I can't show you everything we've been up to this week, as we've been making a few things for under the Christmas Tree!
We made these cute Santas. They are holding the Santa letters the children made on Friday.
On Tuesday the children made Ginger Crinkles. The wonderful Mom helpers and I have no idea why they flattened out, but apparently they were yummy because they all disappeared!
Yes we washed our hands!
We did some Math...
...visited with Santa via video-conference...he showed us how he can disappear and reappear somewhere else!
We are in the left hand corner of the TV screen. There were some other classes from Kamloops and one from Alberta visiting at the same time!
On Thursday Zero the Hero dropped something off to celebrate the 70th day of kindergarten - only the surprise was missing because Gingy had run away with it. He left us a clue though!
Gingy led us on a merry chase throughout the school...he visited the gym, office, Mrs. Hyslop's room, the medical room and the library but we just didn't seem to be able to catch up to him...finally he left us a note saying he had gone back to our classroom to rest and this is what we found...
In the basket was the yummiest smelling gingerbread playdough!
Whew! Counting to 70 is hard work, but we did it!
Then it was time for Gingerbread Houses! Here they are, ready to go! One little kindy thought they looked like birdhouses!
After this photo, my camera battery ran out! We had a great time.
I'd like to thank all the parents who helped with our special activities this week (both in the classroom and by donation). We can't do it without you!
'Tis the season! I hope those who attended the Christmas Concert enjoyed the show. It was a big deal for the kindies to get on that stage and perform for you! I know they were happy and proud when they were finished. Here are some of the things we've been doing lately...
Counting to 60 and decorating our trees!
We also introduced the letter Rr. The Letterland character is called Red Robot and he robs people! I introduced the letter by robbing an item from each of the children's backpacks. They thought it was so funny! Later, when my chalk went missing, the children decided Red Robot took it. He's on the naughty list! I didn't really want to focus on robbing for R - so we drew reindeer and read Rudolph stories instead. "Miss Katie" donated a lovely Rudolph stuffy to our classroom and he's become a favourite!
I love their reindeer drawings!
Thanks to Sarah's delicious baking, we were able to do some fun gingerbread science and math!
We read the original Gingerbread Man and the children made predictions about what would happen if he went into the river. I love the one, "he can't breathe" (oops I just realized I spelled that one wrong on the chart!).
Time to test our theories...
First he sunk.
The kindies wrote and drew their predictions. Then after 20 minutes they wrote and drew again. And then after an hour we had this...
Poor Gingy!
The next day we used the cookies for math. But we had to have some fun with them first!
Now for the Math part. The kindies took one bite of their cookie and then recorded what part of the cookie they bit first. We graphed the results.
We've been having a lot of fun these past few weeks! Our life size elves were a big hit. I hope you enjoyed seeing them in the hallways. We also have a few surprises we're working on! Next week we'll be making Ginger Crinkles on Tuesday. The recipe is on this blog. The highlight will be the Gingerbread Houses on Thursday. The children can start bringing in their candy next week.
HELP WANTED! Our 70th day of school falls on Thursday. I'll have my hands full making the Gingerbread Houses. Zero the Hero is going to bring one ball of gingerbread playdough for each child (Shhh!). They will be making 70 small balls with it. Can anyone help Zero get it ready? I have the recipe at school, or I could e-mail it to you if you want to make it on the weekend. Please don't let your little kindy see! They love Zero the Hero. Thanks so much! Have a great weekend!
We had a fun last week of November. We were working on letter N and made these:
Noodles on Nn! It was a quick and easy activity and all the kindies felt successful!
Then it was time for a challenge! These took all week to make and each kindy had to give up an entire centre time to make it!
They turned out great and were well worth the effort! What amazed me was how much the kindies enjoyed this activity and stuck with it while their friends were playing! I drew the eyes and nose and traced their hands, but the rest of the craft is all their own work! Mrs. Hyslop shared this craft with us and we're glad she did!
Because this craft took a long time, I didn't take a lot of photos this week.
Two of our girls worked together during one of our centre times to make this:
The playdough continues to be a hit! It does mess up our tables a bit, so I brought 2 plastic placements from home that my kids are no longer using. If you have some at your home that you don't use, we could really use a couple more. I've never had a class love playdough as much as this one!
One of our little guys scraped his hand this week at recess. He found holding a pencil uncomfortable. We were working on number 8 so he worked with Miss Andrews and another student to create 8's. Playough to the rescue!
A little more rhyming work.
The children also met "Kelly" this week. She is a Koala Puppet and was given to me at our October workshop during the last Pro-D. I learned about the program "Fun Friends". It is a wonderful anti-anxiety program for the little ones. We actually started it last week with helping Scaredy Squirrel be brave. Now Kelly is teaching us about feelings. The premise is that all feelings are okay and normal, we just need to learn what to do with them! After some instruction, the children played a game this week where they had to make faces at their partner and their partner had to guess their feelings. They laughed so hard.
I wanted to share this story that I read this week...
Chester the raccoon is afraid of speaking in front of his class. His mother tells him a sweet story about a robin who is afraid to fly to help him get over his fears. You may want to get a copy and share this at home.
We are all looking forward to the upcoming Christmas Concert on December 13th. However this can be quite overwhelming for some children. They have to get on stage, the lights are bright, it's crowded and they can't see their families. I have been talking about the concert in positive terms: it's a present for our families, we're going to share a song with them, try our best and have fun. There is no emphasis on being perfect. I want all the children to be proud of their efforts and I know you will be proud of them too!
We're going to be crazy busy the next few weeks! I'll be sending information home next week about our cooking and gingerbread activities. I have a cute math activity that uses gingerbread man cookies. I tried making gingerbread cookies at home last year with zero success...still no idea what I did wrong! If anyone would like to bake up a batch and pop them in your freezer until we need them, that would be great. (Yes the children will get to eat one, but we do need an extra for a fun science experiment). They do have to be in the gingerbread man shape for the activities. I don't know exactly what day we will do this. We have a lot of interruptions this time of year. It won't be next week for sure! I have a fun craft planned that will take a lot of time.
Enjoy your weekend!
Just a reminder that I will be attending a workshop at TRU on Monday. There is no school for students.