Saturday, December 21, 2013

Gingerbread, Playing in the Snow, Ornaments, Elsa the Elf, PJ Day, and the Letter J!



Our theme this week was Gingerbread. 

  • We read both fiction and non-fiction books about Gingerbread People. We talked about what characters were the same in all the books and what the differences were.  


  • We went on a scavenger hunt around the school to find all the characters of our Gingerbread Man poem.  
  • At Small Group:  
    • We decorated gingerbread houses and people.  


  •  We practiced our listening skills and color identification by doing a “listen and do” coloring activity.  
  • At Choice Time: 
    • We played in our giant gingerbread house.  
In the "tree house"

    •  Miss Lorri brought in a “Where’s Santa” book similar to “Where’s Waldo” and the kiddos LOVED it!
    • Elsa the Elf brought us a movie about what she and her elf friends do and see when they go to the north pole every night. The kiddos enjoyed their present from Elsa the Elf.  
    • We worked on scissor skills and made paper snowflakes to hang on our ceiling.  
    • We played outside in the snow! We tried to make a snowman, but the snow didn’t cooperate. We tried out our new sleds and shovels. We were cold, but we had a blast! 
He tried really hard to push Miss Kendra down the hill and when the sled finally started going he went right along with it.






    •  Our student of the week this week was Deklan. His mom and dad came in to read us a story. They also brought in one of his favorite toys to share with the class. :)


    • We made hand print ornaments for our parent gifts. The kiddos enjoyed getting their hands painted and the ornaments turned out pretty cute. 


    • Elsa the Elf made us laugh with her adventures this week:
Making Snow Angels!

Eating popcorn during the movie. She also made paper snowflakes and hung them from the ceiling, but we forgot to get a picture. :(
 The last day of school before break was PJ Day! My mom and brother even stopped by to see us. 
Everyone was excited to show off their jammies and slippers.



Singing the 12 Days of Christmas Song :)



My mom read them the story "The Very Hungry Reindeer". They loved feeding the pieces to the reindeer. Unfortunately it won't let me post the video. :(


Our “Letter of the Week” this week was the letter ‘J'. Some of our activities include:  

  • Practicing saying the sound the letter makes. 
  • Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the “letter monster”. 
  • Using white boards to practice writing the letter at large group.  
  • Making our alphabet book page for each letter at small group.  
  • Seeing who has the letter in their name. 
  • Identifying the letter.




Friday, December 13, 2013

Polar Express, Elsa the Elf, Gingerbread House, Letter I, and Family Night!




  • Our theme this week was Polar Express and Christmas. 
    • We read both fiction and non-fiction books about the Polar Express & Christmas. 
 
 
 
 
    • We used cut outs to retell the story of the Polar Express in our own words.  
    • We used pictures from the Polar Express to create different types of patterns. 
    • We added trains to our block area.
  • At Large Group:  
    • We sang and danced to Christmas carols and used our jingle bell instruments.  

 

    • We played Christmas themed matching games. 
    •  We also wrote a whole group letter to Santa (which we sent to the north pole with Elsa Princess).
  • At Small Group: 
    • We worked on letter sounds, alliteration, and rhyming.  
    • We also worked on one to one correspondence (pointing out each object individually) while counting.  
    • I also found these pictures from a few weeks ago on my phone:
Patterning


Sorting
  • At Choice Time:  
    • We continued our movie theater socio-dramatic play. 
    • We worked together to create a gingerbread house out of a large cardboard box. We decorated it with cotton balls, our gingerbread people, and painted paper plates.


They turned it into a train station.
Last week we found a "dinosaur egg" outside and made it a nest. We brought it in out of the cold and it "hatched" and brought along several dinosaur friends.

Our resident artist. I told him this made him look like Darth Vader. ;)
  • Elsa Princess had some interesting adventures this week:

She wrote us a note.

She got the sniffles.

She got kidnapped by dinosaurs.

Grinch saved her and they decided to hang out.


Elsa brought us some snow from her Elf village at the North Pole. It smelled just like gingerbread!!!

 
  • Our “Letter of the Week” this week was the letter ‘I’. We will be going in alphabetical order for the next 17 weeks. Some of our activities include:  
    • Identifying the letter.  
    • Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the “letter monster”. 
    • Using white boards to practice writing the letter at large group. 
    • Making our alphabet book page for each letter at small group.  
    • Practicing saying the sound the letter makes. 
    • Seeing who has the letter in their name.
  •  Family Night was a lot of fun! We were happy to see so many of our students and their families. We made several crafts, ate pizza, and listened to Christmas music.
They got the chance to be an illustrator of their very own book: "Snowman, Snowman, What Do You See?"

They made noodle people.

They made "I Spy" ornaments.

They made Q-tip Snowflakes.