to the polls to vote with. 

 And we worked on getting our voting area ready.

Below is our voting procedure... we showed our voter registration card, signed in, voted on a 

ballot and then tallied our voting outcome.

 We turned our voting center into our prop box/dramatic play for the next few days and 

they had a great time with it.

 And as always we incorporated the letter Vv into this book and did our letter book.  

Above are just a few of the pages.

That was a lot... but I feel better getting caught up.  I will be posting what we did for Thanksgiving and Christmas as we will not be doing the "Five Day Reads" during that period of time.  I am planning (but not sure) to get back to it in January.

Best,
Rose