Merry Christmas!

The theme for the third week of December was "Merry Christmas". It was a very short week for us, with a half day on Christmas eve and off on Christmas, so we had a lot of fun planned with our small winter break group!

This week we read: How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas? by Jane Yolen
                                 How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
                                 The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
                                 Snowmen at Night by Carolyn Buehner

Our question of the week was "What would your elf name be?"

For our theme "Merry Christmas", we got ready to celebrate! It was the beginning of Winter Break for the public schools, which means we had a smaller group than usual. We did a lot of fun activities, played games and had an all around good time. We checked out these Christmas ISpy books.

We sang the song "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"! and went back to our very loud rendition of "Jingle Bells".

Using pipe cleaners we made two different ornaments. To make a tree the kids picked out some beads and strung them onto a green pipe cleaner. Then we folded them back and forth to make an abstract tree shape.
To make a candy cane, the kids strung fruity cheerios on pretty striped pipe cleaners. Great for fine motor skills! Some kids made patterns, some only looked for certain colors, and some just had a blast with it!

We made hot chocolate! I wrote up a recipe on the whiteboard, and we went step by step... yum!

We wrote in journals about "I want for Christmas..." Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

I cut up small pieces of red, peach and white construction paper so we could made Santa Mosaics. I introduced the kids to mosaic art, and showed them some examples. Then we talked about how to make a picture of Santa. I love how each one is unique!

The school hosted a Christmas Party where the kids got to see Santa! While waiting for their turn, they each made a popsicle stick tree ornament! So cute!

On Christmas Eve we were open for a half day, so we had SO MUCH FUN with the small group that came to hang out. We played with my treasure boxes, played an extra long time in centers and in the gym, and watched Christmas short movies. The Grinch, Merry Madagascar Christmas and The Elf on the Shelf movie.

Playing Santa, Santa, Reindeer was a great game to play to get the kids moving.

A little off theme...
The class had a little more practice with the letter M from one of the Mailbox Letter of the Week books. The kids colored an ice cream sundae and added M marshmallows on top!

The day after Christmas this year began Kwanzaa, so we started to talk about the holiday. The kids painted a picture of a Kinara, and we talked about the colors of Kwanzaa to paint.

I made this memory game last year and we played it. Memory is a great game because you can easily change the difficulty based on the players by adding or taking away some pairs.

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Hanukkah: Celebration of Lights! (Mm, 10, Blue)

The theme for the  week of December was "Hanukkah: Celebration of Lights". We continued our Letter of the Week study with the letter M. We continued talking about colors with the color blue, and we kept going with our number study and the number 10!

and we celebrated a birthday!!

This week we read: Hanukkah! by Roni Schotter
                                 The Hanukkah Mice by Steven Kroll
                                 Latkes and AppleSauce by Fran Manushkin We read this over two days.
                                 How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukkah? by Jane Yolen

Our question of the week was "What do you like about school?" Very heartwarming.

The color of the week: blue was a lot of fun to explore.  We talked about things that are the blue and went on a hunt around our classroom to find things that are blue.

We sang "We Love Blue" to the tune of three blind mice.

We love blue, we love blue.

Yes we do, yes we do.

We love the ocean and sky so blue,

we love blue ribbons and blue jeans too.

We love blueberries so good for you.

Yes, we love blue.

The kids got to explore the color blue while painting by creating different shades of blue. I put droplets of blue, white and black paint on each of their papers, and they used their paintbrush to mix and swirl and discover!

For the number of the week: 10 we started off by counting to and backward from ten. They love doing this every day and when we get to the end of counting backward, they all scream blast off!! ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for ten. 

When I started in my room I found some papers in my room I found a random number page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 10. The children have to practice writing the number and then color in that number of squares. What a great way to introduce graphing and helps them to work on their one-to-one correspondence.

To practice counting to 10 even more, I let the kids count out 10 M&M's. I made a sheet for them to record the colors that they got. The best part of this project, getting to eat the M&Ms when they were done! We did something very similar for the letter j/number 7 with jellybeans!

For our theme "Hanukkah", the kids got to explore two different Menorahs. They asked questions about them and had a lot of fun with them. For days after Hanukkah was over, I kept getting asked where the Menorahs went! We also played dreidel and had a blast.

The children also made their own Menorah collages. I put out all sorts of materials, and invited the children to use whatever they wanted. I "drew" and outline in glue of a menorah and let them do their thing. They turned out so cool, and each so different from the rest!

We sang the song "Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah Lights" that I found here!

Twinkle twinkle Hanukkah Lights, shining brightly for eight nights.

See the dreidels spinning 'round, eat some latkes crisp and brown.

Twinkle, Twinkle Hanukkah Lights, shining brightly for eight nights!

The kids used Hanukkah themed cookie cutters to paint with in blue and yellow. I love occasionally using cookie cutters to paint with because it shakes it up a bit from always using a paintbrush.

I found hebrew alphabet blocks a few years ago at Pottery Barn Kids that I love. I brought them in for the week and set them out on a carpet for the children to build with and explore.

Last week we popped popcorn into the sensory table. I kept the popcorn and added plastic ice cube dreidels that I found at Michael's. Every other day I put them in the freezer, so that the children could play with them when they were cold and frozen, and also when they were warm and liquid inside.

A little off theme...
Last week we started working on the kid's Christmas gifts to their parents. This week we finished up by painting them! I put out different colors of paint and let the children make their trees however they wanted! When they were dry I strung the tree and star pieces together, put them into the bag wrappings that the children also made last week, and we sent them home!

I begged another teacher in the school to cut out snowflakes for me. Every attempt that I made I ended up with Spiderwebs... I'm great for Halloween, not so much for winter I guess. Each child had one that was slightly different and unique. We colored the paper snowflakes and then added some extra puffy paint color to them. When they were dry (like a week later...) I hung them up on a winter mural in our classroom. Note to self: when you give a child a squeeze bottle of puffy paint.... they will inevitably squeeze a giant amount in one spot that will never quite dry... ;)

The letter of the week: M activities that we worked on this week were magnificent! I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet. I adapted them from activities from Mailbox Letter of the Week projects, both book one and two. The children had to place the "M" marshmallows in the cup of cocoa. All the other letters? I think they might have fallen on the floor!

As we work through the alphabet, the children make projects to go on  our "alphabet wall". It's a very fun way for the class to see the alphabet in a new way. This week the kids used dot paint to make mangos for a tree.

Since we made mangos for the abc wall, I brought in a mango for us to try. I was thrilled that everyone at least tried a little piece, and most of them liked it and wanted seconds!

The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter M, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begins like Mouse". Together we talked about the beginning sounds of the words, and then they work on their fine motor cutting skills.

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practice letter recognition AND direction following. Some weeks certain letters have to be colored specifically and sometimes it's up to them. I love these!

We practice and work on our handwriting for each letter as well. The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K has great handwriting practice sheets. The kids trace and write the letters and then have a little phonics practice at the bottom.

The children turned a capital letter M into a mouse. I got the idea from the book Alphabet and Counting from Twin Sister Productions. They give tips for how to make it a glue and paste projects, but I like to give them crayons and the challenge to add the parts of the animal to the letter. It opens up room for more conversation about the shape of the letter AND the features of the animal.

Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "M" things one each side. The children say "Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This idea came from a Mailbox activity book, and let me tell you, it was a hit!! They loved it!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter M. Here is what we thought of!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

The North Pole! (Ll, 9, Grey)

The theme for the second week of December was "North Pole". We used this week to get ready for Christmas celebrations. We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter L. This week we started talking about colors with the color gray, and we kept going on our number study with the number 9!

This week we read: The Christmas Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
                                        Duck and Goose, It's Time for Christmas! by Tad Baker
                                        How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky
                                        Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
                                        Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas by Julia Rawlinson

In our sensory table we popped popcorn! They had so much fun watching the popcorn air pop, and grabbing it as soon as it shot out. We played with just the popcorn for a little bit, and then I added some christmas finger puppets.

Our question of the week was "If you went to the North Pole, what would you do?" Some of these answers were hilarious!

The color of the week: grey was a lot of fun to explore.  We talked about things that are the color grey and went on a hunt around our classroom to find things that are grey.

We sang "Three Grey Mice" to the tune of three blind mice.

Three grey mice, three grey mice,

Oh how nice, oh how nice.

They ran around the house at night, 

They found some cheese and had a bite,

The farmer's wife turned on the light,

As three grey mice, ran from sight.

For the number of the week: 9 we started off by counting to and backward from nine. They love doing this every day and when we get to the end of counting backward, they all scream blast off!! ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for nine. 

When I started in my room I found some papers in my room I found a random number page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 9. The children have to practice writing the number and then color in that number of squares. What a great way to introduce graphing and helps them to work on their one-to-one correspondence.

From The Complete Book of Numbers and Counting, I found this picture to color using a key of the number 9.

For our theme "North Pole", we decorated Christmas lights to help make our classroom a little more festive. I drew the outline of a bulb and let the kids decorate them however they wanted.

We sang the song "Jingle Bells" a lot! and very loudly.... very loudly.

The kids also made reindeer art with construction paper, google eyes, q-tips and pom poms. I found the idea for this project here! On that page their is other great ideas for using triangles in winter art projects.

This week we started working on the kid's Christmas gifts to their parents. One of our teachers found the idea here, and we thought it would be great if all the classes made the same gift. To start this week, we made the salt dough and cut out the shapes. Then the children pressed their thumbprints into the trees and we baked them at a low temperature for a few hours. DONT FORGET TO MAKE A HOLE FOR HTE RIBBON BEFORE YOU BAKE. Narrowly avoided a catastrophe there!
The oven at school doesn't have a very accurate thermometer, so i just checked them constantly until they were not soft anymore, but before they began to brown.

Salt Dough

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup warm water

When the trees were baked and cooled, I used Modge Podge to seal the surface where we will paint next week.

For wrapping for our gifts, I drew the outlines of a gingerbread house onto a white paper bag that the children each colored. I thought that would be a festive, unique way to wrap the gifts for their parents. Check out last year's post, where we used brown bags to see which way you like the most!

The letter of the week: L activities that we worked on this week were were lots of fun! Usually to start off the letter, I would use a the page from, Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness, but I actually found a page in a Mailbox Letter of the Week book that I preferred, because it had more words for the children to work with. They had to decide which pictures were of things that began with "L", color them, cut them out, and then glue them onto "Ladybug's Leaf".

While playing outside I yelled out some words. If it began with the "L" sound, the children had to leap across the area. It really got their blood pumping!

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practice letter recognition AND direction following. Some weeks certain letters have to be colored specifically and sometimes it's up to them. I love these!

I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet. I adapted them from activities from Mailbox Letter of the Week projects, both book one and two. The children had to place the "L" leaves on the tree. All the other letters? Fall came a bit early!

As we work through the alphabet, the children make projects to go on  our "alphabet wall". It's a very fun way for the class to see the alphabet in a new way. This week we glued green tissue paper squares to construction paper and made leaves to make our trees extra leafy!

The children turned a capital letter L into a lion. I got the idea from the book Alphabet and Counting from Twin Sister Productions. They give tips for how to make it a glue and paste projects, but I like to give them crayons and the challenge to add the parts of the animal to the letter. It opens up room for more conversation about the shape of the letter AND the features of the animal.

We practice and work on our handwriting for each letter as well. The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K has great handwriting practice sheets. The kids trace and write the letters and then have a little phonics practice at the bottom.

Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

From a Mailbox Letter of the Week book, the kids made a booklet about "Lizard's Lollipops". I like doing these kinds of books because they can go back and look at the pictures to help tell the story, and they are also able to do the project mostly on their own. When they are finished coloring the pages, they come and get their scissors. When they are finished cutting, they bring their pages to me, put away their scissors and clean up their area of paper scraps. I love it!

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "L" things one each side. The children say "Ladybug, Ladybug, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This idea came from a Mailbox activity book, and let me tell you, it was a hit!! They loved it!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter L. Here is what we thought of!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!