A Tiny Little Christmas

Our 2s celebrated Christmas together in early December.

We started our day by wrapping our gifts for our parents.

Then we had our circle time.

Mrs. Harley read a story about how the animals in the barn helped get ready to welcome the Baby Jesus.

Then it was time to party! 

We decorated gingerbread men, with the candy that we didn't eat!

We made little Baby Jesus mangers.

And snacked on some delicious, festive treats.

Finally, we each made a serving of reindeer food.

It was so much fun to scoop and pour the ingredients on our own!

We opened our stockings from the party hosts.

We loved our horns and bubble. 

Thank you to the Blanton and Bryan families for this fun day at preschool.

The After Christmas Tree

I heard about The After Christmas Tree from one of my favorite preschool teacher blogs that I follow, Teach Preschool.  It seemed like the perfect story for our first week back to school from Christmas Vacation.  The book is about a family that misses Christmas so much that they decide to have a winter party. They decorate their discarded Christmas tree with items that the creatures in their yard would like to eat.   

We did not have a Christmas tree to discard, but we do have a nice tree in our yard and lots of birds that we thought would enjoy a tasty treat.  We have been discussing how food can be scarce for wild animals in winter, and that we can help!  

During this lesson, the boys and girls were responsible for collecting and managing their own materials.

We focused on following directions and using ordinal numbers to describe what to do and when.

Since I opened SDS, we have been peanut free.  First because we had allergies, now because I feel it is the safest option for all of our learners.  You just can not know when a child is going to develop a peanut allergy.   

I have mourned the loss of  making pine cone bird feeders and apple smiles, but no longer!

I discovered what we shall refer to as "faux butter".  I looks like peanut butter, smells like peanut butter, behaves like peanut butter, and tastes NOTHING like peanut butter!  It is made from soy beans and worked great for us today.

The boys and girls spread "faux butter" on their pine cones.  

They were so meticulous and focused on this task.

Next, they took turns rolling and dipping their feeder in the bird seed.

We were tickled to have left over raisins from snack today that we could embellish our feeders with.  

The birds are going to love it! (until they taste the "faux butter")

Finally, we headed out to hang our feeders.

Now, the only thing left to do is wait and watch for the birds.  

Next week we will have a bird watching book available in the science center so that we can identify any visitors.  There will also be a journal where the boys and girls can document who visits our feeders with their drawings.  

Gingerbread Friends

One of my favorite weeks at preschool is gingerbread week.

We started our week with reading The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.

Then we explored with gingerbread play-doh in the kitchen center. The boys and girls rolled out the pretend cookie dough and used familiar kitchen tools to shape and form gingerbread men.

 

We used bead to decorate our pretend cookies.

On Thursday we made REAL gingerkids.

We learned about rolling pins and the process of making gingerbread. 

We used cookie cutters to make the shape of the gingerbread baby.

Even firemen have to stop work every now and then to do a little baking..

Our school smelled delicious!

Hot out of the oven, we decorated our gingerkids and gobbled them up, just like the fox in our class favorite version of the classic tale. We talked about who ate the feet first, or the hands.  There were some that even ate the head first!

Must Be Christmas!

Our 3s had a big day as they celebrated Christmas with their school family.

The children participated in a gift exchange.  Each child drew a classmates name and shopped for them.

We are learning that it feels so good to give!

The party hosts and hostess did a great job sharing their responsibilities!

Time for a song!

Making music with our friends.

Look!  Mistletoes for our Moms and Dads.

The stockings were hung in our classroom with care.

The reindeer surely loved this treat!

Merry Christmas

Preparing our Hearts for Christmas

Any day spent with our twos is a sweet day.

The week before Christmas vacation we learned the story of The Little Drummer Boy.

Our boys and girls each got a turn to tap the drum to the beat of our music.

We extended the story to center time where they manipulated the characters from the nativity.

We were also busy making Christmas gifts for our families. 

Tickle Toes!

P is making reading up on making Christmas cookies.  

It looks like she has everything she needs.

We ended our time together with a song, reminding the boys and girls that even though we are small and may not have a "thing" to give, we can give the gift our our song, or a hug, or a kind word.  

The lesson of The Little Drummer is one of my favorites!