Recipe for Gak!

For preschool this week we learned about things to do with Halloween!
One of the fun things we made was Gak.
Here is the recipe:
1 C. White Elmers Glue 1/2 C. Hot water(really hot)
3/4 C. warm water 1 TB. Borax
2 drops of food coloring

In a gallon ziploc bag put glue, warm water, and food coloring.
Zip the bag closed and have the kids mix this together.
Next in a cup mix together hot water, and borax. Open the bag, add the borax mixture,
and mix together until a soft ball forms and some of the liquid is gone. Next pour the mixture in to a bowl and let the kids continue mixing until the watery part is most gone. Pour the excess liquid off. then you have GAK! Store in a ziploc bag in the fridge. The kids love to play with this.
Make lots of fun colors.

pumpkin luvin' boys

Spooky Spiders!

Today @ preschool we learned about Spiders.

For one of our Centers made blow spiders with straws and water colors. The kids were really good at this and loved to watch the paint spray across the page.Jack
Ray
Carsten

We also played with the play dough, which is one of every bodies favorite Centers.

Mason cutting out Halloween shapes.

Today the big hit was finding the spiders hidden in the leaves.

Look! Jack found a spider!

Then counting the spiders. Brigham found a lot. He counted to 21.

For Snack time we made spiders,

We put eight pretzel sticks in a small Choc. donut,
and then added the choc. kissables for eyes.
They turned out great and the boys had fun eating them.

For Activity we made follow the directions spiders webs and then colored & cut out a spider to put in it.

Here is Ray, with his picture. He actually cut his spider in half, but we were able to glue it back together. The boys had fun, and did a GREAT job at following directions!

Fire Station Fieldtrip

Fall theme - Oct 2nd (katrina)

Another fun Fall day...

Centers today were: Leaf art, grab bag math, trains, and puzzles.

The Leaf Art was definitely the most popular. Leaves that we had found on our Fall Walk were painted, and prints were made. The prints turned out way cool and the leaves looked really neat as well, so we added that to their art.




There was a place to wash paint from their hands, but the kiddos enjoyed mixing the paint in the water as well.

During Circle Time, we worked on our Calendar, sang Do you know the colors of our rainbow, and read Color Dance.

We've learned that Snack Time is a great time to do our Letter Box. Today we worked on the letter "Ee." For a twist, I had items in the box that started with E, and some that did not. We decided which items began with E, which did not, sorted them, and even got to hold one for a bit.

For snack we had soda crackers, apples, and peaches. The boys enjoyed watching me cut the apples and peaches and guessing how many pieces there would be each time I cut them. Ray was the first to figure out that after I cut the apple in half and then in half again, that there were not 3 pieces, but 4. Way to go bud! They thought this was a bit of magic, so we did it again and again as we passed out the snack.

Soon it was time for Project Work, and we began to make our Pumpkin Cookies together. The boys were very excited to help me make the cookie dough. Later, Brigham wanted to eat the dough, they all thought this was a great idea, but as I had put an egg in there, I explained that we should only eat dough with eggs at home with our mommas and daddys. For Miss Katrina would feel soo bad if any of our preschool friends got sick from the dough. :) So I'll include the recipe below:

Pumpkin Cookies

2 sticks of butter

1/2 c turbinado sugar (i found mine at smith's)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 can pumpkin puree

1 c rolled oats

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 c chocolate chips

2 1/2 c whole wheat flour

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes (yes, my oven broke, so we were cooking them for much longer...thx for your paitience everyone!)

Everyone was so good, helping smelling, tasting, etc. When it came time to put in the spices, I let them smell several (parsely, chile, cinnamon, etc.) and asked them to tell me which they thought would taste good in the cookies. They all had good ideas. (we have some great noses and bakers) I also had them help me find the ingredients. When it was time to add the pumpkin, I showed them cans of corn and pumpkin and thankgoodness they chose the pumpkin! Same with the chips, they could choose between the corn chips and the chocolate chips. We had fun making decisions together.

As our cookies were supposedly baking, we went in the front room for movement and music. We began by doing the Dance book, copying the moves and positions of the dancer. They are getting pretty good!

We watched a clip of the Disney movie, The Game Plan, that is about a quarterback who plays a part in his daughter's ballet recital. We watched their performance that took place in the forest with fairies, animals, a witch, and her bats. The boys were very into the ballet and wanted to watch it again, we didn't have time, but if anyone wants to borrow it, let me know. :) After the clip, we had our own Fall Ballet, where we moved like the forest animals, trees, and bats.

Soon it was time for Outside play. Everyone enjoyed spending time in the pumpkin patch, admiring Tonya's sorting of the pumpkins by size and color.

fall theme - sept 23rd (katrina)

Sorry gang, I wasn't as good at taking photos this session, but after reading Annelisa's comment about Mason enjoying seeing himself in the blog and remembering what he did, I will recommit to this whole process. In fact, I was beginning to think it wasn't a good idea and that it was asking too much to ask of us busy moms. With that said, do what you can, and we'll enjoy whatever we can do :).

Anyways...

Centers for last Tuesday began rather early for me...my kiddos decided to do the art center as soon as I set it up. The goal with the art center today was for the kids to paint bugs that they had seen on their great bug hunt. I was pleased to see that the boys were also interested in painting letters...especially those in their name and last week's letter "C."

Mason and Carsten enjoyed the shaving cream letters together. Then they joined Jack in the Math grab bag center, where they chose a printed number and then placed beans on the paper that represented the number. I'm excited to do this again next center and add some more numbers. (i only did 1-10, but want to see how far they can go) :)

Mason then went and worked in the water measuring center alone. I think I'll bring this one out next theme i teach (colors), but use colored water for them to measure and mix with.

We cleaned up and sang following the leader to peter pan's music, and joined Ray and Brigham in at Circle Time. After some Calendar fun and a welcome song, we read, Color Dance and sang Do you know the colors of our rainbow?

Soon it was time for a potty break and washing up for Snack Time. Sara brought some raisins and carrots? (Sorry, i can't remember...i think it was carrots with ranch dressing). The big excitement, however, was the homemade chocolate cupcakes that Brigham and his Daddy had made together. The pictures are a bit dark, but you get the idea...



While the kiddos were enjoying their snack, we went through the "Dd" box together. They loved the sounds that came out of the "Dd" box just before a new item appeared :).

During Music and movement, we started reading and moving to Dance. The boys were very excited to follow and copy the dancer's movements. We also sang and moved to the Hokey Pokey. Last, we did our Across the Floor activity...always a big running and moving hit (thank goodness for Sara's great help with them stopping and slowing between each trick/movement.

It was time for our activity. We read the adventures of Brady the grasshopper as we put on our shoes. Outside, we gathered leaves and said hello to many of our neighbor's animals (the leaves had been blown from their tree...our only trees are deciduous!) I think it was Ray that was sure they had seen a bear (a black bull), and they also enjoyed the chickens and rooster.

With our great leaf finds, we rubbed on large sheets of paper outside and watched the leaf prints appear.

Next session we'll use these leaves in our art center...:)

And a few more pics:

Carsten & Anneclaire in the Art Center
Mason in the Math Center
Carsten counting beans
Mason pouring carefully

Jack studiously engaged in the Math Center

See you next time...looking forward to our Pumpkin cookies...:)

fall theme - Sept. 18th (katrina)

We had a great session in Centers today. Our Centers were:

the water measuring center

shaving cream literacy center

play dough center

and

the train center

I think Mason hit all of the centers today, measuring, creating, and learning as he went.

Mason and Ray not only enjoyed drawing their letters in the shaving cream, but they also enjoyed the clean up as well.

The boys were very busy in the Play dough Center, particularly enamoured with all of the tools.

The boys didn't get nearly as wet at the measuring center today. They are getting better at pouring and estimating how much room is left in the bowls, etc, and learning how to use each of the tools to achieve their desires.

More good playing, sharing and building in the Train Center
After Centers, we sang Following the Leader and headed to Circle Time where we talked about the letter "Cc," sang Do you know the colors of the Rainbow, worked on our Calendar, and read The Mixed Up Chameleon.

Sara brought a big hit of a snack today: "C"hicken "c"rackers with "c"heese. Not just any cheese, but squeezy cheese that she used to write the boy's choice of letters on their crackers. They loved it and I think that snack time would have lasted another half hour if Sara's had would have held up :).

We sang, The Bear went over the Mountain and began Music and Movement. The boys moved to Eric Carle's From Head to Toe, sang and moved to the Hokey Pokey, and practiced our hopping, jumping, rolling, skipping, etc. for Across the Floor time.

It was time for our activity of the day: The Great Bug Hunt. We gathered in the mud room, read, The Hungry Caterpillar, and got our shoes on for the hunt.

The first thing we discovered on our great bug hunt, was a watermelon...yup, in the grass (maybe josh had something to do with that...:)), anyways, we decided that the bugs would like to eat it.

Right away, Brigham found a grasshopper that later hopped onto his shoe and big toe. Brigham wanted to find a lady bug...sadly, we didn't find any today.
The boys found grasshoppers, a wasp, preying mantis, spiders, ants, butterflies, and crickets.

The boys looked for bugs beneath rocks, within the tall grass, and in the air.

Miss Sara was soo excited to find her very favorite bug: the preying mantis. The boys were also very happy to see it.
After the preying mantis sighting, the kiddos saw a magnificent spider web with a spider of course.
Brigham was very gentle with the preying mantis. He is our bug expert, loves to catch and hold the bugs and did it so carefully.
This is the group looking at the spider web
The boys took turns looking at the bugs through the binoculars

After our great bug hunt, we drew pictures of the bugs that we saw. Some of the highlights: Jack was very concerned that we not forget the little black ants. Brigham made sure that we drew his shoe and big toe that the grasshopper had landed on. Mason wanted a spider on our drawing. He and Ray were busy drawing while the others were telling me what to draw.

When the had finished their bug posters, they raced through the grass hopping like grasshoppers, jumping like spiders, running like aunts and crawling like a preying mantis. These boys are so much fun!