Thanksgiving is Almost Here

Since it's November, Gavin and I have started reading a few books about Pilgrims. I thought since he's almost four, it's time to learn the story. So far, he's enjoying it. He remembered the Pilgrims came here from England and their ship was called the Mayflower. We've also started the first of many Thanksgiving activities.


First, we made a "Give Thanks" banner for the fireplace using sticks, grass, seeds and leaves we have found on our walks or in our yard (we also used craft feathers - we did not find these in our yard nor did we pluck them off an actual bird). I folded construction paper to look like a pennant, then wrote one letter per paper. Gavin traced the letter with the glue stick (I had to use Elmer's for the sticks and seeds) and then he put whatever item he decided to form each letter. When he was done we let it dry and hung it up on the fireplace. I think it turned out cute!

The glue on our 'T' ran a little bit so I took it off to give it some more time to dry.

Anyway, then we made a 'things we are thankful for' tree. It looks bare now, but hopefully by Thanksgiving it will be in full bloom. We are each adding a leaf each day for something we are thankful for. Hopefully, Gavin will start understanding what Thanksgiving is all about. And yes, the tree is a little funky looking, but it works. Making a tree out of construction paper is harder than you'd think...

The other thing Gavin worked on today were some file folder games. I have found lots of Websites that have free Preschool file folder games and have copied out some good ones but never got around to putting them together. So, this weekend Gavin helped me laminate the pieces and I set the games up in the folders. He's been playing with them the last few days and seems to like them so far. They are nice because he can pick them up and play them himself.

This one is a bird matching game. But instead of having a second picture of the exact same bird, the pictures in the folder are the whole picture, but the picture on the card just shows a little square of the whole picture so you have to pay attention and figure out which bird it is.

This one is just an alphabet puzzle where the letters on each block of ice match the block of ice on the igloo. Austin had a good time watching his big brother work on his letters.

Gavin's favorite, of course, is the football folder. It's really too easy for him. Each of the field goals is numbered 1-12 and each football is also numbered 1-12. You just stick the football in the correct field goal.

And finally, the Cars game. It's too big for a file folder, but each card has either an upper case or lower case letter on it. You just match them up. I spread out the upper case letter cards on the floor for Gavin and he put the matching lower case letter on top of the correct card.

This morning I went to Gavin's preschool for parent/teacher conference. Gavin got high praises, which we expected. He's doing very well this year. However, H1N1 has made it to his school. Several kids were out sick yesterday but only one is a confirmed case. Since there's only 10 kids in his class that doesn't make me too happy. I was really hoping it would pass over us although I knew it wasn't likely. The rational side of me thinks it's not a big deal, but the mother side of me is freaking just a little bit. Anyway, so far the boys show no signs of being sick, hopefully, it will stay that way.