Field Trip to This is the Place- May 2015

We had a great time on our field trip to This is the Place state park.  We began our day by visiting and learning about all of the baby animals they have on their farm.

Then we visited the pioneer cabin.  We learned about all of the chores that the young boys and girls had to do, and we decided that our lives are pretty easy.

The pioneers had to wash all of their clothes by hand, and then hang them to dry- even in the cold winter!

They cleaned their rugs by hanging them outside and beating them with a stick.

They had to prepare their fields with hand plows.

Pioneer children even helped milk the cows.

Of course, our favorite parts of this field trip were playing on the playground and the train ride!

Thanksgiving

This year as we celebrated Thanksgiving, we talked about how our world is so much different then the world was when the Pilgrims joined the Native Americans here.  We have so much to be grateful for.  We have stores to buy our food, heaters to warm our homes, stoves to cook our food, and yes, we even have indoor toilets!  We learned about the different types of homes that the Native Americans and Pilgrims had.  We made tepee's and log cabins.

On the day of our Thanksgiving Feast, we made cornbread and homemade butter. Yummy!

Each of the children brought something to contribute to our Thanksgiving sandwich, just as the pilgrims and Native Americans each contributed to their first feast together.  

Folk Tales and Nursery Rhymes

In connection with our unit on Community Helpers, we talked a lot about stranger danger in our unit on Folk Tales.  The Gingerbread man taught us about never going anywhere with strangers.  Hansel and Gretel taught us about never taking things such as candy, from strangers.

We had fun decorating our own Humpty Dumpty's and then dropping them on different surfaces to see what would make them crack!

Our bedtime Nursery Rhyme day was a hit!  The kids had a great time wearing their PJ's to school and we enjoyed eating popcorn and watching The Muppets version of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

It's Autumn Time

  We made some beautiful fall leaves for our classroom tree.  First we glued colorful tissue paper on some leaves, and the next day we sponge painted some more leaves.  I think our tree looked fantastic!  We also talked about how many animals prepare for winter during the fall.  Many animals gather food stores, others prepare their burrows, and still others eat and eat and eat until they are ready to hibernate.