Kwanzaa & Monster Squeeze

Today we learned about the holiday of Kwanzaa!   From our stories we learned that the candles that use in their celebration are black, red, and green because these are the colors on the African flag.   We also learned that they make their gifts to give each other, rather than buy gifts.  After our stories, we created noodle necklaces with those same colors and talked about how this would make a great homemade gift for someone!  The kiddos loved making them!

In math we are learning how to play the "Monster Squeeze" game to work on our teen numbers and the concept of more and less.  The kids love it!  I will be sending home a version of the game to play at home over Christmas!

Hannukah Fun

This week our theme study is focused on different holidays in December!  Today we talked about Hanukkah.   We learned about the menorah, potato latkes, gelt, and the dreidel game.  This afternoon we made our own dreidels and played the game.  The kiddos seemed to enjoy it! I hope you can take a few minutes to play with your child tonight! The directions are in their folder! Have fun!

Gingerbread House Decorating

What a great way to end our gingerbread unit!  Thank you to the grown-ups that came to help us out!  

Gingerbread Cookies

Today we read our 3rd version of the gingerbread story....The Gingerbread Bear!   The kids loved it! After our story we created a book on how to decorate a cookie!  After creating our book we followed the steps to create our very own gingerbread cookie! And then of course we had to gobble them up before they ran away!

We also graphed our first bites of our cookie! Here are the results!

Exciting News!

We discovered today that our bird laid eggs!!!!!   The kids are very excited!  

Writer's Workshop and Math Center

Here are a few snapshots of the end of writer's workshop.  We try to share what we are writing with each other at the end of our workshop!  The kids really enjoy this part!

We started a new group of math centers!  

Below a friend is having fun on the computer game: Polygon.

Below a friend is working on her teen numbers and showing that number with tens frames.

Below the kiddos are enjoying putting together a rainbow shape book.

Below the kiddos are working on ipads using the app: Beyond Cats to practice various math skills.

Below the kiddos are walking around the room looking for christmas card tens frames.  They then write the number word for the amount on the card and then the word. 

Recycling Presentation

Today we had a special visitor!  Mr. Peetz from Pineview came over to talk with us about the importance of recycling!  He told us how paper can be turned into new paper and he showed us what the recycling sign looks like.  We then hunted for it on a variety of items to see if it could be recycled.   We are working hard to make the earth a little healthier!

Today at theme time we read a story called: Pete the Cat Saves Christmas!  We learned a fun song to help us remember to care and share at christmas.  See if your kiddo remembers the song.  We then played a fun game of Musical SHARES :)

Sorry about the video...didn't turn out very good :(   Still fun to watch them having fun sharing their chair with a friend!

Poetry Reading & Card Making

For theme study today we hunted down word wall words in our poem "Presents." After gluing it into our journal some kiddos had time to go back and reread some old poems.   They love reading their favorites!

Next, we read a fun story called: The Jolly Christmas Postman.  We noticed that everyone seemed very happy to get something in the mail at Christmas time!  Our follow up project was to make Christmas cards for the troops!  The kids did a nice job!

DON'T FORGET TO HAVE YOUR  CHILD DO THEIR ACT OF KINDNESS FOR THEIR CALENDAR TODAY!!

Caring and Sharing

Today we started our new unit on Caring and Sharing!  Our focus today was on understanding wants versus needs.  I had a huge sack full of items that we sorted out if it was a want or a need.  The kids did a great job sorting them out.  We were just unsure about soda and candy!  Ask your child what we decided about the soda and candy....want or need?

After reading a few stories and looking at an anchor chart on wants and needs, we went back to the table to tried our own sort!  Look for it in your child's folder.

In your child's folder is a kindness calendar! I am challenging the children to complete one act of kindness each day in December!  Please read that came attached to this calendar for more details.  

Shape Fun!

We have spent our week learning about shapes!  We talked about each shape and created a chart about each one.  We hunted for shapes in the room and created different shapes with pipe cleaners!  At the end of the week we created shape pictures!  The kids were super creative!