I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break. It was nice to have a little time off! Now we are in the full swing of the holidays! This week we read Moosestache and Mooseltoe and compared the characters and their problem/solution. We then made him and they’re pretty funny! We read Big Hungry Bear and Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear and did some predicting with what we thought Little Mouse’s present is. We also talked about needs and wants and sorted cards into categories. We worked on rhyming and beginning and ending sounds in words. We read the story of the Nutcracker, made nutcracker soldiers, and watched parts of the ballet. I love to do this every year, the kids were fascinated, even the boys!! We read Imogene’s Antlers and some expository books about reindeer. They sorted reindeer fact/opinion cards and made handprint reindeer. In math, we learned a new game called Sleigh Ride. I’ll send a copy home soon. They really liked it!
Thanks for remembering to read the reading books in the new book baggies and sending them back after a night or two. Remember, they most likely have read them several times with me, so it’s okay if they’re too easy. Make sure they’re really practicing pointing to the words and looking at them. Keep working on the sight words too!
And….I’m sure you heard…Buddy the elf showed up today in a freezing cold box from the North Pole! We made a big chart of all the good elf behavior that we are sure that Buddy is watching for! We had a long talk about not touching him or his magic goes away. I was able to touch him to get him out of the box and he sat on the easel. During recess, he used his magic and moved to my desk! They couldn’t believe it! ( A little more inaccessible to fingers 🙂 Buddy brought everyone an elf pencil and a new journal. Everyday, they will look to see where Buddy is and what he’s doing and write about it in their journal. We are working on writing good sentences with a capital letter at the beginning, spaces between words, and a period at the end and then our illustration has to match our words!
Next week we will start the gingerbread fun! Speaking of, we had a whole bag of holiday foam shapes at art center to use and they disappeared yesterday when I was gone. (I ended up having a science training plan time). Would you check and make sure that your child didn’t think it’d be fun to take home. If so, just return them, no big deal. They could be around here somewhere, but we looked everywhere and cannot find them!
Congrats to Lillian who got the Second Step award for having control of her emotions and being able to calm down and use our breathing strategies when needed. She got her award at the assembly today!
Hope you have a great weekend. I plan to try and figure out what online shopping I still need to do and get some Christmas organizing done. Happy December!
bentwoodkindergarten 