Animals in the Orchard

As an Experience Early Learning Blog Ambassador, we receive the Experience Early Learning preschool curriculum in exchange for sharing our honest and authentic stories resulting from our personal experiences. As always, our opinions on amazing things for children are 100% our own. Keep in mind that all preschoolers do things in their own time and on their own terms. What one is ready for, another might not be. Please use your best judgement when planning activities for your children.

This week with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time, we've been exploring Animals in the Orchard. We've learned about Porcupines, Birds, Bugs, Raccoons, and even Squirrels.

We had lots of fun with the Make & Play crafts, especially the Raccoon Mask. These activities are always a favorite because not only do the preschoolers have the opportunity to get creative, but they also get to play with their finished crafts.

The day we learned about birds, we also read about Johhny Appleseed and practiced retelling the story using our magnetic storytelling pieces from Experience Early Learning.

Our Make & Play activity for the day was a Johnny Appleseed Puppet, which was perfect for the children to take home and share the story with their families.

For this week's Squirrel lessons, we made an obstacle course in the classroom so the children could pretend to be squirrels. This was such a fun activity.

For the math center, we decided to hide the nuts in a "squirrel home," which we made from blocks, which combined the math activity and the STEAM station for the day.

It was also a great way to get the children even more engaged in the math center activity. After all, children learn best through play and the activities in each week's Teacher Guide are a perfect example of that.

Don't forget to check back next week to see what we're up to as we wrap up our Orchard Harvest theme with Experience Early Learning (formerly Mother Goose Time!