Get Ready for Trunk or Treat!

Trunk or Treat 2014 is just around the corner.  Two weeks from today we'll be having fun out in the front circle, playing games, visiting decorated trunks and getting a little candy.  Do you have your costume ready?  I do!

If you missed it last year, here are a few pictures to get you excited about all the fun to come.  The preschool hosted a Candyland themed trunk.

After all the fun on Wednesday night, we used the decorations to welcome preschoolers at carpool. Look how many characters came to school on Halloween!

Miss Ann and I got in on the fun too.

We would love to see all of you at Trunk or Treat this year.  Want more information about how you or your class can host a trunk?  Lindsay Davis is coordinating this event and she'll be sure to save a parking spot for you.

You'll have to come to see what our theme is this year.  Here's a hint:  watch out for the moat!

It's So Easy Bein' Green

Who says it's not that easy bein' green?  Sorry Kermit, we have to disagree.  Green is great and green week was a lot of fun!

Frogs are green and turtles are too.

So are dinosaurs.   Rrrrrrr!

Have you heard the story of Little Blue and Little Yellow?   Something magic happens when they give each other a hug.  They become GREEN!

There are so many ways to play with the color green.

Miss Ruthann and Miss Barbara's class made a yummy green snack ala Dr. Seuss.  Of course, the question of the day was "Do YOU like green eggs and ham?"

 

We do!  We like them, Sam-I-Am!

Our rainbow on the playground fence is getting more colorful week by week and we are becoming color experts.  Hooray for Green Week!

Count On It: A Numbers Storytime

I don't know about you, but some of my favorite books are counting books.  So I picked out a few of the best and took the children on a mathematical journey during our first storytime of the year.  

Our old friend, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, got us started.  Not only can you count all of the things the caterpillar eats, but Eric Carle also sneeks other math concepts into this fun story like sequencing, days of the week, and making comparisons. 

 

Even after all that junk food, the caterpillar was still hungry!  But then he did an amazing thing and turned into something else.

Of course, caterpillars aren't the only hungry critters we know.  Next we sang a lively classic about Five Green and Speckled Frogs and counted backwards from 5 to 0.  My "handy" visual aid helped as we sang.

Ethan Long's simple rhyming story about a fly in a soup bowl was a lot of fun to read.  Ask your children who got the soup in the end (hint: we found him hiding on every page!)

Next we learned a fun fingerplay about five bees in a beehive:

No counting storytime would be complete without Pete the Cat.  (I honestly cannot stop singing Pete's groovy song in my head... a storytime earworm!)  

Poor Pete!  His buttons keep popping off his shirt.  But does Pete cry? Goodness no!  Buttons come and buttons go!

When we got to the end of the story and all of Pete's buttons had popped off and rolled away, Pete found an ingenious way to keep singing his song that had everyone laughing!

Our last fingerplay was one that is fun for toddlers and twos as well as older kids.  They really got into it!

Unfortunately we didn't have time to read all of my favorite counting stories.  But here are a few terrific titles that you can read at home.  Let me know if you have any other favorite books with numbers and maybe we can include them next time.  Happy reading and counting!