Pumpkins and more Pumpkins!!

On Wednesday, the preschoolers made the cutest pumpkins from some of the most unlikely "ingredients"....

We started with a roll of toilet paper. I cut the orange construction paper into 1" strips and then started the kids making theirs by centering the paper and tucking the ends into the center of the toilet paper roll. They went all the way around the toilet paper with the orange paper and then we made the stems by twisting half a piece of green construction paper and pushing it into one side of the roll. They were simple and turned out awesome. Gotta love fool-proof crafts (that's for the teacher's sake ;) I forgot where I got this idea (Family Fun magazine or another cute blog...), but please know that I used it as the highest form of a compliment to the originator. It was fantastic and easy for little hands.

Even the youngest in our group, Cooper, loved this project. I told everyone that they should go home and set their pumpkins on the kitchen table as a Fall decoration. One of the boys, Zachary, said that he wasn't going to put his there because they already had a pumpkin there! Now there's a thinker.... I wonder where it ended up? [Just remember not to throw this craft away--it's the ultimate recycled craft, if you know what I mean...]

For an activity about pumpkins becoming jack-o-lanterns, I cut pumpkins from pieces of orange felt. I cut shapes for the pumpkin faces from black felt and gave each of the kids their own set. They could randomly make faces and come up with their own marvelous creations. It was a hit and we had some great faces to show for it.

Some more cute pumpkin faces...

So many fun activities and learning came in our theme this week. With so much orange and black, it was a definite change of scenery when we decorated the Letter F for our books with green frogs. I just couldn't do orange fish with so much orange in all of our other activities.

It was a week of pumpkins and more pumpkins!! On Tuesday, we started our day with the Five Little Pumpkins swinging on a gate finger play and story. For the craft, we cut out pumpkins and glued them to our fences.

Count the Seeds into a Pumpkin was another great activity.

We played a counting game using miniature pumpkins. Each pumpkin had a spoon with a number written on it.

The kids had to count the pumpkin seeds from the bowl of the number on the spoon. So the kids had to recognize the number...place the seeds on the spoon and then drop them into the pumpkin. They we tried the pumpkin seeds. I thought nobody would like them...but only one or two didn't. Yummy!

After the seeds were in the pumpkins, the kids had a great time shaking them to make some noise.

Look--we are counting!!

I SPY Bottles

I love making crafts. In children's activities, crafts teach a lot about how things "work" and are a representation of what we learned. With only 2 days left of class for this preschool year, and it was time to do one of my all-time favorite crafts...the one that shows what we learned in preschool this year--the I SPY Bottle. I found little tiny beads and objects for the kids to put in their bottles. We started with the entire alphabet and followed it with things that represented the different themes and activities from our year. I made a little card for each bottle and laminated them. After the kids put the objects in their bottles, I filled it with a cup of poly-beads. The cards were secured around the neck of the bottle as a reminder of what they are looking for. In these particular bottles, there is a total of 52 objects. The kids were so impressed with the itty-bitties that some went into pockets rather than the bottles. I hope I caught most of them....

After they were all assembled, I called out things from the card for the kids to find. It was fun to watch them rolling the bottle in their hands trying to find things. This little recycled water bottle helped capture our year in one cute project. Bonus--it's a great activity for road trips, doctor appointments, and quiet times like church or nap time.