Gratitude Preschool Theme

 Today we talked about gratitude.  We read "Bear Says Thanks".  Then we talked about all the things we are thankful for.  We had fun making a long list and then I pointed out that when we are thankful for something we should thanks especially to our Heavenly Father when we pray.  We sang some church songs, "Children All Over the World" and "I Thank Thee, Dear Father".  I encouraged him to sometimes say prayers where he just says thanks for things.

This Gobble Gobble Pack has a Thankful printable booklet.  Here is one of the pages my son was working on.  He has his brothers and blankets on this page.

Gratitude

 Today we talked a little about gratitude and how we can express our gratitude to others.  All month we have been doing Gratitude Leaves this year again.  I do this with all of my boys.  Each day they write down something they are grateful for.  I hope it is a good reminder of all the things they can and should be grateful for.  We leave the leaves up throughout the month of November, but I hope they remember it all year long.

I told my son many things I am grateful for and why.  I included how grateful I am for him and told him many reasons why I am grateful for him. I also told him that when we are grateful for things and people we should say thank you.  We read "Bear Says Thanks" by Karma Wilson.

I also told him that we can thank our Heavenly Father for all the things we have in our life we are grateful since they all come from him.  We sang several church songs to go along with this idea including "My Heavenly Father Loves Me", "Children All Over the World", and "I Thank Thee, Dear Father".

Then my son drew pictures of things he was grateful for from this printable book I found in this Gobble Learning Pack.

All in all it was a pretty low-key day, but I hope it is something that sticks with him just the same.

Thanksgiving

Wondering what we've been up to lately?  We have been doing a lot of repeats from last year.  You can find out more here.

We also did several activities from different Thanksgiving packs.  

Thanksgiving Unit from 2 Teaching Momma's 

Thanksgiving Pre-K Pack from Over the Moon

Thanksgiving Printable Pack from Homeschool Creations (she has a preschool and kindergarten version)

We will be taking a break from preschool the rest of the week.  (That is if my son lets me...)  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Turkey Time

We started talking about turkeys today and will be doing the next couple of days.   A lot of activities we are doing are ones that we have done in the past. 

 This is a fun Turkey Count Game that is easy to make.  You can learn more about it here.

 These are visuals for a flannel board story called, "Tom Turkey's Terrible Temper."  You can find the link to that and other fun turkey activities here.

Here are some links to some really great preschool/tot packs that we are doing as well.

Thanksgiving Tot Pack at lawteedah

Thanksgiving Printable Pack at Homeschool Creations

And here is a fun Turkey Hunt at Prepared NOT Scared

Gratitude Leaves

I have been a horrible blogger.  I haven't blogged about our preschool adventures in over a week.  We've been doing stuff, I just haven't posted about it.

Last year we did these Gratitude Leaves to count our way to Thanksgiving.

We are doing it again this year.  I decided to make a little banner to go on the wall above all of our leaves.

I meant to post this earlier but I have been a slacker.  Anyway, the boys have fun with it.  My kindergartener is writing the things he is grateful for himself.  (my preschooler still write rather big to fit the words on the smalls leaves).  You could have them draw a picture though.

Thanksgiving

Gathering Time:

Watch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”

Count Your Blessings

Hat Size sorting

Focus Activities:

Thanksgiving Matching Game

 Mayflower counting

Paper Bag Turkey

Harvest Match File Folder Game

Other Possibilities:

Preschool Activities from last year

RESOURCES:

http://filefolderfun.com

http://thoughtsofesme.blogspot.com/

www.lds.org

Turkeys

Gathering Time:

Use felt pieces to talk about different parts of a turkey

“The Turkey with the Terrible Temper”

“Five Little Turkeys”

“Who Took the Turkey” Game

Focus Activities:

Turkey Feather Count

 

Hand and Feet Turkey- My oldest learn about what happens when you use too much glue. :)

Hide the Turkey

Turkey File Folder Game

Other Possibilities:

Apple Turkeys- My son requested we do this one.

Feather Count

Online Turkey

More online games

RESOURCES:

http://www.earlylearningactivities.com

http://filefolderfun.com

http://www.sugardoodle.net

http://www.incwell.com

http://www.graspr.com

http://jennwa.blogspot.com

http://www.abcpreschool.net

http://www.makeandtakes.com/

Check out previous Turkey related posts:

Potato Turkey

Turkey Time

Macaroni Turkey

Highlights from our Turkey Days

Linking up with:

Turkey Feather Count

Later this week we will be doing a Turkey Themed day.  This is one of the activities we will be doing.  It is a Turkey Feather Count. 

First I typed in turkey clip art on a search engine and found this cute guy.  I printed off five copies onto cardstock, cut it out and then numbered them 1-5.

Side Note:  I did cut feathers off of him.

 Then I cut out 15 different feathers on different colored cardstock.  You could use all of the same color if you wanted or a variety like I did.

 The final step is all for your child to take care of.  :)  Lay out the five turkeys and have your child match the corresponding number of feathers to each turkey (1= 1 feather, 2= 2 feathers, and so forth)

I think this will be a hit out our house, I'm hoping anyway!

Check out our entire Turkey Themed day!

Linking Up With:
 

Gratitude Leaves

A simple thing we are going to do this year starting November 1st through Thanksgiving are gratitude leaves.  Every day each child will pick a leaf and name something they are grateful for.  They can help me write it down or draw a picture.  Then we are going to put it up around the house so by Thanksgiving we will have a very colorful and grateful (hopefully) house.  :)



Here are the leaves we will be using



Preschool Activities November 23, 24

November 23

Language Arts	Count Your Blessings
Math	Thankful Matching (file folder game I made)
Science/Cooking	Make pretzels out of dough, talk about how it shape looks like a person with their arms folding and that we give thanks when we pray
Music/Gross Motor	Sing "Count Your Blessings" Hymn No. 241
Art/Fine Motor	Thankful Turkey

November 24

Language Arts	The Turkey with the Terrible Temper
Math	Talk about the colors that Tom Turkey turns from l.a.
Science/Cooking	This isn't really a science, but we're going to talk about saying thank you
Music/Gross Motor	Thanksgiving Song
Art/Fine Motor	Turkey Headband

Highlights from the week

Is it hard to tell when I have something linked? I have a link to almost all the activities we do. The font is pink when I have it linked. Just checking...
Here are some highlights from out week.
My son is figuring out scissors little by little. He did pretty good this day.

My boys making some cornbread, which they certainly enjoyed.

Here is a fun paper plate turkey to do with your preschooler. Look for the link on Friday's list below.

You can find this and other fun file folder games at http://www.filefolderfun.com/.

Preschool Activities 16-19

Nov. 16- Letter "P"

Language Arts	Read "If you give a Pig a Pancake"
Math	Pumpkin Sequencing Cards find at kizclub.com
Science/Cooking	Make pancakes
Music/Gross Motor	Play the piano
Art/Fine Motor	Make a picture using paint

Nov. 17- Pies

Language Arts	Little Jack Horner
Math	Pie Puzzle
Science/Cooking	Make a pie
Music/Gross Motor	I Love Pies
Art/Fine Motor	Paper Pies

Nov. 18- Pilgrims

Language Arts	Thanksgiving Bracelet- bracelet is made as story is told
Math	Pilgrim Puzzle
Science/Cooking	Make some cornbread and eat it
Music/Gross Motor	A Thanksgiving Song
Art/Fine Motor	Pilgrim Paper Plate

Nov. 19 - Thanksgiving

Language Arts	Five Little Turkeys
Math	Thanksgiving Match, File Folder Coloring Matching
Science/Cooking	Coloring kernels and popping them
Music/Gross Motor	I Am Thankful
Art/Fine Motor	Turkey Paper Plate

Highlights from our Turkey Days

We've done turkey stuff the last two days. You can check out what we did in the weekly Preschool Activities for this week below.I decided to go with a felt turkey to pin the wattle on the turkey. As it turned out my son loved having me blindfold him and trying to put all the different body parts on the turkey. He got a kick out of where they actually ended up.

These are our art activities from the past two days. A Macaroni Turkey and a Hand and Foot Turkey
Also here are my boys making a Gobbling Turkey Apple.

November 9-13

Nov. 9- Letter "O"

Language Arts	O Riddles
Math	"O" Lacing Cards and "O" Puzzle
Science/Cooking	Mix red and yellow paint to get orange
Music/Gross Motor	Pretend to be owls
Art/Fine Motor	Octopus Craft

Nov. 11- Brown

Language Arts	Read "Brown Bear Brown Bear" by Bill Martin Jr.
Math	Match fish and worm game (I made)
Science/Cooking	Make Brownies
Music/Gross Motor	I'm A Big Turkey
Art/Fine Motor	Lacing Turkey

Nov. 12- Turkeys

Language Arts	Five Little Turkeys
Math	Turkey Puzzle
Science/Cooking	Talk about Turkey body parts and play pin the wattle on the Turkey
Music/Gross Motor	Sing, "Turkey Turkey"
Art/Fine Motor	Pasta Turkey

Nov. 13- Turkeys

Language Arts	Funny Turkey
Math	Turkey Feather Count
Science/Cooking	Make Gobbling Turkey Apples
Music/Gross Motor	Sing, "Mr. Turkey"
Art/Fine Motor	Hand and Foot Turkey

Thanksgiving Match Game

Matching games are a win-win situation for us. I love to make them and my son loves to use them. Here is a look at the Thanksgiving one I did using my Cricut Machine.

Macaroni Turkey

My son and I made a Macaroni Turkey today. He had a lot of fun with the glue, but he especially loved putting all the macaroni onto the paper plate. We dyed our own macaroni by putting a little rubbing alcohol in a baggy with the dye and shaking the macaroni up until it was covered in dye. I let it dry on some wax paper. This is a geat activity for young children to do!

Thanksgiving Puzzles

I printed off these Thanksgiving Puzzles for my son to do. I pasted them onto a cereal box and cut them out so that they would be more sturdy. I laminated one and not the other to see which way work better. For us, the non-laminated one was easier for my son to put together.
I just realized my pictured uploaded sideways. You'll just have to turn your head to look since I don't have time to fix it right now. :)

Turkey Time

We've done a couple of different turkeys lately.

Find instructions for the first one here.

For instructions for the second one click here. It is the toilet paper roll turkey.

Pilgrim

My boys and I made these cute pilgrim faces today. The one on the left is the one I helped my one year old color. The other one was done by my 2 year old. I helped with the cutting and pasting. You can find instructions here. These give a great opportunity to talk about body parts (eyes, nose, teeth...) and also colors.

Potato Turkey

My son and I made a turkey using a potato, a couple of pom-pom balls, construction paper, googley eyes and some toothpicks. This takes a lot of preparation on the parent's part if you do this with young children. Visit this site for instructions. My son has had a great time playing with his turkey!