silly smiles

The Boy's

Keyan was a surfer!
Kamil was Spiderman and Dalton was the "RED" Power Ranger!

Mateo was a pumpkin that liked to say "BOO!"

Grant was a transformer!

I cannot even begin to spell the specific name! lol

Our Halloween Party 2008!

The girls!

Hadley as Super Woman and Katelyn as a butterfly!

Emily the horse

Ella the butterfly

A few of the children have expressed an interest in making playdough at home so I thought I would post the recipe on the blog. I guess I figured everyone made their own playdough but I have come to find out that perhaps only the crazy teacher types do:)



Homemade Playdough
1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)
Stir ingredients together well. Just measure them into the saucepan you will be using to cook the dough, but mix them well before heating up the pan. Over medium heat cook the dough, stirring constantly until it forms a ball. (NOTE: When it starts to pull away from the sides somewhat and clump together and most of the "wet-looking" parts look dry, it's ready to remove from the pan.) Turn dough onto a board (or the countertop) and knead until very smooth. (NOTE: It will be pretty warm to the touch, but try to knead it until it becomes a nice, smooth ball. If it feels sticky, you can work a little more flour into it and it will be fine.) Cool. Store in a covered plastic container OR in a sealed ziploc bag. (ANOTHER NOTE: This dough does seem to always stick in the saucepan somewhat. I have tried spraying the pan first, but I still have a crusty residue on the pan when I'm finished. I am used to this now and just plan on soaking the pan after I make a batch. I just wanted you to know about that though so you wouldn't think you had goofed something up if that happens.)
When I add spices, I usually start with about a teaspoon (though I never actually use a spoon). I just shake a bunch in until I think it's going to produce the desired level of scent. (I like a LOT of scent.) If you are adding an extract like vanilla or peppermint, for example, probably just a teaspoon will be enough, but you can experiment with a little more than that. Also add gradually if you are doing glitter. I would still start with only about a teaspoon and go from there.

Pumpkin Carving!

The kids had a wonderful time carving pumpkins. Thank you to all our wonderful parents for donating pumpkins. We really appreciated it. Too bad they couldn't last longer here in good ol' Arizona!

This week at line time we are singing a few new songs. As usual, I have pulled together some props to go with them. The first song/fingerplay is probably familiar to most. It is "Five Little Pumpkins". In case you are not familiar, here are the words we use:
"Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The first one said, "Oh my! It's getting late!"
The second one said, "There are bats in the air!"
The third one said, "But we don't care!"
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "We're ready for some fun!"
WHOOOOSSSSHHH went the wind and OUT went the light
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight."
Enjoy this song with your child!

Pumpkin Pancakes and pajama day!

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes were a big hit. The kids were even surprisingly excited about the pumpkin plates that I bought for this special day ! The pancakes were yummy and we even cut apples in the shape of pumpkins! I found this recipe online if you want to try it:

2 cups of your favorite dry pancake mix
1 egg
1& 1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup pumpkin puree ( fresh or canned)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

mix all ingredients until smooth and cook on hot griddle
serve with syrup or honey

yum, yum!

Fall Fun!

It seems like we did quite a bit of cooking this past week! We started out making homemade Frankenstein playdough from scratch which was alot of fun. The kids enjoyed playing with Halloween cookie cutters too!

Pumpkin scrubbing!

We started pumpkin scrubbing today with the help of Katelyn's subtle nudging! It was a bit hit with the 2nd year students. We also cut a pumpkin in half and looked at the rind, strings and slippery seeds. Even though the pumpkin was on the smaller side it sure had a ton of seeds! We had a great first day of "d" week! If your child forgot to bring something today you can always bring something later this week. Thanks to everyone who has brought in pumpkins this month for carving! We will be carving them later this week!

I love these pictures of Keyan. He was so engrossed in this work. He looks so adorable in red...what a cutie!

Grant cleaning the sensorial shelf

tonging insects

using a dust pan

This is our spooky spider craft. We put black paper in a shoe box with 3 paint covered marbles and each child shook it up leaving a spider web! Hadley painting a stencil
This is an easy way to practice writing without frustrating your young child. Place some cornmeal or craft sand in a shallow dish or tray and let them practice writing sounds or numbers. If they make a mistake they just shake it and start again.

Here is emily doing a challenging circular puzzle

October!

I made these puppets to go along with our " 5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate" chant. We say it together at group time but the children can also practice it with the puppets at worktime. This has been very popular with the kids! It is a wonderful oral language activity and it also challenges their memory.
Here is Mateo using the puppets. "Miss Allisol I like the big pumpkin" he always tells me!
Kamil sorting spiders by color.
Grant using the smallest pouring work.

Katelyn doing a water transfer activity.