Weather/Seasons Theme

The indoor snowballs are so fun and not cold. We divided into two teams and had an indoor snowball fight! This is good gross motor fun.

A couple of fine motor ideas for a Weather or Seasons Theme include leaf rubbings that are then painted with watercolor paint, painting with water colors and ice cubes, and

playing in shaving cream. We practice writing our names and many different letters and numerals in the shaving cream.

Mittens can be matched and rocks can be painted to look like snowmen parts and then put together in many different ways.

Rain clouds can be painted with sponges and then raindrops can be cut out and glued to the cloud. Drops of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple paint can be placed inside a sandwich bag and then sealed. Then students can mix the colors and trace letters on the rainbow in a bag.

Tissue paper rainbows are also a cute craft but time consuming for little hands.

In our Winter STEAM box that I place at our Science Center, I include pictures of snowflakes, mittens, cotton balls, and a sandwich bag full of either shaving cream or white paint. Styrofoam peanuts can also be used in the sensory table. Also at the Science Center, dirt and water can be mixed to create mud or take the students outside for some puddle jumping if you want to avoid the mess inside.
Some books that I use for our Weather/Seasons Theme are:
*"What's the Weather?"
*"Worm Weather"
*"Spring for Sophie"
*"A Tree for All Seasons"

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Pumpkin Theme

Every October we learn about pumpkins. Mini pumpkins are brought into the Science Center for every child and we investigate them with magnifying lenses and our senses. We also cut the top off of a large pumpkin and scoop the seeds out to investigate as well. I allow every child who is interested, a turn scooping seeds out. I never require the students to help if they are not interested. In the Literacy Center, we use mini pumpkin erasers to trace around letters. Pumpkin stickers can also be used. We take a field trip to a local pumpkin patch where every child is allowed to pick a pumpkin to take home. In the Fine Motor/Sensory Center, we make pumpkin pie with orange playdough and rolling pins. We also count and make patterns in the Math Center with pumpkin erasers or manipulatives. In the Pumpkin STEAM box, I include mini pumpkins, leaves, acorns, magnifying lenses and orange slices of pool noodles that the children can play and experiment with. The Dramatic

Cookies Theme

Who doesn't love cookies? We have an entire theme based on cookies and it is one of my favorites! We incorporate a lot of counting into our cookie theme. We count chips onto cookies in our Math Center. We count cookies and clip the correct numeral in our Fine Motor/Sensory Center. We serve cookies at the bakery in the Dramatic Play Center. We also practice numeral recognition and matching and fine motor skills using cookies and pom poms. We have taken a field trip to a local bakery some years and other years made cookies together as a class but in both situations, we have decorated them and enjoyed eating them. There are several cookie stories we read including: *"The Gingerbread Boy" *"The Gingerbread Girl" *"Whose Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?" *"The Doorbell Rang" *"May I Please Have a Cookie?" *"The Duckling Gets a Cookie" *"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" At our A

Friends

Social-Emotional Skills are such a large part of the Preschool curriculum. Most of our activities are group based and we spend a lot of time and instruction learning about how to be a good friend and how to treat the people around us. In February, I send home a handful of cutout hearts with each child. I ask parents to document each time they catch their child doing something kind and send it back to school. We then read them aloud to the class and hang them on our wall. The goal is to cover the entire wall with hearts. We also focus on one character trait each week. We discuss the trait and give examples of that trait and then watch for students exhibiting that character trait throughout the week. Some books that I use to reinforce our lessons are: *"Stick and Stone" *"A Sick Day for Amos McGee" *"How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends?" *"Llama Llama and the Bully Goat" *"Rainbow Fish" *"Should I Share my Ice Cream?"

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