BOOK OF THE MONTH: A is for Autumn

Autumn Activities:

• Try some of these great corn activities from Preschool Express.
• Fingerpaint with yellow and red paint to make orange.
• In the sensory table, add hay/straw and toy tractors, pumpkins, and other fall items.
• Make fall colored play dough (orange, red, brown).
• Make leaf prints by painting the vein side of a leaf and pressing it onto paper.
• In the art area, fill the collage jars with fall colored scraps of paper, tissue paper, yarn, ribbon.
• Visit Preschool Express for lots of pumpkin activities.
• Try this easy pumpkin muffin recipe.
• Make a "Fall Bingo" game (see sample) by making a blank Bingo Grids in a word processing program. Find pictures/images on the internet and insert fall pictures (such as acorns, leaves, pumpkins, etc). Depending on the size of the class, you will want to make 5-8 different cards. Print on cardstock and laminate.

Find many, many more Fall activities in these Autumn Posts:

• Apples and Pumpkins
• Autumn Trails
• Monster Mash

BOOK OF THE MONTH: No Thumpin', No Bumpin', No Rumpus Tonight!

This is a book I used to read to my kindergarten class. It must be out of print because Amazon only has collectible and used copies.  In this funny story, Benjamin and Elephant fix a birthday breakfast for Benjamin's mother and you can imagine that despite their attempts NOT to wake mom, there was a lot of thumpin', bumpin, and rumpus. But Benjamin and Elephant manage to clean up everything just before Mom is ready for breakfast. The rhyming text and vivid pictures make this book enjoyable for children. This book looks hard to come by, so if you find a copy, please enjoy it! It's a funny story that I think you will read again and again.

Here are some supporting activities for this story:

• Real vs Pretend: Compare real elephants with Elephant in this story. Make a list on chart paper or on a Venn Diagram to compare/contrast. Have children list ways that they can tell that this is FICTION and not FACT. Four and five year olds are capable of learning the difference.
• Recipes: Have children dictate a recipe that they would make for their mother or father. The children can also illustrate their recipes. And if  you are interested in fundraising, you can take these "recipes" and bind them into books for the parents to purchase.
• Learn the difference between African and Asian elephants. Although there are several differences, the one that most preschoolers will remember is that African elephants have bigger ears.
• Elephant Appreciation Day is on September 22. Who knew?
• Make orange juice: In the story, Benjamin and Elephant take a messy approach to making orange juice by playing baseball with the oranges before squeezing them. But preschoolers will enjoy using a plain old plastic juicer to squeeze oranges into orange juice!
• Read Moses Supposes His Toeses Are Roses: And 7 Other Silly Old Rhymes, also by Nancy Patz.

What are your favorite Father's Day books and activities? (Comment for a chance to win!)

Here are some of  favorite books that feature dads! Click on the image for more details.

Please tell us your favorite Father's Day Books and Activities in the comments below. Or you can tell us how you handle children in your class that might not have a dad. One randomly selected commenter will win a children's book! Deadline for comments is June 19 at midnight.

June 14th is Flag Day!

• Footprint flag:
1. Take a sheet of blue construction paper and allow children to cut and paste 50 star shapes on the paper.
2. On white tagboard, lightly pencil off a section in the left corner (you will later glue the blue starred paper here).
3. This part may be best done outside: fill a shallow tray with red paint. Let children step in the red paint and walk across the white tagboard, making the red "stripes" of the flag. Tips: make sure to add a shallow thin layer of paint to the tray (too much paint will make blobs instead of footprints; hold the child's hand while they walk across the paper so that they don't slip; after they walk across, have a hose to rinse children's feet off.)
4. After the paint dries, attach the blue stars and tadahhhh, you have a flag!
• Flag Cake:
1. Bake a yellow cake in a rectangular 9x13 pan.
2. While cake is cooling, rinse strawberries and blueberries. Hull and slice strawberries length wise.
3. After cake cools, add white frosting. Then add blueberries in the left corner and add strawberries for the stripes.
4. OR, you can try this no-bake recipe from Kraft!
• Craft Stick Flag: The directions from Enchanted Learning suggest that you cut tiny stars but you can also use a star hole punch like this one this one from Amazon and the kids love it! 
• Learn about Betsy Ross.

Black History Month For Preschoolers

How do you celebrate Black History Month with preschool and kindergarten children? Or do you celebrate it at all with this age group? I say… NO. I know, I know….as an African American female, I should be supportive of Black History Month. And really I am - sadly, many people wouldn't even think about Black History if it wasn't for February. But I’d like us to move away from having the need to highlight African Americans once a year. We are creating a new generation of thinkers…a new generation of citizens…what can we do to help everyone move beyond this segmented view of African American history?


If your classroom only reads books about Martin Luther King and Barack Obama in February, then there is a problem. I’m challenging early childhood educators to expose children to people of all races and cultures regardless of what the calendar says. Even if every child in your classroom is the same race, diversity still has a place. The world is diverse all year around, not just in February.


We, as early childhood educators, “get it right” when a lot of others don’t. I think the public school systems can learn a lot from us. Too often, when kids get to “real school” the system paints all kids with one big brush, and if you don’t fit, you either fall through the cracks or end up in a special education program. In early childhood, we know how to tailor our curriculum to fit the needs of individual children. We know that gym and recess aren't "extra-curricular" activities, but that physical activity is necessary for healthy development. We know that we have to attend to the “whole child” and not just his or her test-taking ability. We know that children learn by doing and that authentic assessment has little to do with paper and pencil tests. I think we’ve got it right in a lot of ways. So, since we are the forerunners and foundation-layers in education, we are in a position to set an example for children, families, and other educators. Let’s use Black History Month as a reminder to ourselves that diversity should be a part of everything we do.


I challenge you, not to say "NO" to Black History Month, but to make every month about diversity, acceptance, and inclusiveness. When you are doing your farm unit, learn about George Washington Carver, not because it’s February, but because it’s relevant to your curriculum or theme. Take a new approach to history – look at every unit and theme that you introduce and find a relevant, sensitive, and appropriate way to expose children to diversity so that it becomes a part of everyday conversation, not something separate that we put away at the end of the month. Change starts with us…

Teacher Tip: Avoiding Holiday Burnout in the Classroom - Less is More

Holiday time can be overstimulating even for those of us who have had years of experience navigating the hustle and bustle that comes in December. But imagine you are just 2 years old. Your quiet predicable world is snatched out from under you only to be replaced with loud music, twinkling lights, bright colors, crinkling of paper, giant snowmen on every lawn, lighted reindeer everywhere you look, longer days at day care (while parents work, shop, or both), regular teachers and caregivers are on vacation...it's massive sensory overload at home AND at school. It's often too much for preschoolers. So, sometimes, less is more!



Here are a few tips for helping your little ones survive the holidays:

1. Keep classroom routines the same.
2. Avoid spending the entire month focusing on celebrations and holidays. Limit your holiday-themed activities to the 3-5 days before the holiday.
3. Limit holiday decor in the classroom. The younger the child, the fewer decorations you need. Infants, toddlers, and twos have a limited or no concept of holidays. Preschoolers certainly have a better understanding of holidays but they too can become overwhelmed.
4. Incorporate more calming activities like Yoga Kids: For Ages 3-6 because children may need more relaxation.

What are your tips for maintaining sanity during in your preschool classroom?

Teacher Tip: Turkey Apples for Thanksgiving



I can't take credit for this wonderful little art project, but it was just too cute not to share! A Spanish Teacher who comes to our child care center each week made these awesome little turkeys with the children last week. She also taught them to say turkey in Spanish: el Pavo!

Turkey Time!

It seems like just last week we were lounging by the pool and slathering on sunscreen...and now it's time for Thanksgiving! Here are some favorite Thanksgiving books that your preschool and kindergartners might enjoy. Special thanks to all of my Tweeps for sending in their favorites!

• Child_Care_Info created a great list of favorite Thanksgiving books.
• ReachoutandRead loves Pumpkin Soup and all things pumpkin!
• StressFreeKids has some Thanksgiving Day Tips here: Don't Get Gobbled Up By Stress.
• 2ndstorywindow likes a A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting. There are more favorites here.
• Lisaunbury loves Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markers.
• MelissaZD enjoys This Is the Turkey by Abby Levine.
• Bluskyz mentioned  Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving.
• Connect2Jamie's kids just loveThanksgiving in the Barn.
• ChildCareofKY likes Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving.