All the leaves are falling down!

How precious are these girlies!!!  So this week we began our study on the letter "Y" and what a great time of year to be discussing yellow.  With all the leaves falling we have plenty of opportunity to lots of "materials" laying all around.  We started the week collecting, sorting, and matching all kinds of yellow, orange, red, green and brown leaves.  Pictured here we were ALL yellow!  We decided that they would display the best on black paper, grabbed the glue and began to CREATE!  Most of our little ones (ages 2 and 3) randomly placed the leaves on the paper.  Some created a pattern of big, small, big, small.  We talked ALL about how leaves change colors and WHY they change.  We learned a new song to the tune of London Bridges...

All the leaves are falling down,
falling down, falling down.
All the leaves are falling down,
In the Autumn.

Yellow leaves are falling down,
falling down, falling down.
Yellow leaves are falling down,
In the Autumn.

Orange leaves are falling down,
falling down, falling down.
Orange leaves are falling down,
In the Autumn.

Golden leaves...
Red leaves...
Brown leaves...
Crunchy leaves...

They really enjoyed this song and it was a fun one to sing outside while leaf color hunting too.  We hunted and collected all the different colors and mixed and matched.  We noticed that when the wind blew the leaves falling looked like golden rain showering down on us.  We got out all the rakes and made piles (little ones) and played in the leaves, throwing them up and watching them fall again.  We also observed that the leaves came from different trees and we matched the tree to it's leaves as we looked at the branches and treetops.  This is such a great time of year for all the children to be able to observe change and growth in the the seasons.  We had a really fun time with our "Yellow" theme...

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Yak attack!!

Another letter "Y" word we studied was "Yak."  This simple word is fun to say and easy for the older children to build words with.  It's a great phonics word since you spell it JUST like it sounds.  Pictured here are a couple of our little fella's preparing their brown bags with yak faces, yellow yak yarn for the hair, yak tails and yak expressions.  When we make puppets around here its a messy process!  The yarn hair requires puddles and puddles of glue (that's the way they like it!) and the children are HAPPY to oblige!!! 

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These turned out SO great!!! Look at those googley eyes! Who doesn't LOVE to use those??? All of our children love anything with a googley eye! The glue and yarn were a MAJOR bonus. During this lesson we discussed that Yaks have LOTS of hair and that our Yaks needed to have lost of hair too. I challenged them to use more and more and more yellow yarn. They just kept adding more and more glue and really relished in the process of this project. The children did have to allow their puppets to dry for SEVERAL hours, but once dry, they were perfectly operational!

Yellow Yarn Yo-Yo's

During this day's letter "Y" is for Yellow lesson we made "yellow yarn yo-yo's."  We cut toilet paper rolls in half and then we placed several slits in the upper and lower rim as pictured here.  We made the top and bottom with yellow posterboard circles we cut out and tied a yellow yarn to each roll.  The children flattened out the cut rims as we discussed what "flat" meant.  They then, again, used puddles of glue to secure both the upper and lower circles to their yo-yo tube as we talked about the shapes of the cylindar and the circles.  We then measured the yarn and tied a knot around the tube and helped each child roll the string around the tube.  They unrolled the yarn and we rolled it back again!

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Yellow 'dough and spelling "YO!"

ANY week would be incomplete without utilizing our favorite learning tool...playdough!  I totally wish I could have a magical playdough fairy that made all this fun squishy stuff for us!!!  Hey playdough corp.  if you are out there, branch out and make playdough's that are sparkled, colorable, chunky, textured, scented, etc...WE LOVE the stuff!

We studied the letter "X" last week and made off white playdough for all the bones we were forming.  This week we bought a tube of yellow and mixed, mixed, mixed the white playdough with all the fingers at the table and watched in AMAZEMENT as it turned YELLOW!  We then began our word building session with it making every word we could think of that began with the letter "Y," including the letter.  We made "yellow," "yak," "yarn," yo-yo," "Y," and "y"...as you can see here, we also needed to spell the names of our special people in yellow :)). 

We also made yellow balls, snakes, butterflies, pumpkins and spiders.  We compared the sizes of the balls we made and counted the objects as we created. 

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Even our little ones join in!

Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, Please Shine Down On ME!!!

This was another of our favorite songs this week as we studies the letter "Y" and yellow.  We used this as a colors lesson as we would go around the room and find things of different colors as we would sing Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Yellow Sun...or Mr. Blue Sun...or Mr. Purple Sun...etc.  We also added our own little hand and body motions.  As you sing this with your preschooler you will notice them making a circle with their fingers as they sing, then peeking behind their hands, etc.  Please feel free to ask Ms. Rebecca or myself to demonstrate the song for you if you are missing anything!

The Gang's all here!

Along with our yellow sun song we also made yellow "y's" that glittered with all the colors of the rainbow. 

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A few more things...

One more leaf matching, color recognition, learning craft...

It's not yellow, but its FUN! This book was generously donated by one of our children's grandparents. THANK YOU!!! She was a Kindergarten teacher and knows everything pre-k FUN!!! What a blessing to have such a wonderful lady thinking of us :))!!!

We started with various colors of fall leaves cut out with construction paper and glued together to make a fall wreath. We again discussed how and why the leaves change colors and what happens due to the shorter days. We placed the leaves in order of their color changes and then allowed the children to decorate their wreaths however they chose.

Just one of our math activities that we love and use LOTS. Everytime we have fruitloops for a snack we also use them for counting, sorting, patterning, adding and subtracting practice. Who knew such a sweet treat was SO educational!?!