Teacher Week- day 3

Today for Teacher Week on Babbling Abby's blog we're showing off creative ideas. I was too busy today with my 5 of my new preschoolers to take any pictures of cute things in my room, so I'm gonna show you some creative activities we've done in the past. 

At the end of every month we dedicate a week to one thematic unit. The kids love it because they think they are playing the whole week when actually they are learning!

In the fall last year we did a unit on cooking. The children got to tour the school kitchen. We compared and contrasted the school kitchen to our kitchens at home. The children learned the names of various kitchen utensils and electronics and also what they are used for. They completed a kitchen scavenger hunt at home with their parents. We ended the unit by cooking our own pizzas!

The week of Halloween I like to carve a pumpkin with my class. Every year most of the children have never had a carved pumpkin and they have no idea what's inside the pumpkin. We talk about what we might find when we cut it open. Then after I cut into it, I let each kid take a turn scooping out the seeds with their hands. We then talk about what it looks, smells, and feels like. Afterwards, we have a great decoration for our classroom for the week!

We did a unit on transportation. One of the activities we did was have a car wash. Once again, most kids have never washed a car. Even though we used our toy ones, they still got the idea. We learned about sequencing with this activity. We talked about sudsing the car up first, scrubbing it, rinsing it until all the soap was off, then drying it. We later drew this sequence out in the classroom. On top of that, all our toys got a good scrubbing that day! ;)

The very last unit of the year is my most favorite. We call it backyard Detectives. When the older kids are busy taking their state achievement test in April, we take our learning outdoors. We created detective journals from brown paper bags. That is where we recorded all our learning. One of the days we went on an outdoor detective scavenger hunt. The children were armed with their detective badges and clipboards and were to find things on their list. This is a great unit for the children to learn all about the world around them.

Well I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the activities we are busy with in Preschool!