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!