THE BIG CHRISTMAS PROGRAM

Our Program started at 6:15 p.m. at the Layton Library. Friends and family were invited. The kids were excited and so was Miss Janalynn. We performed the songs that we have been practicing all month long. We started with December Holiday songs for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Then we sang songs about Christmas, Reindeer and Santa Clause. During the song "Grandmas Got ran Over By A Reindeer", the children got to go out to the audience to get grandma or mom to dance with. It was pretty fun.

Because of the weather, our special guest was a little late, but everyone enjoyed the children singing, we just sang a few more of the favorite songs. Soon our guest arrived, and we were all surprised to see Santa Clause. Each of the children visited with Santa for a minute making sure he got their list of wishes, then off he went! He must of had a lot of other little boys and girls to see.

I was so proud of the kids. They knew the songs and sang so well.

Christmas Party

Today was not a normal Preschool Day. Instead it was a PARTY! The children came to the party at 10 a.m. We bundled up good and started off to go Christmas Caroling. The neighbors loved us. We sang the songs that we will be singing during our Christmas Program. Afterwards we came back to Miss Janalynn's house for Hot Chocolate. The children brought a dollar gift for a game we played. Most of the children picked their own present, which is very typical at this age. Emmy however brought her present with Emma in mind and was so pleased that Emma chose it! I thought that was very cute! After one more practice of our program, the party ended with goodies and gifts to take home!

Who is Santa?

I showed a Santa Book. We again pulled out the world map and again traveled and reviewed each country we visited before and this time showed what Santa looks like in different countries. We also learned that children in other countries call Santa Claus by different names, such as Pierre Noel, Father Christmas, St. Nick etc.

No matter what his name, we all agreed that Santa was someone special. Someone who loved children. Someone who brought presents to good girls and boys and someone who loved to have cookies left for him to eat.

Each child received their own sugar cookie dough to roll out, cut, and bake. With sequence cards we followed the directions on how to make and decorate sugar cookies. During the baking we practiced for our up coming Christmas program. Afterwards, we got quite messy by frosting, and decorating our cookies. After eating a cookie or two, Miss Janalynn wrapped up our remainder cookies, so we could take them home to give to Santa, when he came to visit.

Christmas Around the World

After learning about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, we focused on "CHRISTMAS"! We got the world map out and traveled around to different countries and briefly talked about how the children in those countries celebrated Christmas. We read "Christmas Around The World" and Uno, Dos Tres, Posada!" The children then shared their own family traditions. All seem to own nativity sets, have Christmas trees with lights, and Santa comes to visit.

Happy Kwanzaa

I think that the children were amazed that there is another Holiday celebrated that they didn't know about! I explained that this one was a lot like thanksgiving and Christmas put together. It was a nice review of harvest, and families.

We learned a new art skill, "Rubbings". Our small motor skills were put to the test when trying to hold the crayon on it's side, and rub hard across a cardboard with lifted grooves. This is a great, and fun skill to practice at home. In case you weren't sure what the rubbings were, it is the special Kwanzaa Mat called the Mekeka. The Mekeka holds the Kinara and candles along with the fruit of the harvest. An ear of corn represents each child in the family. I of course just explained the candle, the colors of red black and green, and corn to the children. Kwanaaz is a big enough word to say, let alone understand all the meanings.

For snack, we again took turns practicing our pouring, and stirring skills in the kitchen. This time, since we had just talked about the meaning of the corn, we decided to make corn bread. Another big hit with the children.

After we celebrated Kwanzaa, we settled down to practice our Christmas songs. The children were real excited to sing some familiar songs! We played a fun human pointing game to pick the favorite songs. Don't be surprised if the children start spinning each other around on your computer chairs, to stop and point to an item in front of them. The kids loved this singing game!!

Hanukkah

We started preschool reading the story, "Four Sides, Eight Nights" This help the children recognize that there is another Holiday that people celebrate. We practiced our folding to make a menorah that will actually stand. We then glued pretend candles made out of straws to our menorah. We learned that they have stars, they look a little different, than the common five pointed star, and they called their star, " The Star of David".

We spent time in the kitchen for snack time. We made real Latkes, made with shredded potatoes, eggs, flour and salt. The kids loved them so much, we made another batch so we could all have seconds.

After snack we played with a LARGE Dreidel, and used fake coins to play with. The children loved trying to make the top-like dreidel spin. We learned a Hanukkah song and poem, and I believe the children really enjoyed this new Hanukkah Holiday.

Candy Cane Greetings!

All Children LOVE to receive mail. I showed the children my last year Christmas cards that my friends and family sent. We learned that one tradition in December was to send Christmas cards to people who we loved, and who we wanted to have a Merry Christmas. We made our cards with two small candy canes forming a heart. I told the children, that they could give their cards to whoever they wanted to as soon as they returned home. We then read a silly book called, The mixed up Christmas Card".

Since we used candy canes to creat a Christmas card, I decided to talk about the candy cane, and why we see them around Christmas time. Candy canes look like a shepard's staff. I demonstrated how a Shepard would use his staff to heard sheep, with a large plastic candy cane. (I hope your children don't start choking others, for when I gave them a regular size candy cane to take home, well...yep, they started to heard each other, and we ended up with some broken candy canes and tears.) So on the topic of shepards, we proceed to talk about the shepards who visited Jesus and gave him a lamb as a present. That is why we see lots of Candy Canes around Christmas time. We then painted a large candy cane. Some picked up on how to "stripe" a candy cane and others just painted their candy cane red. It was all good, because no matter how they turned out, when we turned the candy cane upside down, it made a perfect cradle for a baby Jesus. Gluing craft moss was a lot harder than I realized. The children were convinced it was real hay, and wanted to save it for some real horses and cows. It took some convincing that it wasn't safe hay. However, that just made them concerned for the baby that we were about to glue to the "unsafe hay". Parents, I am truly sorry if your child is now more confused about the whole manger, and hay explanation. Next time I'll use yarn.

Today was definitely a confusing topic of why there are candy canes. Lets just say that little kids don't like peppermint candy canes, and it's a good thing I already knew this and gave them cherry flavored.

Get Ready For The Holidays! and #5

Today we took down the fall leaves off the preschool tree. We proceed to talk about how most trees have no leaves on them when the weather is cold. We then learned about Pine Trees. Pine trees stay green all year even in cold weather. We then put up a wall cover, pine tree to replace the fall tree. We changed the month from November to December, we talked about things that happen during the month of December. (Hope I didn't get them too excited.) We made a Christmas Tree advent calendar. We played a game with it during class. We picked the numbers and out of a bag and matched it with the same number on the tree. I hope parents and family will help your preschooler with this Christmas tree advent calendar. They can randomly pick numbers and match it up, or find the next number to glue on. After each day I hope they will count how many days are still left uncovered, so they can start to understand the concept of time. My three year olds, I sent home stickers to place on the numbers. We do an advent calendar in class also, however, it is a lot more fun to have your own to do at home!

For the number 5 we counted the points on stars, we counted the fingers on one hand, and we counted the silly monkeys on the game board bed. We then glued 5 pointed stars to our number five. The 4-5 year olds practiced printing the numbers then gluing the numbers above each five fingers that they "hand stamped" onto a piece of paper.

A Feast For Thanksgiving!

A pretend trip to the first Thanksgiving is what we did today. After reading "The first Thanksgiving" and "One Little, Two Little, Three Little, Pilgrims", We made bonnets and head dresses for our heads. We colored Pilgrim finger puppets, and played pilgrim games (hot potato). We compared pictures of what pilgrims did and had along time ago, with pictures of what we do and have today. But the best part of today was our Thanksgiving Lunch! The children loved to serve each other the food that they brought. We practiced spooning, scooping, pouring, and passing. We made place mats earlier in the month to help remind us how to set a table. It was a lot of fun to have a big meal during preschool. I loved to see what the children liked and didn't like. I was really surprised that the pumpkin pie was such a hit! Believe it or not, I think the turkey was the least favorite, however rolls and olives were gobbled up! Thanks to all Mommy's who helped make this a fun and memorable day at preschool!

Turkey Time and the #4

Today we took a good look at Turkeys. We now know that they don't fly too high off the ground. They peck for food like chickens, they like to roll in dirt, and that they spread their colorful feathers. We read the book, "A Plump and Perky Turkey". Then we finally painted a paper, plate very colorful, and then glued a paper turkey head and feet onto it.

For our game today, we played Turkey, Turkey, Goose.

We played button button who has the button, and then talked and looked at a bunch of different buttons. We separated the buttons into different sizes, then colors. Last we separated the buttons into 2 holes and 4 holes. We then counted out 4 buttons to each child, then glued the buttons onto our #4. For our snack we had graham crackers. I showed the children how you start with one cracker, and if you are careful, you can break it into two crackers, then into four crackers. We put those 4 crackers onto our paper napkins which we had unfolded to to make 4 squares.

Being Thankful and the #3

The First Thanksgiving story was told. We looked at my world map to see where the Pilgrims sailed from to the land where the Indians lived. The story of Indians helping the pilgrims, and how the pilgrims were so thankful for their help. We made an Indian necklace, with a feather for each thing we are thankful for. I tried to write down the things they came up with. It's fun to see how one child will mention something, and soon all the children think that is the best thing, and they all will mention it. This year, almost all the children were thankful to go camping. You know who you are if you just came back from camping. I laughed each time I wrote going camping on a feather.

We leaned some more Thanksgiving songs, and played the Turkey Dinner Game (fruit basket).

The number of the day of course was #3. I read, then sang the song/poem "The Three Little Kittens". The children loved the poem, they didn't like me singing it too much. (probably because I would make funny voices when I just said the poem, but didn't when I sang). We glued pictures of the kittens in their mittens, onto the #3. I told the children to go home and ask mom and dad to help them with the story. The children didn't believe me that their parents would know the story. I promised them that they would. I'm not that old, right? You parents do know the poem/story about the Three Little Kittens who lost their mittens?! I hope I'm right, and you all know it!

The older children practiced cutting out pictures of food, then gluing the pictures to the correct picture of where that food came from. This helped with the meaning of "Harvest". Attached to the food chart, was a fun thankful for food poem. We didn't have time to color during class, and I hope that the children reviewed where the food we eat comes from and colored the food at home.

Time To Sleep (Hibernation) and the #2

Hibernation is another big word, but much easier to explain that some animals like to find a nice warm home and curl up and sleep all winter long. We popped popcorn and watched the video, "Bear snores on". I also have the book, and the children was amazed that the book was EXACTLY like the movie. I love to see how amazing things are to children. That made me smile!

#2 was fun, because we named many, many things that we have two of. Eyes, Ears, Arms, etc. I showed the children how we can make tiny feet with paint and their fist. We practiced on paper before we stamped tiny feet on the # 2, however, either the #2 was too small for the feet, or the children decided that 2 feet weren't enough. If you weren't sure what was on the #2 sent home, well there you have it, kinda, sorta, feet prints. I ended putting 2 sticker hearts on the #2 so they could at least count 2 of something.

The older children each had a copy of the story "The Napping House". We practiced listening to the bell on the sound recording of the story and following along with the reader. What a funny story with lots of colorful pictures. We learned that everyone needs to sleep to be healthy and sometimes it is good to take naps too.

It's Harvet Time!! and the #1

Today we learned a new vocabulary word, Harvest. When we pick all the fruits and vegetables from our trees and gardens, and we are now done with our garden until after the snow comes and we fix our gardens again. I love trying to teach small children big words. Harvest is one of those words. I'm not sure they knew what I meant until I mentioned vegetable stands where our moms like to go to get corn on the cob, that seemed to light some bulbs!

We talked about Scarecrows and there job to protect the field from birds. We read the book "The lonely Scarecrow", and sang the fun song, "Shoo Crow". We glued our very own scarecrows using different shaped paper. For our snack we had corn bread, and dried apples. Last but not least, we played a passing game called "Scarecrow Joe".

We stared our number theme today. For #1 we each chose "one" ribbon to glue to our one. I hung the numbers we will be decorating on the wall, so don't be surprised if the children want to also hang their numbers on their wall too.

Mind Your Manners and Many Colors

We finished our Color Theme Today. We made a fun wind sock with colorful streamers. I stapled the sock together, next time I'll try and remember to use tape instead. Sorry if you parents had to "Fix" the wind sock when you got home. It was fun to watch the children figure out how to "just glue the end of the strip". We practiced holding the paper with glue in place while counting to 10. We have some great counters.

One of my favorite lessons for preschool, is our "Manners" lesson. I will continue to sing the manner song, and reminding the children about using manners while we eat, play and work at preschool. I hope this will be a life long lesson, plus it's fun to practice, especially when the children start correcting, and reminding each other to "Mind Your Manners"!

We made a place mat to help us remember how the table is set, and a manners poem to recite. We decorated it with colored shapes.

We played a colored/matching/puzzle game. Each child brought home their own game to play at home.

For our story today, we read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" We all took turns naming off the color and animal that the brown bear saw on each page.

My 4-5 year olds practiced cutting today. I had them cut out their certificate of colors. Some of the children are such great cutters, that before I knew it, they had cut a little too much of the certificate, however, I am very proud that they ALL have become great scissor handlers, and have developed awesome cutting skills.

"Whoo" sees a Brown Owl?

The color today was Brown. Perfect time to learn about owls. We looked at some pictures of different types of owls, talked about how owls sleep during the day and fly around at night looking for food like mice, and very small animals to eat. We glued some feathers and beak to a brown owl mask.

We took down out sticker pumpkins off our preschool tree and put up Autumn color leaves. We learned that fall and autumn are the same season. We read the book "Leaves are falling". We took a walk outside to gather orange, read, yellow and brown leaves and matched them up with our paper leaves back inside.

For singing time, we learned 3 new autumn songs about the leaves changing colors and falling off trees. And for our game, we played a matching game with picture cards of things found during autumn time.

Haunting To Houses

Our Halloween Party was so much fun! The Children were dressed so cute, and they were so excited to be dressed up! We started our party by eating popcorn while we filled plastic gloves up with popcorn to make "Spooky" hands. Then we glued black shapes onto our paper mache pumpkins, to make them into Jack-o-lantern Halloween baskets.

We played Halloween games, like a fun dice game called "How Many Teeth", and "Bat, Bat, Witch". "Musical chairs" was played while listing to some scary Halloween music. After each child had a turn practicing, "Trick-or-Treating" and passing the candy they brought, we bundled up, grabbed our buddy and went "Haunting", (Halloween caroling). We went to 7 homes around the block singing at each one the fun Halloween songs we had been singing this month. What a fun and memorable day!

Be Nice To Spiders and The Color Black

Today we took off our shoes and socks and enjoyed steeping in paint! This is never easy and I think we got white paint not only on the bottoms of our feet, but on everything we touched! Good thing it's washable! With our feet white we stepped onto black paper. When the paint dried, we colored with black markers a ghost face. When I told the children we were making ghost with our feet, they didn't believe me. It wasn't until I made a face did they see the ghost. One or two of the children didn't want to step in paint, so we just traced their shoe instead then colored it white.

We read the book, "Be Nice To Spiders", about a helpful spider who lives at the Zoo and ate the flies that bothered the animals. Although spiders can be kinda scary, they can also be helpful. We colored a haunted house, and attached a straw to the house to represent a drain pipe. BTW the children didn't know they had drain pipes on their house. We took a short trip outside to see the pipes on Miss Janalynn's house, where I explained their function of catching the rain and how the water pours out at the bottom. Hopefully now the song, "Itsey, Bitsey Spider" will make more sense.

Singing time was fun, because we used our houses with the drain pipe straws and spiders, when we sang "Itsey, Bitsey Spider". All the children knew the words, and we sang it over, and over, and over. They were reluctant to learn the nursery song, "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" until we played a game while singing it. Over all singing time was the highlight today!

Orange Pumpkins!!

Halloween is almost here! The kids are excited, especially because today we started making Halloween crafts. Today since we talked about the color orange, we made paper mache pumpkins. Flour and water was mixed to make an Ooey-Gooey paste. It was fun to play in, kinda like playing in white mud. So they can dry, we will paint them orange next time in class.

We then baked Pumpkin Cookies with yummy chocolate chips. We read, and colored "Farmer Mouse's Pumpkin", coloring book. The story showed us how a pumpkin is grown. We learned that a pumpkin is turned into a Jack-O-Lantern, when we carve it.


The best part of today was our trip to Farmer Robert's Pumpkin Patch! We rode on a trailer pulled by Farmer Roberts and his tractor over to the pumpkin patch were we were able to pick out our very own pumpkins to take home. It was the perfect day! The sun was shinning and warm, perfect for pumpkin picking!

Fire Safety Red

It is so important to know what to do in case of a fire. We read the book "Stop Drop and Roll", and hopefully know how to keep safe, with smoke detectors in the house, crawling low if there is smoke, to wrap up in a blanket if there is fire, GET OUT and to NOT hide and to not be afraid of a fireman. We took a look at a fire truck and all the tools that are used to help put out fires. We also took a look at the outfit and gear that a fireman wears to help protect him from fires.

For a craft we painted an egg carton red, glued a ladder and wheels onto it. After gluing a picture of ourselves in the window, it resembled a firetruck with us driving!

We are practising our Halloween songs now. They are a lot of fun, especially the song, "Halloween" because it screams "BOO!" at the end, we all laugh after we are done singing.

Have You Seen? We are learning Green!

The Children watched while I mixed yellow paint with blue paint to make Green. Then we made Goren Frogs out of a small paper plate. We sang the song "Bawlumph, went the little Green Frog" using our puppet green frogs.

It very important that we know how to stay safe. We talked about the road signs we see, and what they mean. Most of them are made to keep us safe whether we are walking or driving, or even riding our bikes! We also talked about other things to keep us safe. Do not talk to strangers, being with a buddy, watching out for cars using the side walks, etc. We talked about things we can do to stay safe indoors too. We pick up toys, don't' play with outlets, don't touch the hot stove. Last but not least, we practiced dialing 911 if and only if their is an emergency and someone is hurt. We read the book, "Shela Rae, the Brave" about what we do if we get lost.

For singing, we practiced our fun Halloween songs.

"Halloween"

"Do You Know It's Halloween"

"Found a Pumpkin"

"Ram Sam Sam"

Going Places/Transportation and the Color Blue

Today we talked about how we get to preschool, and looked at pictures of how other children in the world get to school. We read a fun book called "Bunnies on the Go" And sang songs such as "Down by the Station", "Row, Row, Row your boat" and "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane". The children received their own Transportation map with different kinds of Transportation pictures to place onto the map. The older children decorated large wings that hooked onto our arms and then we pretended to be Airplanes!

Today was the color blue!

We colored a Blue Bird and glue Blue feathers onto it.

We Blew Blue Bubbles with Blue soap, and straws. It was a lot of fun seeing how big our bubbles got. Afterwards we played the game, "my blue shoe, how old are you?"

Welcome To Our Purple Preschool

I never saw a purple cow,

I hope to never see one;

But I can tell you anyhow,

I rather see one, than be one!

This was a poem we said over and over, while we water colored purple on a cow, then glued a copy of this funny poem to the cow. We practiced our small motor skills, by pulling off the backs of grape size purple stickers, to form a bunch of grapes, and then we ate real grapes for our snack.

Community helpers/workers are important to our neighborhoods. We read the book "He Bear, She Bear" and "Who's Hat". I found out that a mail carrier is the most popular choice among 3 and 4 year olds to be when they grow up. However, Braden wants to be a fire fighter, Kiely wants to be a Veterinarian, while Luke insists on being a Dinosaur.

Say Hello To Yellow!

We started our Colors today!

all the kids know them, however it's fun to dedicate a day to one color.We started with the color Yellow. We sang 5 little Ducks, read the book "Are you my Duckling?", then painted yellow on folded paper plates to create a waddling yellow duck.

Today going along with October's Theme, "My Surroundings" We talked about where we live, and what types of homes people and animals live in. We colored, then acted out with puppet pigs, the story "The 3 Little Pigs!" I encouraged the children to go home and tell the story with their pig puppets, to their family, I hope they did.

Johnny Apple Seed and Shapes Party

While we have been learning our shapes, we have also been making a Shapes train by adding a different shapes car to the train each day. now that we have finished our shapes train, each child received their very own box car to paint shapes onto. Afterwards we played a Fun Game called "Ticket to Ride" We sang Down by the station, a shape was called out by the conductor, if you had a ticket with that shape on it, you may board the train. It was a lot of fun, especially because Miss Janalynn had a real train whistle.

We also read a fun story about Johnny Chapman, and how he was nicked named "Johnny Appleseed" we made Apple Crisp, and pots for our heads. We practiced printing our name onto the apple, and took home our apples that were on our preschool tree, so we can practice printing our name with a washable marker at home.

Apples, Apples, Apples

It's apple picking time, and we did just that! We spent some time outside picking apples! Each child had a sack of apple to take home. For our snack today we of course had cut up apples with dipping Carmel. Mmmm Yummy, and sticky!

We read a story about different types of apples, and the yummy things you make to eat with apples. We finally made necklaces with dried apples, and colored macaroni.

Our shape today was Hearts and Stars. Each of children received a Heart Stencil. We practiced tracing crayons around the heart stencil. Kiely loved her Heart stencil so much, she brought it back to class for the next 2 times, to show me how well she could trace hearts.