Santa's Elves

"Wee" Are Santa's Elves

2008 Christmas Program

"Wee" Love Preschool Christmas Program 2008

What a fun night. Our families came to watch us sing our songs that we have been practicing. They also saw the fun Christmas Crafts we had been working on in preschool.

Christmas Party

Today we Practiced our Christmas Program with our crafts that we had been making. We also decorated a Christmas Box, that we can keep all our handmade Christmas crafts in. This is our Present to our parents. We played Christmas Bingo, Reindeer Nose, and Around, Around, The Christmas Tree.

Christmas Traditions

Lots of crafts were done today! We made traditional things for Christmas and our up coming Christmas program. We painted Christmas pine cone trees and decorated them. We painted egg create bells, and laced Christmas cards.
We read lots of Christmas Stories, and peeled our own Christmas Orange to eat for a snack. We Drank Wassail which wasn't a favorite Holiday drink among us preschoolers. (we opted for apple juice instead).

Christmas Around the World

Today we talked about how Christmas is celebrated in other parts of the world. We got out the large 24X36 inch world map and located the different countries we talked about. it was fun finding where we lived and how far away the children in other countries lived. We traveled to Germany, and read a story about the first Christmas tree. Traveling to Netherlands where Santa Clause is called Sinter Clause. Over to Sweden where St. Lucia and a Christmas Gnome deliver presents. England and most of Europe Celebrate Christmas the same as we do. A big jump to Mexico we learned that the 3 wise men deliver gifts, and Christmas is celebrated Christmas eve night.
For a snack we made pudding and used England's tradition of putting a lucky nut in the pudding. Yule logs were talked about and a chocolate log with a pretend fire was sent home to eat.

Other December Holiday's Celebrated

Hanukka, and Kwanzaa

Other Children don't Celebrate Christmas. An unbelievable concept to understand. However, we talked about the fun traditions they do during this holiday. The children in preschool took turns lighting the nine candles on the menorah, and played the traditional "Spinning the Dreidel" game. We had pretend Latkes, (pancakes) for snack, and with two triangles figured out how to make a "Star of David".

Kwanzaa we learned was a lot like Thanksgiving. Like Hanuka, Kwanzaa has 7 candles that is lit every night. We made a "fruit bowl" with the traditional colors of Black, Red, and Green which we glued to a traditional Kwanzaa mat. Unlike Christmas, The children who celebrate Kwanzaa, dress in their bright native African clothing. We had a fruit basket full of oranges, apples, pears, and bananas, and cut them up to eat.

Thanksgiving Feast

Our Preschool Thanksgiving Feast.....

Everyone brought part of the meal!! Yum! We had all the trimmings! Some ate everything, some only ate one or two items. We had, turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, jello, rolls, stuffing, and apple juice. For dessert, we ate pumpkin cookies. We wore our bonnets or hats, and felt like real pilgrims. For a craft, we tempted to make fall leaf banners. With the help of Miss Janalynn, we used the Iron to "seal" the cellophane of the banner. We played games, like "Hot Potato" and "Pumpkin seed, Pumpkin seed, Who Has The Pumpkin Seed?".

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians

One Little, Two Little, Three Little, Indians........

Wednesday, November 19th we learned about Pilgrims and Indians and read the story "The Very First Thanksgiving", by Rhonda Greene. This is a fun and colorful book we read together in class. We also read the book "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims", by B.G. Hennessy. By the end of Class we were all singing "One Little, Two Little, Three Indians". We decorated Indian head dresses, with beads, sequences, and ribbons. The number of the day was the number "5" so each of us glued 5 feathers to our head dresses. We looked at some real Indian Corn, and made some Indian corn craft with bubble wrap to take home.

Harvest and Hibernate

Thank you Farmer Roberts for the Hay Ride!!

We painted our hands and stamped our signatures, to make a large Candy Corns. We glued our "hand" made candy corns around a picture of our class on the tractor bed, then Miss Janalynn delivered the card with a fun scarecrow to Farmer Roberts. He was sure happy to see all our hand prints.

"Bear Snores" on, by Karma Wilson, was the BIG highlight of the week. I got a copy of the CD, and the children had a blast listening to the narrator, and listening for the chime, to turn the page.

Scarecrows also play a part during harvest time. They are supposed to scare away animals, so they don't eat the crops, and seeds. We found out that scarecrows aren't really that scary when we read the book, "The Lonely Scarecrow" by, Tim Preston. I was really proud of the children who could cut out the scarecrow. Some I helped, but for the most part, all the children at least tried. We did a lot of practicing on our cutting skills this week. I can see much improvement in just a short time.

Squirrels, rabbits, moles, and hedge hogs love to harvest nuts. "The Nutty Nut Chase" by Kathryn White, was a fun read about sharing. afterwards, we cracked open peanuts and smashed the shells, to decorate a large paper nut. The peanuts were fun to eat too.

Who's the Turkey?

Who ever thought you could make a turkey out of a pine cone. The kids thought it pretty neat to be able to. We looked at a lot of pictures of Turkeys, learned a funny Turkey poem and read a funny book called "Ten Fat Turkeys" by Tony Johnston. Tracing our hand is something we love to do. Some were surprised to see that you could make a turkey with their hand print. I've been finding hand traced turkeys all over my house now.

Leaves Are Falling

It wasn't hard to take a short walk outside and find all sorts of leaves in every shape, size and color on the ground. We gathered leaves to make a pretty autumn frame around a poem we learned in preschool. We soon learned, however, that when leaves dry, they become crunchy, and are fun to stomp on.

We had wheat toast shaped like leaves, and topped them with strawberry jam, for our snack. We also read a fun book by Zoe Hall, called "Fall Leaves Fall!"

This week, we also learned about manners and how to be polite. We made place mats, with a place for our cups, plates, knives, forks, and spoons. We decorated our place mats with different shapes, and a manners song, that we will be continuing to learn throughout the year! On our new place mats, we ate our pumpkin cookies, and drank apple cider.

Halloween Week

Monday October, 27th Our Preschool class spent the day talking about HALLOWEEN! We talked about why we trick-or-treat, "To get Candy" was the common response. I glazed over that long ago people would give out treats to pretend witches, and ghosts and monsters, so they wouldn't play tricks on them. We talked about pumpkins turning into jack-o-lanterns, and how it becomes a "lantern" when a candle is put into them, this is how they would walk around at night, long ago, however, now we use flashlights, but we still like to carve pumpkins and set them out on our porches. We made ghost out of glue, water, and Muslim. (I had a couple of boys who did not want to touch the gluey paste, I thought was pretty funny considering all the other things they could be afraid of.) We read many Halloween stories, " The Runaway Pumpkin", by, Kevin Lewis. We're Going On A Ghost Hunt", by, Marica Vaughan. And "The Friendly Monsters", by Marcus Pfister.

Halloween Party

Our Highlight of the week of course was our Halloween Party!! Dressing up is always fun. We played Halloween Games, Colored a BIG Frankenstein, had Orange floats, took turns "trick-or-treating" and best of all we got to ride on a tractor bed loaded with bales of hay to sit on. We rode to a pumpkin patch to pick out our very own pumpkin to take home.

The Boys
The Girls

Musical Chairs

and

Trick-Or-Treat

Hay Ride
Pumpkin Patch

Let's Be Safe!

Fire! Fire! Hurry! Hurry!
Fire Safety is a fun and important day! Talking about fires especially in our homes, can sometimes be frighting. We talk about how not to be afraid of a fireman in the home, if he is trying to find you. Also how to Stop! Drop! And Roll! Smoke rises to the ceiling, so to stay close to the ground. We talked about how Firemen are heroes! They save people, not only from fires, but also from accidents, or other places, where we might need their help. Trying to explain a hero to a 4 year old is kind of tricky. Many asked if firemen could fly. After putting out fires, Fire Fighters get really hungry, so for snack time, we made "Pigs in a Blanket", again, another thing tricky to explain to a 4 year old!

Officer Friendly (in a book) showed us how to be safe where ever we go. We all pretended to be a police officer for the day.

My proud moment however, is when we talked about signs that we see while driving in our cars, also keep us safe. My own son yelled from the back seat to make sure I look for children crossing the street, because he saw a "School Crossing Sign". Then he noticed a "rail-road" sign and informed me that we should never play on rail-road tracks.

Let's Play Catch Up!

"Wee" Love Preschool started on September 8th. Two Very fun and energetic classes to be held on Mondays and Wednesdays. The morning class begins at 9:00 a.m. until noon, while the smaller, afternoon class is from 12:45 until 3:45 (my only 2 three year olds go home at 2:45).

Morning Class

Afternoon Class

I wasn't too surprised that the children were very excited. New friends, toys and things to do. We learned about what we do in preschool, a welcome song to sing each day, and fun and safe rules to follow at school. We read stories about going to school and since we were "wild about preschool" we made Monkey masks to take home. The high light of the day however, was making and eating vanilla and chocolate pudding.

5 little monkeys?

The Rest of September we focused on self awareness, our friends, and our family. We recorded our height and weight so we can watch our growth through the school year. We played games to help with getting to know new friend's names and talked about who is in a family.

My preschoolers are so smart, we basically just need to review our colors and shapes and devoted a whole class to each.

We ended September with a Birthday Party for Johnny Apple Seed. First of all we needed to find out who Johnny was with a fun story about him. The children were real excited to see the inside of the apple and find the actual seeds. (Good thing I have an apple tree in the back, because I think I cut open a least a dozen apples to dig out the seeds for the children.) We also tried to find any worms in the apples. We found plenty of holes from the worms, but no worms. (I think the boys were very disappointed we didn't find any.) We made easy apple crisp, and dried apple necklaces. At the end of class, Brock asked when Johnny was going to show up for his party. (He must of missed the part, "he lived a long time ago".) That was my chuckle of the day! It must seem weird to celebrate someones birthday who isn't even going to be there! I love to see how these children think.

October started with surrounding awareness. We talked about where we live, country and city, and different types of homes. "Community Helpers" and "People in our Neighborhood" is always a fun day. This is where they get to see different types of careers and express what they want to be when they grow up. When this question was asked, I had many Batmans, Spidermans, and Princesses. As we talked about each community worker, and their importance, luckily the children's minds had changed to doctors, teachers, and construction workers, (many claimed that their dad was a super hero for his job, however).

Skills too where focused on. Scissor cutting, paper riping, and tracing helped with our fine motor, while bean bag tossing, music movements, Hokey Pokey and Simon says, games focused on large motor skills. We talked about sizes, opposites, things that are the same, things that go together, reading from left to right, and my favorite, Position Words.

Around the Table

Under and On Top of the Table Behind the Table