Turkey bowling

Do you know why do Americans play a football all three days of Thanksgiving?

Look at this guy! I think he is very good player! I feel he wants to score, no.... knock  out the bird!

 Guess which? Sure, turkey! That was surprise for me when I found somewhere in internet this information. Look at this picture!(source Wikipedia)

So? Why we can not play on Thanksgiving? No, we are not going to play football... we will play "Turkeyball"!

 You will need at least 10 children who want to play this game;

Easy template to draw a turkey;

Crayons or paint to colour it;

Plastic bottle with water (water makes it stable);

Two pumpkins medium size;

Tape - sticky and any tape to make a line.

Draw the turkey and color it.

Cut out and tape on the bottle.

Go out and find nice flat field with grass.( You can play also on pavement but game will finish fast because you will crack the pumpkin. At list you will have another science project to explore what is inside the pumpkin...)

Ok, you can play in classroom if you children will not throw the pumpkin as a player on the picture!

Make two teams and put them on the line. Put turkeys in from of children.

Let children shoot the turkeys in pairs and count haunted turkeys.

Can you imagine? Girls won!!!!

Harvest time for very little people

Still my grades 2th are exploring fruits and vegetables I had my art class in toddlers room. I love those little people who exactly know what to do with the stuff which they got. Such silly adults, they collect crops in those wonderful baskets, but don't know how it is cool to sit inside a big basket!
We had for our activity:
3 baskets in different sizes and shapes - one the biggest was the most used, that was rectangle basket and everyone wanted to sit inside!
We had pumpkins and corn all natural.
Pumpkins were again in different colours and shapes; corn was dry and had a husk.
We compare baskets and pumpkins, collect corn and pumpkins in different baskets, divided pumpkins small and big, Hey Look at this - little boy 1,4 - sweeps the floor with husk! Did you think that you may use corn as a broom? MMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm.........It is interesting!

We also play some games such as "Pass the  pumpkin", children were learning to pass soft pumpkin to next person, but hold it when music change!

And we rolled the pumpkin around the room! So much fun!!!!!
Time for ART!
You will need:
Brown paper bag;
Piece of green paper to make a leaf;
Tape to fix the leaf;
 Couple strings of dry grass.
A lot of news paper
Tear news paper in smaller pieces and crumple it.

Now stuff brown bag with news paper.

Twist the top of bag and fix the leaf with tape.
Tie twisted part with grass!

Hey!!!  We got the pumpkin! 

Help your child to draw eyes and mouse and there you go!

 Jack-o-Lantern - BOOOOOO!

Or just the pumpkin for Thanksgiving!

I will take it home!I will take it home!-Repeated my little friend, who could talk. Rest of them just silently hold their pumpkins in their hands....Strong...

I am going to share my experience with Liza here

Crumpled apple and 3D pumpkin.

Nothing new! Impressed by the harvest basket children decided to make a vegetable and fruit collage. What techniques they choose? They are very good to work with tissue paper;

 but suddenly Michel told: "Do you remember , last Christmas we made a round paper ornament? I would like to make a 3D pumpkin, is it possible? "
Yes , why not?
I think there are  many tutorials  in internet about this toy. We just reminded what we will need:
1 and 1/2 page construction paper
Scissors, ruler, pencil
Hole puncher,
Two pipe cleaners
Piece of green construction paper for leaf
Divide paper with ruler and pencil in half,(you will need approximately 3 halfs)
 and after in stripes around 2 cm
Cut rectangles and make with hole puncher holes at the end of each side
put the bead on the end of pipe cleaner (choose the colour according to your fruit or vegetable)
Cut last half in half along and make a paper pipe (fix with tape or glue.
Now put 14-16 rectangles on the pipe cleaner.
Put the paper pipe on the pipe cleaner as well. That will keep your stripes at the bottom and top.

Now you should strung rectangles on the pipe cleaner, starting from very bottom, one by one.
Watch children if they are doing it neatly one by one, do not  miss any one!
Finally you will get perfect ball. Or almost perfect.
Fix the top with another bead and finish steam with the leaf.
Let me know if you have any problem!

Fix the top with another bead and finish steam with the leaf.
Let me know if you have any problem!

These green stripes

are for watermelon. We decided to draw dark green stripes on each rectangle.

It has seeds inside!

Ready for Thanksgiving!

Harvest Time!

Today we explored HARVEST! Ok , we had a trip to the farm and we observed how apples and pumpkin growing up; but I was surprised many of my children still have no idea how are certain vegetables and fruit  growing! So, today we discovered different fall crops! Oh, wow! Do you know that you might use the beets as a blush? Do you know what is chokeberry? Oh, you may have it instead the ink!!!!Or make a juice! Where the bread growing actually? How to make a flour? What is common between eggplant and tomato? Why eggplant called like that? That only little part of questions which children asked!

We explored some vegetables by cutting them in half, so we could see what is inside. They were very interested if any apple such as crab apple and other have a star inside. Look! Star in this apple looks like David's star! yes, surprisingly that star had 6 rays instead 5!

 Children noticed that tomato and eggplant have same location seeds inside and it looks like flower! Children guessed that tomato and eggplant  are from same family probably. 

We discovered new berries for us, such as viburnum or guelder rose, chokeberry. They find out that viburnum had only one bone inside and a lot of juice; chokeberry was not so juicy but its slice looked like an apple slice.

viburnum

So many discoveries! And it is only beginning!

Apple Farm trip

That was my luck, I just remind myself this wonderful story about little red house and WE HAD A TRIP ON APPLE FARM!!!!
Day was sunny and warm, so my children enjoyed riding school bus. Who-ho! We are finally  on the farm and entered an apple orchard. Some rows were done already, but there still were a lot of apples!

Do you know that an apple and pumpkin have the same parts of body? Such as skin, ribs, eye and bellybutton!

Corn maze....Yes, it is fun, certainly...If you don't have 5 little children running around the hallways...

Do you see this little red circle on the left side? That actually part which we discovered with my children. But even that was more than enough!

We really had a fun on the farm. And next day we were talking about little red house... The name of little girl was Ashley. At this time but it may be Katia, Masha or Maria, does not matter. Children every time enjoyed listening that story.

About little red house with no windows, no doors, no chimney on top, but with little star inside. 

A little round red house...

Do you know the story about little red house with no window, no door and chimney and with the little star inside?If you still did not read this story to your children it is time to do that!
Fall is time for harvest. It is the best time to explore with children any harvest things:
You can :

• Explore corn and talk discuss with children Thanksgiving; they will enjoy tear leaves and make a doll with ! Do you have any idea how many rows has any corn cob?

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/zapolara/post222932159/
http://samodelkino.mirtesen.ru/blog/43968596963/Kuklyi-iz-kukuruznyih-listev.-Istoriya-i-master-klass-ot-Mihaila
http://www.sdelaemsami.com/2013/09/blog-post_14.html

• Talk with children about pumpkin  and Halloween. Discover what  is inside the pumpkin, make a mosaic with coloured pumpkin seeds and pumpkin house for little mouse.

http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=118893
http://www.drjean.org/html/monthly_act/act_2009/02_Feb/pg15.html
http://www.club4eva.ru/dom-s-privideniyami-na-hellouin-svoimi-rukami/

• Discuss with children apple life cycle and play a puppet show with your soft toys about little red house...

http://www.missbsclassroom.com/thinking-story-the-little-red-house-with-no-doors-and-no-windows/

http://www.missbsclassroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/MissB-TheLittleRedHouse-ThinkingStory.pdf

Fall is a wonderful time when we can get from Mother Nature all her presents.... So, be thanks-full and tell your child to be respectful to Nature.

At the end of the class we were making a play dough apples. To make it easy for older children i made for them a card:

1. Make a red play dough ball
2. Make a smaller green play dough ball. Squeeze it from one side with fingers( make a drop) and make it flat. It will be a leaf
3. Make 3-4 yellow very skinny sausages - stack it to red ball and flat it - for very young children - avoid this step.
4. Make  brown small sausage - it will be stem.
5. Make small brown ball - it will be place of flower.
6. Connect all parts together.
7. Dry it for a few days or bake it in oven 2-3 hours. 

Fall - is time for Harvest! 

Happy New School Year!!!!

Did you think I died on camping? No, I am STILL alive! STILL because I am hardly working on Lesson plans "ORFF CURRICULUM". There is some tips check it and I will tell you how it is working in my point of view.

We started our new Musical-Singing-Speaking-Dancing Journey! Join us! Everyone is welcome, everyone can play!

Read more :

http://aosa.org/about/what-is-orff-schulwerk/

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/emc/orff-approach

http://www.orff.ru/

http://orff-schulwerk.narod.ru/