In 1492........

We celebrated Columbus Day a tad early this year in preschool. The actual date is October 12, but is nationally celebrated on the second Monday in October. We read a couple of cute stories that explained why Christopher Columbus is a very special man in the history of the world. He was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451. His parents were weavers but he had a longing to explore and travel by sea. He failed at his attempts to get funds and the ships needed to explore many times before the King and Queen of Spain finally gave their approval and financing in 1492.



Columbus left Spain with three ships--the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. There were 90 men in total and they thought they were on their way to India to trade for spices and precious commodities. They ended up landing in the Bahamas and were greeted by the Arawak natives. The term "Indian" came from Columbus thinking he had landed in India, rather than a whole new land.



Columbus gave the native inhabitants red caps, strings of colorful beads and other treasures to mark their new found friendship. The Indians gave the explorers gold in exchange. (I wonder if they realized who got the shorter end of the stick on this trade).



For one of our activities today, we made colorful bracelets from beads. They were kind of small, but everyone did great beading them onto a chenille stem. I twisted the sides to close it and everyone was very pleased with their handicraft. They are so pleased with their finished products and were telling me that they are going to give it to their moms or dads. So I just wonder if that is the case, being that they liked it so much for themselves ;)


The letter of the week was letter D and today we cut pictures of different breeds of dogs and glued them onto the D for our books. All children seem to automatically LOVE animals. Many of you have family pets, and we heard a lot about them. Many of you have children that are hungry for a pet...sorry, I think I made it worse for you when they saw all the pictures of the dogs. But hopefully, we made a poignant memory of what letter D sounds like. Have a great weekend and don't forget that we have preschool on MONDAY!!