Snow Day!

Well no school today because the roads are icy, but snowy front yards make perfect playgrounds! Here are some pictures of little snow bunnies.

J for Candy Cane?

That's right - J for candy cane. Just turn it over and what do you have? A beautiful J to hang a baby Jesus on. The kids made these cute little tree ornaments after reading the story of the first Christmas.



Matching letters by placing the correct colored tiles on the tree.

After practicing AB patterns with foam beads we made our own patterns with rubber Christmas stamps. (These beads are the best and can be used for so many things - threading, sorting, learning colors or shapes....)

We made chocolate pudding and topped it with peppermint that they crushed themselves. (They had a little too much fun pounding on the candies with wooden blocks!)

Little Miss M

Little Miss M isn't always here on school days, so I thought I'd just add some 'too busy to say cheese :)' pictures of her playing at Mrs. Mandy's house.

g is for gingerbread

Last week was all about gingerbread! We practiced the letter G, read the old tale of The Gingerbread Man (ours was written by Carol North), made our own Playdough versions, and even made a gingerbread house! In math we are learning AB patterns using colored foam beads. This Christmas, I'd like the kids to learn that it is more important to give than to receive and that we can help others even though we are little. They each drew a picture for my elderly neighbor who has been feeling under the weather. We put them together in a card and delivered it. Each child explained his or her picture and saw how their thoughtfulness made another person feel better. She was delighted.





After reading Gingerbread Mouse, by Katy Braton, We made 'square' gingerbread houses with 'triangle' roofs! The kids had a blast and showed great self control by not eating the icing or candy until we were all finished (minus a licked finger or two :) Here they are, each showing off his or her very special creation.





Well, most showed self control! The candy never made it to A's house :)

And I see two empty spots on E's house that were filled with gummy bears at one time :)





We also read The Mitten, by Jan Brett. Then we used cotton balls and paper scraps to make our own.

A thankful bunch

Today we learned about the first Thanksgiving. We read Mousekin's Thanksgiving, by Edna Miller and sang "Thanks A Lot," by Raffi. After making a "Blessing Mix" (trail mix with thanksgiving symbols) we learned a Native American Thanksgiving Rhyme. Other favorite activities included Turkey Bingo and making tissue paper turkeys. The kids named several things they are thankful for - family, pets, each other, Lightening McQueen.... :) Thank you, Lord, for childern. What a joy!



Playing doctor during centers.

Making Thanksgiving dinner Playdough style!

The past two weeks

We've been busy. We have learned the letters T and O and read lots of great books. We have mastered our shapes and are all becoming computer savvy!

Little computer techies. Try Sesamestreet.com. This site features all your favorite new and old video clips from the show and even has "toddler" games. We all love it - young and old.



The good old fashioned Magnadoodle is still a great tool for teaching shapes, writing letters, numbers......

Using more "water" than "color" and having lots of fun.

Pretty painter.

Turning T's into fall tttttrees.



Precision gluing.

Little dare devil.

Taking orders at Restaurant de PreK.

Little turkeys (and a couple of big ones too.)

The letter L and geometric shapes

This week we learned the letter L. We did leaf rubbings and tore 'l' words out of magazines - mostly 'ladies' and 'laughing.' We read - Autumn's First Leaf, by Steve Metzger, The Shape of Things, by Dayle Ann Dodds and a Clifford book called The Silly Scarecrow. We are learning our geometric shapes and made some pretty "rectangular" city skylines after reading the tale of The County Mouse and the City Mouse. We had a great week with beautiful weather. The students are learning those ever important social skills and I'm enjoying watching them play and learn together.

Playdough balls and counting.

Using Playdough to make circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles.

A rectangle.

Cuties coloring.

Pretty babies.

Little Miss Muffet and more pumpkins

Eating cookies made from our very own pumpkin.




Using paint, glitter, fur, and eyes to make our pumpkins unique.




We read Go Away Big Green Monster, by Ed Emberly, a cute book with cut pages to create and then send away a silly monster.

Working on our - coloring, cutting, and gluing skills.


Acting out Little Miss Muffet and learning the letter M.

Last Week - The Letter P

Sorry for the delayed and brief post. We've been hit with a case of the nasties and it is taking a while to get back on our feet. We had a great last week - all about the letter P.... pillow fights, popcorn, and the pumpkin patch! We look forward to a great day tomorrow.






We took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch!








Just thought this was an interesting pumpkin. We searched the patch for bumpy, smooth, tall, short, long stem, white........ pumpkins. The kids had a great time and needed a nap when we got back!


Cleaning out the icky insides. We read two stories about pumpkins - I'm a Seed, by Jean Marzollo and Pumpkin Pumpkin, by Jeanne Titherington.


We saved the seeds for roasting and will hopefully taste our yummy pumpkin tomorrow during snack!