Christmas Party

Our final few days of preschool before Christmas and Winter Break were busy.

Our class is getting much better at signing their names!

I love this! Other than a couple of dots (and Eva's name), I did not write any student's names. See Nathan at the top, Susie, Olivia, Colton, and Preston on the far side. (He was ready for fun but the "yes" side was all full. He started out with a P on the left side and then continues writing each individual letter--not necessarily in sequential order, but each letter following the other in his writing.) At the beginning of the year, most students were shy about trying to write their name unassisted.

Toys: FP Little People Village and Potato Head Family.

Snacks: Goldfish crackers, apples, graham crackers, and pretzels.

Alphabet Review and Christmas Presents:
Play Performance and Songs for our parents: We enjoyed reading Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby several times. We thought it might be fun to act this out for our parents to see. On Wednesday's performance Olivia was our Cat, Susie was the Mama, Hugh was Matti and the Dog, Eva was a rather spontaneous Gingerbread Baby and I was the Narrator. Lots of fun had by all. (Wish we could have performed with the Tuesday class.)

Singing Songs: Jingle Bells, We Three Kings, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Must Be Santa!

Olivia, Ellis (Nell), Hugh, Susie, & Eva

Eva, Olivia, Nathan, Susie, and Preston.

Refreshments: Fuji apples, ginger snaps, macadamia nut cookies, peppermint popcorn.

Gifts: Students got to take home their gifts (ABC book, crayons, and card game) from me.

Arts and Crafts: We did not get to the Applesauce Spice Ornaments this year. (Hope you tried the recipe at home and your house smelled heavenly). We've been working very hard on our secret present for parents. Hope you enjoyed seeing the drawings, small hands and feet, and picture of your student this year in the folder he/she decorated for you.

Some Christmas Books:
Snowmen at Christmas by Caralyn and Mark Buehner
The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
Sesame Street Parents Christmas Holiday Projects for Parents & Children (Oxmoor House)
This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar and Gary Blythe

Pajama "P" Party

If you give a Prince/Princess a pancake...

Daily Question: Are you ready for our Pajama Party?

Toys: Pirate ships, puppets & puppet theater, playhouse, puzzles,...






Songs: Popcorn Popping, Piggie Polka, The Pancake Song.
Snacks: Pancakes (with maple syrup or strawberry jam), peaches, purple plums, popcorn, and pudding.


Other P Foods: We had fun brainstorming other food that start with P (a surprising amount) Peanut butter, pretzels, pizza, pepperoni, pop (soda), puff pancakes, pears, peas, plums, pudding, Popsicles, pasta, peaches, potatoes, potato chips, pie, pork, pickles, pumpkin, peppers, peanuts, pistachios, pineapple, parsley, parsnips, prunes, Parmesan cheese, pinenuts, etc.

Media: Every pajama party needs a movie--we watched a couple of minutes of an award winner Waterford Institute ABCs.

Games: Who is the Pig under our blanket?
"Guess what 'P' things is hiding under our blanket?" The children were very clever when they caught on to the rules of this game. They came up with: pot, play dough, a puppy, a pelican, a puppet, a pepper, a pirate, a paint brush, etc.


Craft: We talked about P the Pelican who popped popcorn "p-p-p" and picked up pop for his pals. We listened to Nathan's bag of Kettle popcorn popping in the microwave and repeated "p-p-p." Then we enjoyed eating copious amounts of the fluffy stuff while trying to glue it to an uppercase and lowercase P.


Working on our parent surprise presents:

paint!

Some "P" Books:
If you Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff, ill. by Felicia Bond (Audio CD)
Angel Pig & The Hidden Christmas by Jan L. Waldron, Ill. by David McPhail
What is a Princess? (Step into Reading 1)
Puddles by Jonathan London, Ill. by G. Brian Karas (Audio CD)
Princess Hyacinth (The Surprising Tale of a Girl who Floated) by Florence Heide, & Lane Smith
Pigs Will Be Pigs by Amy Axelrod, Ill. by Sharon McGinley-Nally
Pete's a Pizza by William Steig
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
The Three Pigs by David Weisner

More Holiday Books:
*The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
Angel Pig & the Hidden Christmas by Jan L. Waldron, Ill. by David McPhail
Bah! Humbug? by Lorna Balian

Opera and Talents

Daily Question: Oo Do you sing Opera?


It tickles me to see the children sign in now. They are no longer self conscious or worried they "can't" write their name. I remind them that we are learning how and doing it by practicing. In the chart below I wrote Eva's name with her and a few dots to get some students going. Writing his/her own name is a Kindergarten prerequisite. ( I am not worried that some of the students put letters not in linear order. The said the letters aloud as they rote them but weren't concerned with where the letters ended up.) Our class is really learning!

Toys: (New) Fisher Price Construction set, Airport and Airplane, and FP Village, puppet theater, and hand puppets.


Snacks: PB Cracker sandwich crackers, oranges and pretzels.
Free Play: Nathan and Susie spontaneously practice alphabet letters, numbers, and simple Math problems. (It is normal through age 8 for students learning to write numbers and/or letters to have Reversals or backwards numbers or letters.)

Students enjoyed listen about O the Ostrich whose occupation was singing opera in front of other ostriches, "O-o-o" (students put hands together in front of them and sing oah, oah, oah).

We "painted" O the Ostrich feathers with food dye and corn syrup. This was a lot of sticky fun and left a somewhat tacky but neat looking letter.


Talents: We enjoyed reading Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman and talking about the little black girl who loved to listen to and re-enact stories. She believed she could be (or portray) anyone and so she won the part of Peter Pan in a play. Children named talents: soccer, ballet, singing, drawing, painting, or serving others. Some of these come more easily to us and some talents require us to take classes, learn the rules, and work hard at it/them.

We also worked on painting our hands and feet for our surprise present for our parents.

Books on Talents:
Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
Something Special
You Are Special!
You are Special by Max Lucado

Numbers 0-10

Daily Question: Do you know your numbers to 10?

Toys: Big Blocks--race track, cars, Spaghetti Doll House, Skee Ball, and Baby dolls/doll stroller

It is so fun to see the children playing with each other creatively and wanting to continue playing! (Research shows that children learn best when ideas are presented creatively in the form of play.) We built a race track our of Duplo blocks and then I asked the children, "Which cars do you think will race down the track the fastest? Why?" We tested our hypotheses. I had each child hold a heavy and a light weight car."Which one will go faster?" The heavy metal cars were the fastest. We enjoyed counting together 0-10 as the various cars raced down the track. (Parents, remember to practice counting with your child. Count at the store, in line at the post office, in the car, etc. Make it a game. Children learn through repetition!)

Snacks: Celery sticks, baby carrots, clementines, and Chocolate Teddy Bear Grahams (which I brought out after some of the other nutritious snacks were eaten).

Students eat up the healthy snacks!

Today, Oliviaasks if we are going to start our snack with a prayer and she begins it. Her sweet prayer included "Heavenly Father, Thank YOU (God)!... Let us be kind and share...help the bishop...help us have a birthday party!...etc."

Birthday parties were really on Olivia's mind today. Before each photo we usually say, "One, Two, Three, Cheese!" Todays, she said, "One, two, three, Birthday Party!"

Reinforcement Activity: Students enjoyed picking the color for a Counting Caterpillar which used numerals and dots.

We really enjoyed reading and looking at the many various counting books together! (See list below, books that are highlighted are the books we read as a class on any given day). Parents, point out numbers you see around you. We are surrounded by numbers!

Counting Activities: Toy cars, Teddy Grahams, lining up number magnets, I Spy Numbers game around the room.

We watched five minutes of LeapPad Math while I set up the Counting Caterpillar activity.

Numbers & Counting Books:
One Happy Classroom by Charnan Simon, Ill. by Rebecca McKillip Thornburgh
Count! by Denise Fleming
Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews
Arlene Alda's 1 2 3 What Do You See?
City by Numbers by Stephen T. Johnson
Ten Go Tango by Arthur Dorros, Ill. by Emily Arnold McCully
I Can Count to 100...Can You? by Katherine Howard, Ill. by Michael J. Smollin

Songs: The Numbers Song.

Olivia volunteered to read a board book, Count!, to Eva today. I was happy with this because mimicking (the child memorizes or makes up words to a story he/she is reading aloud) is a step to Reading!

Naughty Behaviors (Manners)

Daily Question/Sign-in: Nn Do you have good manners?

Toys: ABC, 123, and Opposite Puzzles, Spaghetti Doll House and Village, Big Blocks and Skee Ball.


Snacks: Clementines, Cheese and Crackers, watermelon, Cheeze-its and pretzels. During snack time I heard a lot of please, thank you, more water, please. Etc. We talked about other polite words like pardon me, excuse me, and I'm sorry.


Today after play time, we read the books Please Pass the Manners and Say Please! We had an informal white board discussion and wrote down the students ideas about what manners are.
Role Play: After snack time and our discussion, the children enjoyed a role play game of meeting people and introducing themselves. For instance, "Hello. I'm Susie. Nice to meet you. What is your name?"

The children enjoyed the upbeat story and song about N the Naughty Newt who painted the Nursery walls numerous times with neon nail polish. Mother shook her finger at N and said, "N n n" (like you would scolding a disobedient child). Our follow up activity was using nail polish to paint N the naughty newt! It was lots of fun. (What good little artists I have.)


Manners Books:
Please Pass the Manners: Mealtime Tips for Everyone by Lola Schaefer, & Kellie Lewis
Manners by Aliki
You've Got Manners: Table Tips From A to Z for Kids of All Ages by Louise Elerding
Say Please by Virginia Austin
No David! by David Shannon
*Time to Say "Please!" by Mo Williams

Winter or Holiday Books:
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn and Mark Beuhner
The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
Santa's Ark by Cliff Wright
Bah! Humbug? by Lorna Balian

Warm chocolate Chunk cookies and friends! Yum!

* Parents, children stayed inside the last two days because it was very cold outside! Please make sure they are dressed appropriately (warm coat and warm /boots) so we can play outside--even for only a few minutes each day!