November gospel connection

We will be talking about gratitude all month. Each night our family will each say something and talk about something we are grateful for. We will use the gratitude lesson out of the Nursery lesson manual to teach Andrew in his morning lessons and at Family Home Evening about gratitude.

November Letters

We are going to be focusing on letters P and T this month because of pilgrims and turkeys. I will have pictures of pilgrims and turkeys posted along with the letters of the month.

November Art

Make a hand turkey:

1. Trace your child's hand and let them decorate it with paint, crayons, glitter, googly eyes - anything you have on hand.

2. Paint with feathers after reading books that talk about turkeys. They have feathers you can buy in the craft section at Wal-Mart or at Michael's. Encourage use with brown and orange paint.

3. Make play dough and give them turkey cookie cutters to use with the play dough. For interest and color recognition, make play dough with brown food coloring.

There are many more art projects you can do with your kids for this month. These are the ones I find most appropriate for Andrew's age.

Five Little Turkeys

Five Little Turkeys standing at the door,

One waddled off, and then there were four.

Four little turkeys sitting near a tree,

One waddled off, and then there were three.

Three little turkeys with nothing to do,

One waddled off, and then there were two.

Two little turkeys in the morning sun,

One waddled off, and then there was one.

One little turkey better run away,

For soon it will be Thanksgiving Day.

Reference: www. dltk-holidays.com

November books

These are some books about Pilgrims and turkeys that I am checking out from the library. I will let you know what I think of them.

A Plump and Perky Turkey

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie

10 Fat Turkeys

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims

Over the River: A Turkey's Tale

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

This First Thanksgiving Story

Fractions

This is a perfect month for teaching fractions. You can cater it to your child's age and stage. We are talking about apples a lot this month. We have books about apples. We look at the apples and the seeds inside and talk about them. There is a book we have that talks about how apple trees grow. We also add fractions in and talk about the whole apple and halves. We haven't done quarters yet.

Triangles

This is the perfect month to teach triangles because of candy corns and witch's hats. I try to include triangles into everything we do. Cut sandwiches into triangles, paint on triangles, color on triangles, post triangles where they will see them and you can talk about them.

This week's song

Sung to I'm a Little Teapot

I'm a little scarecrow, stuffed with hay. (stand with arms outstretched to your sides)

Here I stand in a field all day. (stand with arms outstretched to your sides)

When I see the crows, I like to shout, (flap arms like a bird and then cup hands around mouth, like you are shouting)

"Hey you crows, you better get out!" (point and then point thumb out to the side when saying "get out.")

This week's vocabulary: Triangle, etc.

This week's vocabulary:

Triangle

Long/Short

Little/Huge

Half

Last week's vocabulary:

Scarecrow

Huge

We use all these words when we are doing our various activities.

Decorate a Pumpkin

When we went to Mother Nature Farm, Andrew was able to pick out a pumpkin. They had small pumpkins for the kids to pick out and then decorate. They had permanent markers and foam stickers to decorate the pumpkins with. This kept Andrew entertained for a half hour easily. Michael's has craft pumpkins you can use and they are often on sale, or you can use their 40% off coupons. Paint and other markers work well, too.

Make Candy Apples

OK - so this one I did by myself. I didn't think it would be safe for Andrew to help because it was so hot and he is so little. It didn't work out, but it was still fun to try! I'll try again next year and hopefully the results will turn out a little better!

Shapes

Teach triangles this month because there are candy corns and witches hats. You can cut out different sizes of triangles on different kinds of paper and have them draw or paint on them. You can cut sponges in the shape of triangles and have them paint with those.

Fall Fun

Ways to Encourage Math and Literacy During October

You will find that math and literacy often go hand in hand.

Here are some ideas.

1. Engage your child in a variety of cooking activities. I like to try to include my child in a cooking activity at least once a week. To encourage recognition of numbers, words and letters -write, and include pictures, of the ingredients and directions. Simple pictures are best. Just a cue picture to remind them of what the word is. They will begin to recognize numbers, including fractions, pretty quickly as they are exposed to them in this format. I will have examples posted soon.

2. Offer measuring cups during bath tub time or water play. My son uses a measuring cup to scoop out the corn meal when he is painting.

3. Sing a variety of Halloween songs that can be found online. I have a flannel board story called the Five Little Pumpkins that I found online. They had a template that I was able to copy to make the flannel board story with and it also came with the words to say. http://www.preschoolprintables.com/felt/5pumpkins/feltpumpkin.shtml

4. Check out informational books from the library about pumpkins and apples.

5. Post pictures in a play area of your home of pumpkins and apples that are labeled as such. Post the letters A and P and talk about them throughout the month. Just having them up in your home will promote discussion of them and recognition of those letters.

6. Check out books from the library related to Halloween and put them in an area that encourages your child to read them. Check out books with repetitive language. Pick out one story to become really familiar with and act out.

Mother Nature Farm

Our city has a pumpkin patch that is just down the road. There are more in the area, but they are more expensive. At this farm, the entrance fee includes a hay ride, seeing the animals they have, picking out a small pumpkin, decorating it and jumping in a bounce machine. We spent one evening at the farm just having a great time. It was a great family outing.

Make Halloween Clay Ornaments

Children love to help cook. It teaches them math, critical thinking skills, obviously cooking skills and it is a great bonding time. Play Dough, clay, and cut-out cookies are all great for also developing fine motor skills. For Family Home Evening, we made clay ornaments and we let our child help with the preparations and of course we had a lot of fun cutting them out with cookie cutters. Again, if you want to add reading into the process, just write the recipe down - using pictures that are either hand drawn by you or actual pictures of the process, and refer to it during the preparations. Your child will quickly begin to recognize certain letters and words.

Paint with corn meal or corn husks

To add interest and variety to painting, offer your child dried corn husks to paint with in the fall. You can also add corn meal to the paint to give it texture. I let mine just scoop it out of a bag and pour it on his paper. He enjoyed mixing the paint together with the corn meal and it really did change the texture. For younger children that need to learn their colors, I would encourage painting with black and orange during October and other fall colors during November. If you want to increase their recognition of letters and words, you can write the colors on cards in the color that they are and tape them up in the room where you are painting.

Act Out a Story

I have a book called The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. It's about a little old lady who goes for a walk in the woods. On her way home, she encounters successively a pair of shoes that clomp, a pair of pants that wiggles, a shirt that shakes, a pair of gloves that clap, a hat that nods and a pumpkin head that nods. As each object is added to the story, it also repeats the previous objects and their actions. We love to act it out. I just pulled out some old articles of clothing from our closet and that's what we use to act it out. There are many stories that lend themselves to being acted out.

Make and Decorate Halloween cookies