November: Upcoming themes, and yes I am not doing them all.

November like October, has wonderful theme Ideas for your little preschooler. When I think of November I think of Thanksgiving, Football, Animals going into Hibernation, and celebrating veterans.

November is also a time to teach your kiddos about history. Why we have Thanksgiving, why we celebrate Veterans, etc. Which is big.

For November the following are our themes that are provided by PrekPrintablefun:

1. November 2-6 = Spider ( I have no clue why, but I hate spiders and wont be doing this them just about spiders. Ill explain later)
2. November 9-13= Leaves and Trees= All about the changing of the seasons, which is perfect because here in Arizona we wont be officially in our fall until then. Yes it is supposed to get cooler next week with Halloween, but with our fall its usually high of 70’s and low of 50’s. So we wont be there until November 9th.
3. November Squirrels and Acorns= I love this theme, but its mainly about Hibernation. Perfect teaching moment, and lots of fun pretend play ideas.
4. November 23-27 = Turkeys and Thanksgiving = The only perfect theme for that week. Lots of fun and lots of ideas.

November is also the in between month. Which is sad to say, but when you go to the mall right now ( a WEEK before Halloween) and all the other department stores, are starting to put up and out Christmas. LOL. It always drive me crazy. I wanted Halloween and Thanksgiving have their chance to shine. I dont know if this bugs any of you, but this just sends my anger into overdrive. It was worse when I worked at the mall and I saw them putting up the decorations. I wanted to yell at the mall and tell them to wait until NOVEMBER 1st before doing this. LOL. Oh I know its silly, but WHATEVER.

So even though while you are out and about in November and its fall/autumn out their , there is going to be lots of Christmas going around. Just keep your preschoolers focus while you are out, focused on the present. Yes you can say, “Christmas is coming, but by now, your students should have understanding of the MONTHS. You explain that we are in November and Christmas is at the end of December.

The months of the year are an easy thing to learn as long as its part of your daily routine during circle time ( Focus wall) to sing the months of the year to him/her/them so they learn to recognize them. Plus, you need to have a picture that has the word of the month and something that describes the month on it. On a focus wall printable, they have the months of the year to print off ( it should), if not its on a calendar kit. Now PrekPrintablefun has lots of these to print off.

I bought my months of the year as a poster from Lakeshore and cut it up and them laminated it.

Prekprintable fun only has a fall and winter calendar kit, so I wasn’t going to wait on those, so that’s why I bought the poster. Plus I am used to making my own Calendar area.

Just a reminder what it looks like.

I have changed it up since this picture, but not by much. I still use the month poster cut ups as the month of the year, and then I have below the calendar the last month and the next month up.

When we sing our month song, you need to still hold up all the pictures, but then when its time to get to the actual months on the board, you point to the wall. My daughter and son know when its time to do that by now too. Which is good. It only took a month to do it. So if you haven’t taught them their months, you need to get on that.

Back to November. Here are the themes I am doing in November.

1. November 2-6 = INSTECTS: not just doing spiders, I am doing her insect lesson plan, that is actually supposed to be done in MAY ( the last week) but I have decided to have the last day of school the week of the 17th. We will be skipping the Worms and Snails unit too for the the end of the school year, but more on that at another time.
2. November 9-13= Leaves and Trees= I will be keeping this them for this week. The changing of the seasons is a very important to learn for a preschooler. In Arizona we don’t have very good trees that show that, but if you are willing ( I know we are) you can travel to a near by area that has those kind of trees. Make it a field trip.
3. November Hibernation= With the kit about Squirrels and Acorns, I will also be doing hibernation for all animals that are getting ready for Winter. Bears, skunks, groundhog ( little bit of a future spring lesson in this) bugs, etc. Plus a little bit of a BRUMATE lesson. for those who don’t know, snakes go into a brumation during the winter.
4. November 23-27 = Turkeys and Thanksgiving = A great theme for kids during this week. So many cool and fun things that go with it. So looking forward to it.

Have fun everyone. Have a Happy Halloween. Which is next weeks theme. I will post that lesson ideas up on Friday.