Monday, October 22, 2012

scarecrows -preschool style

I've been sporadic with posting school plans from this year.  I'm really gathering and reusing things from they past two years as most of the themes are repeats.  It's been a real time saver.  Instead of spending 4+ hours on a lesson, I'm spending 30 -60 minutes.  Which is great since Bee and Lou's homework has tripled!

This scarecrow theme was new to me though, so there was a bit of planning involved.  Here's what I did.


First I introduced the friends to my scarecrow. I used a home decor sort of guy from my house.  The photo above is just one for the flannel board I had in my files.  I Didn't really do anything with him.  I had my real scarecrow sing this little song (which I might add that the parent helper for that day video taped my whole lesson.  I did more singing than normal-  great footage for them.  If you like that kind of singing.... the off key kind)

Scarecrow (I'm a little teapot)
I'm a little scarecrow
stuffed with hay
Standing watch in my field all day.
When I see a crow
I like to shout
Hey Mr. Crow, you'd better watch out. 

Then, we acted like scarecrows.  I sang (more great footage for my leader parent) this little song and we acted out the song while being scarecrows with stiff bodies. 

Scarecrow, scarecrow (twinkle, twinkle)
Scarecrow, Scarecrow turn around,
scarecrow, scarecrow touch the ground.
Stand up tall and blink your eyes,
Raise your hands up to the sky.
Clap your hands and tap your knees,
Turn around and tap your feet.

Scarecrow, Scarecrow touch your toes,
scarecrow, scarecrow tap your nose.
Swing your arms so very slow,
Now real fast to scare the crows.
Touch your head, jump up and down.
Now sit down without a sound.

 I read this fun book, which was new to me. It's The Scarecrow's Hat by Ken Brown.  It was perfect for this day.  It's a sweet chain of events type of story with the chicken facilitating some trading of much needed items for some other farm animals.



We used pieces from the story as I read it to keep track of the characters and props involved.  I gave each child a different piece or character.  I had planned on using them for retelling too, but we really got them all confused on the felt board as they brought them up through the story.  I just gathered the props- a hat, a stick, a ribbon, glasses, a blanket, some wool, and a feather and printed out pictures of the characters- chicken, donkey, owl, sheep, scarecrow, duck, badger, and crow and attached velcro to the back of everything.



We did this little counting rhyme next:


We used these little scarecrows.  Theses were found searching a google image of 'scarecrow black and white clipart.'  I printed them out and colored them before laminating.


I thought this would be my favorite part, but the kids went silly on me and couldn't really follow along.  I shouldn't say that; a few friends followed along. 



I gave them each a sheet of paper with a scarecrow on it.  There was plenty of white space for 5 black paper crows.   The little song went something like this: (to which the kids were supposed to remove a crow when prompted in the song.)


5  black crows  (5 green and speckled frogs)
5 black and shiny crows
Sat on the scarecrows back,
eating some most delicious corn.  Yum, Yum. 
Scarecrow winked and shouted "Boo".
Scared one crow and away he flew.  
Now there are 4 black shiny crows.

 So several of the kids seemed to be in their own world and were removing the crows at will and not following along with the song.  Anyway, we'll keep practicing projects like that. 

Now is when there was knock on the door and hubby was there with these:



It was our anniversary!  13 years.  Good grief, that makes me old!

My own kids sent along these with hubby:



Back to school.  I had this book as my extra.  It was cute too and might be something I work in more next time.   


 The craft we did was from Parents.   


Here's another cute craft we did the next day (corn day- my partners turn to teach).  The kids dipped a pencil eraser in colored inks to stamp Indian corn.



My teaching partner and I really have been wanting to take a nice nature walk, but the area where we've gone in the past got really overgrown over the summer and hasn't been cut for us.  We keep asking, but it seems low on the priority list.

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