Grow Me. Grow You.

Preschool Theme: Pirates.

This lesson was fun to put together. The kids came in pirate jackets, jammies, socks, and tattoos. We had a fun time.

Circle Time. Each child stood up in the circle, and showed us something they "treasure". They had books, pictures, and a picture of a train. It's cute to see how confident they are now. We did the normal circle time activities, and for our big book today we read Mrs. Muddle Mud-Puddle that had a Halloween theme to it. Here are the words to the "Days of the Week" song we sing every week (sung to the tune of The Addam's Family Theme Song):

There's Sunday, then there's Monday
There's Tuesday, then there's Wednesday
There's Thursday, then there's Friday
And then there's Saturday

clap...clap

Days of the week

clap...clap

Days of the week
Days of the week
Days of the week

clap...clap

Art Time. Ship Mosaics.

Materials Needed:
Thermo Web (you can buy in the scrapbooking section at craft stores)

Something to hold the beans
Picture (from a coloring book or off the internet). Click on image below for this pirate ship.

Dried/colorful beans (got mine from the bins at Sprouts)

Directions
1. Print out picture.
2. Thermo Web is like a sheet of double sided tape. Stick it to the picture and peel off the other side when the kids are ready to go to work.
3. Put the beans out for the kids to "color" to make a mosaic. I used the plastic container the apples come in at Costco. I cut it in half and put half the beans in one side and half in the other (so all the kids could reach wherever they sat at the table).

Academic Time. We counted 10 shells for this sheet the kids colored shells, traced the number 10, and traced their name (I made dashes for their names at the top). Click on the image to print.

We celebrated letter J. Click image to print.

Snack and a Story. We had "Ants on a Log" (raisins on peanut butter stuffed celery). The kids had fun putting their "ants" on top.

Music Time. The kids learned a new song called "Beaver Time" today. The kids took these "pirate swords" (glow sticks) and had sword fights in a dark room and jiggled them around. They loved it (each a dollar at Dollar Tree). Here's a pic I took of them playing in the dark.

Science Experiment. The kids dropped as many drops of water on the penny as they could. We talked about surface tension.

Games. Hidden Treasure. I had a zip lock bag full of rice (rice from Sprouts) for each student.

Then, in empty baby food containers, I put some small little objects: dice, bugs, fake coins (for the pirate theme), wooden beads, jacks, and colored beads.

The students took one of each object and put in in their zip lock bag. For their "homefun" this week, the kids are going to gather tiny objects around their house to add. Once they get all the objects, they'll make a list of everything inside and tape it to the back. The kids search for the items in the bag-great for road trips or any time to keep kids busy. The bag can be stapled together or items can be added later if you don't want to seal it.

Physical Fitness. Treasure Hunt. Here are my scary...or silly pirates.

To make a pirate hat, click on the pirate hat image below.

I printed out the template, cut it out, and let the kids color it themselves.

I got large Popsicle sticks and made a super simple version of a treasure hunt. Each stick had a location on one side and a physical activity on the other (like 10 frog jumps). After they did the activity, one student would choose the next stick/location. I saved the last stick and it took us to the "treasure chest" (toy chest). Inside, I had gold covered candy and rings I had made for them. I found ring blanks on line and glued gem looking buttons and brads to them.