November Lessons from Your Mama

As it is still November, we're in the midst of these so the photos will be posted as we move through the lessons.  Our Dia de los Muertos projects were super fun.  We had a wonderful time baking bread and cutting papel picados and watching Viva Calacas!. I'll be the first to admit that teaching a 2-year-old about the election process (voting) is probably a stretch.  But I'm doing it anyway because it teaches the kid that we can vote as individuals but we are also a unit in which majority counts.  It's a family building exercise.  Thanksgiving had to be covered in this lesson and there are at least 8,000,000 possibilities for pre-k Thanksgiving crafts (I put a few in this lesson).  And last but not least, l decided one is never to young for character building.  I feel it is just as important to be charitable as it is to be grateful and I hope that my son will one day find his role in this world includes working for a better tomorrow for all.  So here it is folks, let me know what you think. Pre-K November

Abe the Babe loves Senior Calvera

Coloring a Sugar Skull Mask

Mama's Sugar Skull Mask

Skeleton Birthday Sugar Cookies - the kiddo helped with the baking!

Just some cakes and cookies we whipped up for the birthday boy

Mmmmmm... death by chocolate

Nothing like a skull cake with flaming eyeballs to say "happy 2nd birthday kid"!

TODDLER PARTY TIME!!!

Oh my, this is a hot mess... Good thing these toddlers help pick up their messes!

I told you I was teaching him about elections... (A) says map-map, bwue (blue), wed (red), and bote (vote).  I think it's a good start

 Polishing pennies during election week

 Comparing polished vs. non-polished pennies

 Before, During, and After Shot

 

Election Day!

 Turkey Shadow Matching

 Thanksgiving Flip and Find

 Matching these turkeys

 Look mom, I did it!

 Turkey Puzzle

 OK I admit I had to help a lot with this one the first few times.

The Thanksgiving Board

 T is for Turkey

  Ambidexterity in toddlers is common.  Right?

Edweirdsville - Camp October for Awesome Kids

Yes, we're still going with this learning-teaching bit around here.  I continue to change up the style of my planning to make my life easier while keeping the system effective.  Since we were constantly rearranging things to fit in with the other things that come up around here, I decided to give the plan more flexibility.  The new plan(s) will be for the entire month and be broken down by week.  My goal is to complete each of the projects listed of course, but I'm focusing on the most important/pertinent ones and having some 'extra' ideas floating out there just in case we need something to fill in some time.  This lesson is for the month of October.  We are covering Fall themes such as:  leaves, migration, hibernation, food collection/storage, harvest, Halloween... We had a great time playing with all of our autumn ideas and we hope you do too!

Pre-K October

The October Board

Tree made from paper bag with construction paper 'leaves' for indoor fall leaf fun

(A) testing which leaves he can blow the farthest (hint: it helps if are curved toward the ground so that they can catch air).

We organized and reorganized leaves by colors, shapes, sizes... 

The little man exploring some cypress needles.

"Look mom, this one is red!"

Separating pine needles

This was a BIG hit with the toddler!  Make a leaf outline with glue on paper and have the kid crumble dry leaves over it.  He showed this picture off to EVERYONE, showing them how he crushed leaves to make it.

Show off.

Leaf print with finger paint (easy)

Not part of the lesson plan, but blowing dandelions is so fun.

Eating them is less fun.

On the lake, checking out the bird migrations

I failed at getting pictures of the pumpkin picking, but here is a small portion  of our fall vegetable garden.

My pirate trick-or-treating.

Cousin trick-or-treaters!

Eeewww!  Pumpkin guts!

Pumpkins are way more awesome once their guts have been extracted.