I’m soooo excited about this month’s preschool theme because I feel like it’s VERY needed in our house; specifically manners and treating others with respect. Not that my boys are disrespectful, I just would like for them to not fart in my face or at the dinner table. That’s all I ask for.
This will be our 3rd month preschooling, and you’ll notice I’ve added a little bit more to each day. Piggie, who is 4, is usually up for doing more than one activity. I’ve also added in little songs and shows to complement the week’s/month’s theme. Some days are much more light than others, which makes it easy to never fall behind.
I’m also happy with the books I found for us to read this month because they’re all educational or meaningful in some way. And as usual, I will update with pictures as we go along! Feel free to follow me on Instagram where I share our completed preschool activities, and if you want to get an even more authentic look at our behind the scenes, you can follow me on Snapchat at jsdimas.
Theme: Thanksgiving – helping others, being grateful, manners
Things to explore: The farm, farm animals
Celebrate: Thanksgiving!
Numbers: 5 & 6
Letters: T & Z
Color: Brown
Shape: Triangle
This month’s calendar, located in the free printable’s library
Week 1 – Helping Others
Monday: Kindness Cookie Jar activity | Watch: Happiness is Helping Others video
I am so excited to do this activity, and I scheduled it for the first day so that the whole month of November we can add a kindness cookie to our jar. I don’t have the book that is suggested in the link, but I want to show my boys this video, Happiness is Helping Others, and I know they’ll get an idea for nice things they can do every day for others. Also on my Pinterest board that you’ll find at the bottom of this post, I pinned an advent calendar that is full of good ideas.
Tuesday: Pumpkin Pie Sensory Play – I’m going to do this activity except with pumpkin pie clay, and I’m going to use cotton balls for the pretend cream topping! (I ended up just using mini marshmallows instead of cotton balls).
Wednesday: Friendship Flower (I basically want to create that flower craft and on the petals, I’ll ask the boys what nice things they can do for each other and their friends)| Watch: Sesame Street – Respect (Word on the Street)
Thursday: Nature Walk printable | Watch: Triangle Song
Friday: Q-Tip painting, letters T & Z | Watch: ABC Songs, Letter T & Letter Z
Week 2 – Being Grateful
Monday: Watch Dia de Accion de Gracias | Thankful Turkey craft | Turkey Pokey (I seriously could not find a good printable for this cute little turkey song, so I just created my own and it’s in the printables library)
Tuesday: Candy Corn printables for letter T & Z, numbers 5 & 6 | Watch: The Number 5, The Number 6
Wednesday: Read Being Thankful | Make Thankful Rocks
Thursday: Visit farm/zoo
Friday: Create a farm sensory box – inspiration here – I plan to fill a container with mud, water, grass, sticks, etc and add in their plastic farm animals.
Here’s how our sensory box turned out; I just put a bunch of sand in our container, filled it with water until it was muddy but firm, and then dug out a little river. We put blue coloring in the water, probably about 50 drops too many but Dacky got carried away. They added little sticks and twigs and just whatever they wanted.
Week 3 – Manners
Monday: Grace & Courtesy Game with paper plates | Watch: The Berenstain Bears Say Please and Thank You
Tuesday: Mayflower Ship Craft (using the picture for this pin as inspiration) this one is cute too | Watch: The Story of Thanksgiving
Wednesday: Watch: The Color Crew – Brown | Brown coloring page
Thursday: Thanksgiving Packet, pages 7, 8, 12, 13, 17
Friday: Watch Sesame Street – Courteous (Word on the Street)
Week 4 – Thanksgiving
Monday: Role play greeting relatives (I want to help the boys understand ways they can greet relatives and that they don’t have to hug/kiss/sit on laps if they don’t want to) | Mini Letter Books: T & Z
Tuesday: Watch La Historia de Thanksgiving | Thanksgiving Packet pages 20 & 21 (sorting and tracing)
Wednesday: Name Turkeys | Watch: Thank You for Thanksgiving
Thursday & Friday: Celebrate Thanksgiving!
What We’ll Be Reading This Month
- 10 Fat Turkeys (super cute book, my boys love this one)
- The Story of the Pilgrims
- Being Thankful
- The Night Before Thanksgiving
- The Very First Americans
- Please and Thank You Book
- Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving
- Thanksgiving for Emily Ann
- Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks
I already have all of these activities pinned on my special Pinterest board, which you can follow here:
- 10 Horrific Things I’ve Been Forced to Say as a Mom of Boys - March 16, 2020
- The Stages of Night Weaning a Boob-Obsessed Toddler - March 7, 2020
- Choosing a Homeschool Desk for Your Homeschool Room - March 7, 2020
This is awesome! Seriously, every day I looked at I was like I WANT TO DO THAT, TOO! I can’t wait to see it all come together!
Thanks Chelsea!! Yes I’m so excited for this month! I feel like each month gets a little more fun 🙂
What a lovely collection of activities Jessica! I like the variety.
How neat that you’re adding a bit more. You’ll probably find you’ll be doing this until you realize you’re at a full curriculum level. Isn’t that great… I just love that about homeschooling! You can just adjust things as you go along.
Fun and educational stuff! It looks like a great month!
Wishing you a lovely day.
xoxo
I’ve been telling all my friends and my mom that you said that about me adding things until I realize I’m at full curriculum level haha! Very encouraging to hear, thank you friend!
Love all of this! You have done a great job- very excited to follow along!!
Thanks Keri!!
November is another great month for teaching important life lessons. I’m curious, how do you choose what letters you’re going to focus on for the month?
Great ideas as usual Jessica!
Basically when I was trying to map out the whole year, I tried adding letters to certain months where I could really expand on them, like T for turkey, etc. Some months have some random letters but that was the original goal lol. Thanks Tiffany!
I absolutely love the ideas! What a fun November you’ve planned 🙂
Thank you Mila!! I really enjoyed planning it! 🙂