Ideas for Preschool in November
For adults, November brings about memories of Thanksgiving dinners and cornucopias filled with fruit, nuts and gourds of every shape and size. For preschoolers, a lot of these images are still new and unfamiliar. This November, help preschoolers explore and learn about Thanksgiving while celebrating an anniversary of some special friends they probably known well -- the crew at Sesame Street.
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Sesame Street
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Invite preschoolers to celebrate their favorite Sesame Street characters on November 10, the anniversary of Sesame Street's first airing in 1969. Read aloud books about Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster, Grover, Elmo and all the Sesame Street friends. Print out Sesame Street coloring pages and activity sheets for students to complete. In honor of Cookie Monster, have preschoolers help bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies to share at the end of the day.
Thanksgiving
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Read aloud books about Thanksgiving such as "Happy Thanksgiving, Biscuit," by Alyssa Capucilli, or "The Perfect Thanksgiving," by Eileen Spinelli. Discuss some Thanksgiving traditions such as getting together with family, eating a big dinner and being thankful for the things we have. Ask preschoolers what they are thankful for and write responses on cutouts of a horn of plenty or turkey. Preschoolers might say, "I am thankful for my mom and dad" or "I am thankful for my friends." Invite preschoolers to color their cutouts and hang on a Thanksgiving-themed bulletin board.
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Turkey Crafts
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Invite preschoolers to make turkey crafts by stamping their hand print on a sheet of paper, then drawing the turkey's feet, eyes and wattle. Create colorful turkeys by tracing each student's feet on brown paper. Cut out footprints to make the turkey's body, then glue on colorful paper feathers. Make turkeys out of pine cones by gluing craft feathers to the back of the pine cone and googly eyes on the tapered pine-cone end. Add a red pipe cleaner wattle to complete pine-cone turkeys.
Gourds
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Bring in gourds of various colors, sizes and shapes such as ornamental pumpkins, butternut squash, carnival squash, daisy gourds and other small ornamental gourds. Allow preschoolers to sort the gourds by color, size, shape, or smooth versus bumpy texture. Provide scales and tape measures for preschoolers to weigh and measure gourds. Give preschoolers a small gourd and allow them to use paint and markers to decorate the gourds with faces or make into animals such as a turkey.
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