Fall Field Trip (for the Co-op)!

Where better to take the co-op preschool class than to a pumpkin patch & corn maze?! For $8/child (parents were free of charge since we all teach our group--woot!) the kids were able to take a hay ride, go through the kid's corn maze, peruse the pumpkin patch and take their favorite pumpkin home, and ride on the cow train! It was about a 2 1/2 hour event (including the time it took us all to finish lunch) but the kids had a blast and it was certainly a memorable experience for the whole group :)

*A note about the following pictures: these are from my first batch of film used with my manual camera. (Read again, if needed. The shock can be intense.) This season has put me in the mood to use my old camera--something I haven't done in almost 10 years! I bought two rolls of black and white film (one of which I'm still waiting to be developed...because it takes two weeks...because b&w film is, sadly, a dying invention) and one in color, and I figured...if we're going to a pumpkin patch, on a farm, where the reds and oranges will be too vibrant to pass up the chance to take pics in color...then this is the time to use that roll ;) With all of that said...I've learned that a faster shutter speed is, in deed, necessary when taking pics of kids!!
Nonetheless, here are my favorite ones (and the only good ones LOL):

 Aislin with one of her preschool buddies, and Des at the back--as much a big kid as the others in his rain coat and boots!

 "Cheeeeese!"

 Cuties!

:)

 Gotta roll up those sleeves to do this job right!

 "Hi, Mom!"

The kids ran through the corn maze to find the next page of the "Spookly" story!

These next pics and video were taken with my phone...obviously lol ;)

On the cow train!

Gotta love this kid :)

Yes, I kept Des from hopping on the train...because it went fast enough that I was worried he'd just scream his face off! He was already uncomfortable enough having to trek through dirt that day, with no even ground to stand on, and he certainly didn't appreciate the times I let go of his hand just so I could take these pictures...so I figured he'd sit this one out. Bob was kind enough to wave to him, though :)

For some reason, blogger was having a hard time letting me put my video on the blog...so HERE'S the link to the video via dropbox!

Magnets, Dry-erase Marker, and Letters...Oh My!

Letter match invitation

I love when an activity works out using materials you already have!

I prepared this one night as an invitation to match lowercase to uppercase letters once the kids saw it in the morning. It was a success!! My 4-year-old and my 2-year-old were both intrigued, and the younger one even got a few on his own and said those letters out loud! 

The reason it's a success is because it's been up for the past few days, and the kids still stop by the board to match up the letters :)

Science? Yes, please!

We know our daughter loves art. Now to test the science hypothesis...

A couple weeks ago I bought a children's book from Barnes and Noble called "My Body." I got it knowing that Aislin was interested in bones/the skeletal system, so I had planned to use it for a home preschool lesson and wondered if it would be as successful as the flower anatomy lesson we had last spring. It took me forever to get around to this lesson! This brand new book sat in its B&N bag for weeks, and then after I had cleaned the desk a couple days ago, it sat on top of a shelf. It wasn't until Aislin saw it on the shelf that I remembered it was there...and that something I had paid for was going unused! Sometimes that's all the motivation one needs ;)

So today we finally did the lesson.

The book is broken up into several different topics related to the body, from its senses to its skeleton, so I just showed the kids the few pages related to the skeleton. (At least I'll have tons of material to use for different lessons later on!) The kids stayed engaged throughout group time because they got to poke themselves and feel their different bones. Afterwards, we went upstairs for the art activity, which was putting a skeleton together, identifying the parts we had just learned about, and then coloring those parts with the same color of their labels.

It was a lot of work! Still, Aislin got through it without whining or getting distracted.

I had given Des something to color, but he, on the other hand, doesn't care as much for art lol. Go figure ;) Tim and I have thought about getting him legos or blocks of different shapes (since the kids have long since grown tired of the square alphabet/number blocks that they've had since Aislin was a year old), so that'll be another experiment ;)

Conclusion: YES, Aislin's strongest interests are rooted in science and art. Yes, she can focus on something without being totally annoying, and usually that focus is at its best when she's learning from her two favorite subjects. And yes, this lesson was as successful as the one on flower anatomy!