Celebrating Kwanzaa

Today was such a fantastic day! We were missing quite a few kids today, which is a major bummer. (I certainly hope all of those kiddos who weren't feeling well are starting to get better!) Having fewer kiddos, though, was a blessing. Being able to spread out and not have to share as much was a nice break for them. I was very impressed by the things they were doing too.

For example, one of my friends was working in the art area. She decided she was going to make a kite. Nichole and I thought she was just going to draw a picture of a kite,  but we were pleasantly surprised when she got out the ribbon and actually made a kite. After it was finished, she started to run around the room trying to get it to fly. Here she is:

When the other kiddos saw her doing this, they all decided to make kites as well. Before too long, they ran out of room to run around, so I opened the door and allowed them to use the hallway. They ran up and down the hallway with their kites flying behind them. This was a super, spontaneous lesson in aerodynamics. As they ran, they discovered that if they ran slowly their kites wouldn't leave the ground. The faster they ran the higher their kites went. It was the neatest thing to be a part of!

We've been learning about Kwanzaa this week. We read books about Kwanzaa, made some Kwanzaa decorations for our celebration next week, and watched a short video from Sesame Street about the holiday.

 Making Kwanzaa chains to decorate the classroom.

  Making Kwanzaa hats to wear during our celebration.

My favorite part of this week has been learning about African music. I had a meeting with Pastor Denise a couple of weeks ago, and while I was visiting with her, I noticed she had some African instruments. (She even had the exact instrument from the book we read!) I asked her if we could borrow them to help us learn more about African music, and she was more than happy to share. The kiddos had so much fun exploring these new instruments. Check out this guy explore the drum:

We'll be learning about Mexican Christmas traditions tomorrow and Thursday. I'm really excited about how this study has been going, and I'm looking forward to our big celebrations next week!

See you tomorrow!

Holiday Traditions Around the World

I need to apologize. I have been the worst at keeping up with this blog this year. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It means I have been putting more and more time into plans and activities for the kiddos, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, it means I haven't been in touch with you, parents and family members, nearly as much as I should be. I'm very sorry about that.

I have much to say to you today though!

First of all, thank you so much for making sure your children were at Salem to sing last Sunday! I was so excited to see such a large group (27 kiddos!!!!) this year! They did so well too. To be totally honest with you, while I was smiling huge smiles (The kiddos tend to imitate the faces I make. I was hoping they would smile too.), I was also fighting back tears. I think about the children where they were when I met them, and I can already see huge growth in them. It makes me happy to see how mature they are becoming. Thank you for all of your help in this as well!

I also need to thank all of the parents and family members who helped with the fundraiser on Sunday afternoon. We had many, many tasty baked goods and more wrapping paper than we knew what to do with. We also had a group of fantastic parents who donated their time to help wrap present and sell the baked goods. Thanks you so much! We made around $500 to help with our playground, which will (hopefully!) be finished this spring.

Last week, we started to answer some of the questions the kiddos came up with after looking through books about holiday traditions throughout the world. We started with their questions on Hanukkah. We read a book, watched a segment of Elmo's World about Hanukkah, played the dreidel game, made a poster about Hanukkah, and wrote a book about Hanukkah.

This week, we'll be learning about Kwanzaa and Mexican Christmas traditions. All of this is in preparation for our holiday tradition celebration. The week before Christmas break (the week of December 17) we will be celebrating one holiday tradition each day. Here's what the schedule looks like:

December 17: Hanukkah - Playing dreidel game (this time with real dreidels!), making and trying latkes, exploring a menorah, and dancing to Hanukkah music
December 18: Kwanzaa - Making and trying cornbread, creating our own rain sticks, and playing Mancala
December 19: Mexican Christmas - Making and trying bunuelos, creating poinsettias, and breaking a pinata
December 20: American Christmas - Pajama Party! - Making Christmas cookies, decorating a tree, and watching The Polar Express (I'll send home more information about this at the end of next week.)

I am incredibly excited about these celebrations. Nichole and I spent almost an hour on Friday planning them, and I am sure they are going to be a blast for the kiddos! I especially love this idea because it opens the children's eyes to cultures and traditions they may not be familiar with.

We have continued to work on our goals this week as well. We sorted M&Ms to practice counting and number recognition, sorted shapes to practice shape recognition, learned a new alphabet song for letter recognition, and wrote in our journals.

Have a fantastic Sunday! See you tomorrow or Tuesday!