Slight Change to Format

One of the mothers had to leave due to scheduling, so we had to re-format a little on the order of our letters taught. We liked only having to teach once every four weeks, so decided to stick with Letter Week, Letter Week, Review Week, then made our fourth week a Field Trip Week and cancelling our normal Wednesday Field Trips. This way it frees up all the mom's schedules a little bit to have Wednesday off, and we try to plan 2 Field Trips for that week.

Christmas Party

Sorry, very few pictures. It was a bit of a crazy day, which is expected for almost any day this time of year!

SONGS

STORY

GAME - We had each kid bring a gift and did the Left/Right Story for Gift Exchange. The preschoolers caught on really quick learning Left and Right, the little kids just followed what everyone else did :) I love how little kids are happy with even the smallest things!


CRAFT - We made our own gift tags! I had three designs and we rotated them around the table so the kids got to make one of each-
Thumbprint Reindeer  - brown thumb, draw antlers, eyes, and a nose

Christmas Light Strand - draw a squiggly line and stick your finger in different colors making colored dots along the line to look like Christmas lights

Christmas Tree - Stamp up your finger in green and make a Christmas tree. I also had little ornament stampers they got to decorate their tree with

My little boys loved choosing which gift tag to put on their presents to their cousins, etc

TREAT

 MOVIE

Fun Day - Caroling

Each Christmas Fun Day the moms were going to teach the kids at least one Christmas song. That way, when they went caroling, they had a few in their storage bank.

The mom reviewed/taught a few Christmas songs then they walked around the neighborhood visiting some elderly and caroled to them. The kids loved it. The neighbors loved it. It was all around a win!

Running to each of the houses!

PLUS, they headed back the house for hot cocoa afterward! :)

Fun Day - Nativity

This mother gave the kids all parts beforehand we were supposed to review their line with them and have them come dressed up. They rehearsed the Nativity then invited the parents to come for the last 15 minutes. It was very cute, and very well done with songs and dancing!

We then sent the kids downstairs to watch a movie while we did more planning. One of the mothers mentioned she would not be able to continue in the new year.

Basically for keepsake purposes, one of the moms recorded the play. It can be seen here -

Fun Day - Gingerbread

It was all about Gingerbread today!

We started with a little story rhyme -
I'm a little gingerbread boy - boys bow
I'm a little gingerbread girl - girls curtsy
I can jump (jump) And I can twirl (twirl)
I have raisins for my eyes (point to eyes)
And bright red buttons just this size (point to buttons down chest)
I have a mouth, it looks like this (point to smiling mouth)
I can even blow a kiss (blow kiss)
I'm warm and tasty (rubbing belly)
But don't eat me (shake head and finger)
Hang me on your Christmas tree! (Put hand over head)

We then made our own gingerbread men to hang on our tree. I mixed up a dough
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup cinnamon
1/3 cup salt
1/3 cup water
The kids helped roll it out and used a gingerbread man/girl cookie cutter to put on the baking sheet. We baked them at 350 for about 25 minutes

Making the gingerbread men reminded us of the story of the Gingerbread Man. We told the story through song and the tune "Wheels on the Bus"

The gingerbread man ran through the town, through the town, through the town
The gingerbread man ran through the town singing "You'll never catch me!"

He ran away from a cow, from a cow, from a cow... (repeat) Singing "You'll never catch me"
He ran away from a sheep...
He ran away from a dog...

Then he came to a fox, to a fox, to a fox
The fox sat on a box and said "You can trust me"

Then he ate him yes-sir-ee, yes-sir-ee, yes-sir-ee... (repeat) singing "That was really yummy!"

The kids had fun recounting the story. But that fox that ate that cookie reminded us of the game "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar" and played that game practicing beats-

We finally concluded that nobody stole the cookies, but if there was a fox here, he would steal them! And we talked about how it isn't good to steal (or lie, if you do steal cookies you should tell your mom). This led into how we should act, be nice and giving. That reminded me of the story "George the Giving Gingerbread Man" This is a story my mom told when we were kids and it's your basic story, but everyone he comes across he helps (a little girl crying who had fallen down, he hides in a  house and sees someone left their shoes out so puts them away, cleans the dishes that are sitting out, etc.) He always leaves singing "Run Run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm George the Giving Gingerbread Man!" The kids thought it was so fun.

We made our way into the kitchen to decorate our George the Giving Gingerbread Men. I had pictures of eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, etc and when they found a match, they got to draw that on their picture. They were encouraged to take George home and do nice things for their family, and leave George so they could know he was there and then do something nice for someone else.

 George needed a house, so decorated Gingerbread houses (made from graham crackers)

The song we learned for Caroling Day was Up on the Housetop :)

And if you're ever wanting to do a bigger theme of gingerbread, these two websites have LOTS and LOTS of ideas-

http://www.littlegiraffes.com/gingerbread.html

http://stepbystepcc.com/gingerbread.html

Fun Day - Ornaments

For the month of December, because of Christmas Break and not wanting to teach letters, taking a long break and not being able to review them quickly, we decided to have a month of Fun Days. Each mother took one day to do something "Christmas"y of their choice.

MONDAY - Christmas Trees and Ornament Making

Review Day 2

My last day of review week I didn't really take many pictures, but we review quite a few things including all the alphabets the kids had learned up to this point and number writing practice, and various other things that went with those two things. My favorite part of the day was the kids yoga. I found a video of the cutest kids yoga and the kids really liked it. 

There was a lot of movement and the kids did really well and seemed to enjoy doing the yoga moves. 

I gotta say, Youtube is a great resource for the kids preschool. Yay, super talented people who share their talent with the world!

Review Day 1

We worked with the word tree "en" and we also reviewed why exercise is good for us.

There was very little sitting down and doing writing this time, a lot more hands on. The kids loved it.

The highlight of preschool was making gingerbread men. The kids loved decorating them and of course eating them.

D said that his was the most delicious.