Happy New Year!

The theme for the last week of December was "Happy New Year!". It was another short week for us, with a half day on New Year's Eve and off on New Year's Day, so we had another week of fun planned with our small winter break group!
We began the month of January (of course) which means we finished our pattern for the month of December.

We also compared December weathers! It was a very cloudy month!

This week we read: A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
                                 Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Martin Jr.
                                 How do Dinosaurs Count to Ten by Jane Yolen
                                 1, 2, 3 Peas by Keith Baker

Our question of the week was "What do you want to do in the New Year?"

For our theme "Happy New Year", we got ready to celebrate! We were still in the middle 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.

In the sensory table I put in some colored rice and pom poms! I love the feeling of playing with rice, and the pom poms were a fun soft addition.

We sang the songs "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "The Months of the Year".

We wrote in journals about something that the children want to do in the new year. 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.

We worked together to bake a Confetti Cake! The kids took turns adding ingredients and mixing. When it was finished baking, I cut pieces and let everyone ice their own slice. I must admit, instead of spreading out the icing over the whole piece, most children opted for just eating the whole dollop at once... like a spoon of ice cream.

I cut up tiny pieces of colored paper, which the children glued onto black construction paper to create confetti fireworks! When they were finished gluing, we added the path of the firework line.

We colored a butterfly labeled with #6-10. I love these so much. It really forces the kids to slow down and think about what they are coloring. I use The Complete Book of Numbers and Counting for all my number pages like this.

The kids practiced tracing and writing the numbers 1-10, and using my math boxes (scroll all the way down!), we practiced counting backward. Gotta get ready for that countdown!

Also to get ready for the countdown, we made noisemakers! We used toilet paper rolls, some macaroni and some beads, and a stapler. Voila, instant New Years fun!

Painting with number stencils was a lot of fun.

A little off theme...
We still talked some about Kwanzaa this week. I found a worksheet online and decided to make one based on it. I drew symbolic parts of kwanzaa with specific coloring instructions. As I gave the directions for what to color, we talked about why that item is important to celebrating Kwanzaa. A worksheet that is very close to what I did is found here.

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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.

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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!

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