It's Autumn Time

We always start with the same welcome song...whatever song you know is great. Then we talk about the weather and what day it is. We usually spend some time practicing counting and saying the alphabet. Then my son always spells his own name before we move onto sight words.

Sight words: fall, autumn, leaves, pumpkin, Halloween, Thanksgiving
Word lesson: synonyms, two words can mean the same thing (fall & autumn)

For part of our lesson this week we used this website that has a cute little walk through of why leaves change colors. (My son loved this!)

Books:
Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks ISBN 0439316960
Halloween Night ISBN 806008673563
Poppleton in Fall ISBN 0590847945
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day** ISBN 0590109790
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Song: It's Autumntime and Rain is Falling All Around (substituting 'Leaves are' for 'Rain is')

Activities: Leaf Rubbings. We used this time to collect some leaves and talk about their different shapes, textures, and colors. Then we brought them inside and used crayons and thin white paper to make some leaf rubbings.


Leaf Place Mat. We then took the leaves we had collected and glued them to construction paper, covered with contact paper and had wonderful place mat.



Snack: Fall Apple Dip (somewhat resembling this)

We spent time discussing when Autumn is and what happens during Autumn (leaves change, gets colder, etc). We visited the website above. Then we talked about different holidays we have during Autumn (Halloween, Thanksgiving). After that we spent time reading our books and singing our songs. Our books this time were all about fun. And we read a lot of them. We love to read!!

Then it was time to find leaves and create our rubbings and place mat. And on to our yummy snack!


**Note: This book is available as a movie.

Dinosaur Day

Using a Discovery Pack from our local library made this lesson really easy! A Discovery Pack consists of books, an activity, and a movie about the subject. Making your job of finding materials a snap! Check your own library to see if they provide any packs like this.

Sight words: fang, dinosaur, bone, paleontologist
Word lesson: adding an 's' to make words plural

Books:
Touch and Feel Noisy Dinosaurs ISBN 1846104440
The Discovery and Mystery of a Dinosaur Named Jane ISBN 0766027309
Revealed Dinosaur ISBN 0789497492

Movie:
Animal Life for Children All About Dinosaurs ISBN 1417101652

Song:
I'm a Mean Old Dinosaur
(Tune: I'm a little Tea Pot)

I'm a mean old Dinosaur
(Make a mean face, the kids make the cutest mean faces)
Big and Tall
(Gesture hands big and tall )
Here is my tail, here is my claw.
(Gesture hands behind your back for tail and make claw hands)
When I get all hungry
(rub your tummy)
I just growl
(have the kids exaggerate the grrroooowwwlll)
Look out kids I'm on the prowl.
(Here I tickle each one of the tummy and they all giggle)

We read through the books taking a break to put together a dinosaur puzzle (also in the pack) and to learn the cute dinosaur song. My son was very interested in being a paleontologist when he grows up so we spent some time discussing what their work entails.

After all the books we watched the 23 minute program on dinosaurs.

Activity:
Making a dinosaur picture practicing using scissors. My son cut out a mountain, grass, a tree, and a sun which he then pasted to his page. After that he added dinosaur stickers and did some water color painting. The finished project was beautiful!

Snack:
Tortillas and cheese. We used dinosaur cookie cutters to make our tortillas into fun dinosaur shapes. My younger son even joined in for this one.

The rest of the afternoon was spent as a paleontologist, digging and discovering. A very successful lesson.