Staying Warm By The Fire!

The children seemed very eager to return to school after Thanksgiving break.  They were excited to share with their friends where they went, what they did and their favorite Thanksgiving food.  The children seemed particularly interested in the new set up in the dramatic play area, the camping site!  This whole week they have all spent a lot of their time camping.  They have enjoyed making s'mores and chatting around the fire.  It is really cute to watch them roasting the marshmallows (cotton balls) using sticks.  They have also enjoyed playing in the tent.  Most of them pretend they are a family on a camping trip while others like to pretend they are wild animals living in the woods.  Since they liked sitting by the campfire making s'mores so much we thought it would be fun if we could make the scene come alive.  On Friday, we let the children have real s'mores while reading them a story around the pretend fire.

The letter of the week this week was "C".  The children had a lot of fun showing us the proper way to form it, practicing the sounds it makes, and thinking of words that begin with the letter.  We decided that we would make a "c" word caterpillar where the children could write words that begin with the letter c in the body.  We began by cutting out the circles and asked the children to paint them green.  When they dried the children chose a word they wanted to write in each circle.  They were so eager to do this that we had to make the caterpillar even longer because they kept thinking of new words!  The children also did their Handwriting Without Tears "C" page to practice starting the letter at the top.  Some of the children only did one page while others sat their for long periods of time and did other letters and numbers as well.

The children have been enjoying the new map puzzle of the United States.  We labeled the back of the puzzle pieces and the base of the puzzle so the children could match the words to find the proper place of the pieces.  The children have been looking for the places where they have family members and telling their classmates.  We will begin placing the children's name and relatives on the map in the United States first and eventually will expand to a world map.  If any of you are going out of state for the holidays or having relatives come from out of state it would be great if they could bring a postcard or some sort of small memento representing their state.

  

MUSIC

This week the children each wrote their own rhythms and shared them as a group.  We also played hide the eraser with resonator bells.  The children had to make soft sounds when the child who was looking for the eraser was far away and as they got closer they made louder sounds until the child found it.  Now that we are in December we began singing holiday songs!

REMINDERS:

* If there is a holiday tradition you would like to share in our class please sign up on the calendar by the sign in sheet.

* As it gets colder outside please make sure that your child's change of clothes in his/her cubby is weather appropriate.