I like to party, party!

This year the holiday party and gift exchange was the best ever. We had just enough parents to help out and it showed. A special thanks to those who helped decorate in my last minute scramble. Everything turned out great and I couldn't have asked for things to run more smoothly.



 We had a table set up with the gifts (boys brought a boy gift and girls brought a girl gift) but the teachers did the present handing out to cut back on chaos.










I had a wonderful parent supervising the food table while we sent children a few at a time to fix their plates.










Once everyone was done eating we formed a circle on the floor. The gifts were handed to the children and the rules laid out. A few adults were armed with markers to put names on gifts as soon as they were opened. (The rules included staying on their bottoms and not opening boxes/packages, along with a few others)

When every one had their gift opened and labeled we gave the children the gift from the teachers which included a super cute scarf, pink for girls and blue for boys (of course).

And at the end the parents were given their gifts. A gingerbread boy or girl with their child's head in place of the gingerbread kid's and some homemade cinnamon ornaments in the reindeer gift bag. What a HUGE success. I'm still in awe of how well the party went!

Deck the halls?

Well surely you have to build them first! It is a tradition in my class that we build "gingerbread houses" out of good ole' graham crackers and frosting.This activity is not for the meek at heart, it takes perseverance and practice and repetition because the integrity of the structures aren't always the best. This year instead of eating them as soon as they were finished the children took them home to share with their families.

Whew!! I'm back.

So it's been a little crazy in my life lately and I haven't been able to do a lot of things that I have wanted to (like blog of course). Now that I'm back from my vacation and in the swing of things maybe we can catch up.

We set up our fabulous Dramatic Play area fully equipped with a fireplace, armchair and Christmas tree which has decorations to take off and put on. 

I tried my kids at an "ABC" pattern and most of them got it!The Pattern was Red, Green, White and we made a chain to hang on our Handprint tree. It turned out great...pics to come. 

We made some wonderfully delightful  

Cinnamon ornaments and finally painted them today. 

And what is the holiday without a festive Wreath?! 

Our school is also taking the time to show appreciation to the teachers with the 5 Days of Giving. I love seeing all the things our parents (and kids) come up with but I really enjoy the chance to show my son's teacher how much we appreciate her.

And here is our gift for tomorrow....

Of course he gets in on the action.

Marshmallow Snowmen!!!!

Fa la la la la!!!!!

Today we did one of my all-time favorite "cooking" activities in the classroom. Here it is!

Simply frost a sugar cone with green frosting, shake into green coconut and decorate with candies of choice (we used M&M mini's)

It's beginning to...

Look like Christmas or some other holiday or winter even because today we started our "Celebrations Around the World" theme . We always start this theme out with Evergreen trees and Snowmen to set the mood. My kids have been doing some great work with their initial sounds so I came up with a game for them to practice writing their letters and practice initial sounds at the same time.

There goes that team work again :)

We use Vis-a-Vis markers so we can wipe it away and do it over and over

    

  




And what is the winter season without a few Poinsettias? The children had to trace their own stencils, cut the leaves and glue them all on their own! They even painted on some red glitter (glue and glitter) to give them some glam. Look at these Cuties!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Apple trees

Hope you have a safe and happy holiday. Here are some of the things we have done since my last post preparing for our harvest celebration.

Shape Scarecrow and Indian Corn

Turkey Headbands

"It feels like a dog licking my foot"

 While I was looking for cute things to do for Thanksgiving I ran across a really cute hand and foot print turkey. Feeling very ambitious I decided we were going to do this on a t-shirt. In my excitement I started asking parents to bring in a shirt for us to decorate and also in all that excitement I forgot to think about how we were actually going to do this. There are 14 children and all of them will have acrylic paint on their hands and feet at some point, inside the classroom, and I already have too many grey hairs on my head as it is. Oh and did I mention it was picture day?! How in the world could we do this in a orderly fashion? Well this is what we came up with...

First we do all the hand prints next to the sink for easy access then...

 Line them up in chairs...


Next go down the row one foot at a time being sure Ms. Kelly was right behind me ready to wipe each foot clean as soon as it was stamped.

The process was a little hard on the back...and knees...and pre-kinder's attention span but it worked great!








We didn't end up with a drop of paint on the floor. Amazing!! Even the director was a little impressed when she stopped by to see how things were going.




















The foot painting process was compared to the feeling of being "licked by a dog on the foot" by one of the children and others couldn't get a word out it tickled so much.

And here is the finished project!!!!!

Dear Mr. Jack Frost...

A wee little pumpkin

Pleas be kind, we are trying to grow some pumpkins and you really scare me! We planted some pumpkin seeds very late in the season, in September I think when we should have started in May or June, and I have been on edge about them since. Over the long Veteran's Day weekend I forgot to cover the plants in anticipation of the cold weather and was uneasy all weekend about these little boogers. When I got back much to my delight there were two pumpkins!! Yay, we did it!! One is too small for an untrained eye (my co-workers thought I was hallucinating a little but they will see) and the other one is here  =>
We are expecting many more but I will be happy if we just grow this one good.

Our pumpkin patch

Put a little gobble in it!

I've made a few games similar to this in other themes throughout the year but the inspiration for this one came from Julie at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten. Each turkey has a picture on it and you have to find the matching, beginning letter, feathers to complete the turkey. It is so much fun to watch the kids asking their friends if they have seen the "x" or even what letter they should be looking for. They work together so well (proud teacher moment).

 I also used the turkey idea to incorporate numbers, the kids really like it because they can use a Teacher Marker that wipes away. The children count the number of feathers and practice writing the corresponding number.

Stop in the name of learning!

We always practice our counting when it's our turn to stir.

Today we compared and contrasted the farm and the city. We talked about differences in animals, traffic, and buildings. We learned the "Traffic Light" song and made sugar cookie traffic lights that turned out beautiful and delicious.

We talked about the meaning of each color and we got some extra practice with above, below and in between.

First things first

We have just started our "Linking the Farm to the City" theme and it is going well. Last week we focused mostly on the farm, making a farm words list and farm book, we even made paper mache pigs. Today we made a city words list during circle time and during our center (Dramatic Play on Mondays) we set up a market and some of our farmers harvested apples to sell at our market. The children loved it and I must say it was a highlight in my day.