Fall 2014

 Fall is here! ...the smell of a pumpkin spice Scentsy in the classroom...one of my favorite times of the school year! Here's a couple of photos of this year's set up. Here is the link to last year's set up and room arrangement. 

Discovery center - blank canvas awaiting our fall collage

Finished fall collage.. I am starting something new this year called seasons canvases. On this canvas students tried out collage and color mixing with paints. Our winter canvas might feature some recycled bottle cap art and more color mixing with winter colors!

Blocks area - variety of blocks, pumpkins from Goodwill, felt puppet tree from a garage sale, a silo toy, and loose parts (sunflowers & fake leaves). 

Our Owl art with fake leaves for wings and cupcake papers for eyes. 

Our marbled leaves in another area of the Discovery center. 

Marbled leaves were super simple to do..a little messy though! Next year I will invest in a squeegee.  Drip some paints into a container of shaving cream. I used a turkey roasting pan so I could just throw it away. Then, swirl the paints with  a paintbrush. Lay the paper cut out leaf on top then take it off. Drag a squeegee or piece of cardboard over the leaf to remove the excess and let dry.   

Discovery center table - life cycle charts, fake pumpkins, fake leaves.

Sensory tub - farm animals, apples, and green peas

Math center -  I picked up a really cute color/counting squirrel and nut game from Target this weekend!

Reading area - fall/farm books and a scarecrow felt board

ABC area - abc games, fall books, corn letter seek bottle, and fall decor from Goodwill

Pretend center - fall market with pumpkins galore, pumpkin pie, corn, and apples, oh and a cash register and fall books!

Fall Mega Pack!

Check out the new Fantastic Fall mega pack in Pre-K Tweets TPT shop! This pack includes vocabulary, math/literacy games, and even fall themed calendar cards...on sale now! 

Little Red Hen

I just found the photos from our Little Red Hen on one of my many camera cards... We did this unit after Fall/Pumpkins/Apples.. leading up to Thanksgiving..and right before our Gingerbread Man unit.  Our student "I Can" statements were about answering questions/asking questions about the story, counting sets, and identifying shapes. 

We had many cooking/baking projects including mixing homemade bread! The kids measured and mixed and I took the bread home and baked it.  I found a really easy recipe from Steamy Kitchen http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html  The post says "so easy a 4 year old can do it!"and  it was THAT easy! It is no fail, really tasty bread that I have made several times now for family since our unit. 

For counting sets, students counted baked snacks like crackers and even mini chocolate cookies (cookie crisp cereal!).  We read many different versions of the little red hen, including "Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza." Students created paper plate pizzas with paper shapes..they turned out really cute..have to find the photo I took..it's somewhere on one of those camera cards : )

Sign for our pretend bakery that I made last year.  I used images of real life bakers, breads, and pastries. I found these great stickers at Michaels. 

My mother in law made this really cool pie.. she has been making all kinds of "amigurumi" foods and characters for our classroom! 

Small, medium and large amigurumi cookies, fortune cookies, felt cinn. rolls, and cookies... varied textures and sizes!

I picked up some baking tins and trays from the dollar store for our pretend bakery : )

Here are some of our read aloud stories.. I highly recommend "Cook-a-Doodle-Doo!"  For next year I plan to have the class make mini strawberry shortcakes.. wouldn't that be fun?! I put some of our stories in our pretend center along with some cookbooks/recipe cards I took from my kitchen.

We read "The Best Mouse Cookie" before we counted sets with cookie crisp cereal...it's so much fun to incorporate literacy with other subjects!

For the sensory tub, students sifted, poured, measured, and drew letters in flour.

We opened up our play dough center for molding and baking cupcakes and cookies.  I also added in some fall cookie cutters. I found the plastic table cloth for cheap at Big Lots. They had a ton of cute table cloths, including yellow and teal with white polka dots! (Which I also just had to pick up) : )

Cherry pie was the theme for our math center.. After the read aloud I kept the book in the center..students played hi ho cherrio (which I found at a garage sale for a buck over the summer!). I had some mini pie tins and created a little play dough counting game. 

And TADAAAA!!! my new blocks center curtains!  The fabric is from Hobby Lobby. LOVE!

Harvest Time!

So my new route home from work just happens go right by my favorite thrift store.. I raided the seasonal section  one day after school last week... I was excited with glee as I entered the store and saw racks with all cute-sy fall-y things.. I picked up these scarecrows for a dollar!! ..and pumpkins/mini wooden crates (pictured below). 

We are beginning are harvest unit and visiting a pumpkin patch at the end of October. The pretend center is a fall farmer's market.  Students can pretend to shop for harvest foods and seed packets  in the Apple Market and have pies and apple juice in the Apple Cafe. The pretend foods are plastic, felt, and crochet. Since we are also learning about textures this week I thought it would be fun to reinforce those texture words (soft, bumpy, hard, etc. ) with the foods. 

In college, one of our projects was to make a prop box.  My prop box was a grocery store..I knew one day these items would come in handy! 

The vocabulary is from:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vegetable-Picture-Cards-for-Vocabulary-ESL and  http://candokinders.blogspot.com/2011_10_02_archive.htm

This activity is in our math center for next week.  Students draw out an apple and color in the corresponding number on the paper. I have activity similar to this in ABC center and students have done so well at it. The free download for the activity is from http://mrsalbanesesclass.blogspot.com/2011/09/apple-fun.html?m=1

This game is also in our math center for next week.  Students count and match the pom poms "apples" to the dots on the apple tree. 

Another math game... this can be a one or two person game. A student rolls the dice...counts the dots..places the corresponding number of acorns on the mat.  I bought some plastic acorns at hobby lobby this weekend.. btw hobby lobby is having 40% off all fall decor/craft items! The game board is free from  http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/search/label/hands-on%20activity?updated-max=2010-10-30T06%3A29%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20  There are also many other cute gameboards on her blog.

I love these mini pocket charts from Target..it's too bad they are out of them..I should have bought three more. I made this matching fall math game on photoshop. 

These vocab cards pictured in our ABC center are available for free from  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Word-Wall-Words

I was putting the vocab for our next unit into the pocket charts during our last center rotation Friday...One of my students started copying the new words in our writing center and drawing the pictures.. I was so excited for her I took a photo! I love having the vocab in every center..I am also trying to incorporate paper and pencils in many centers...an idea my fellow pre-k teachers/co-workers introduced me to.  

This is an activity in our ABC center. Students draw out a popsicle stick with letter stickers on it...they can say the letter and find the letter on the sheet..then color it in.. I'd really like dot markers for this game. 

Wikki Sticks are so awesome!!  Wikki Sticks alphabet cards cost a fortune..so I made some on construction paper and laminated them. The students can bend, curve, and form the letters. The students found out that wikki sticks are "sticky" ..another one of our texture words!! 

I finally found a use for picnic scrapbook paper that i've been hoarding for  ten years!  I made these cards with the same vocab and pictures from the math center. This is a harvest "matching game" and I picked up the apple basket from a garage sale..

Science center - Pumpkin basket for books (Goodwill find!) and baskets for vocab cards/pencils/notecards

My first day of fall project!  I made these life cycle posters (for science center) this weekend with free printable cards from  http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/Cultural-Materials_ep_61-1.html (click under Botany)

I love fall!!