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!

Celebrating Our Rock Knowledge

We have been having a fantastic week so far! Our days have been jam-packed full of learning, and I'm so pleased with all of the growth I am seeing in the children!

We are wrapping up our rock study this week. On Monday, the children voted on how they would like to celebrate their knowledge. I presented two choices to the children: writing a book or creating a rock museum. The children in both classes voted to create a rock museum.

Today, they got busy creating their rocks for the museum. They have been using all kinds of things (everything from pom-poms to yarn to fur and fabric) to make their rocks look cool and unique. We'll continue working on our rocks tomorrow and Thursday.

Our museum will be open on Monday and Tuesday. I plan to set the museum up in the hallway outside our classroom. Please check it out when you drop-off/pick-up your child! The kiddos are so proud of the work they've been doing on their rocks, and I know they will be pleased as punch to share their work with you!

Today, we also spent some time learning about fire safety. The Lake Mills firefighters visited us during both sessions. Experience has taught me that this can be a scary time for preschoolers. Seeing the firefighters in their full uniforms (including mask and helmet) is a new experience for most of them. This was definitely true today. While we talked about the firefighters coming, how they would look, and what they would sound like, a handful of children were scared. We fought through it though, and most of the children had an enjoyable time!

After talking a bit about fire safety (calling 9-1-1, stop, drop, and roll, and having a meeting place), we got to meet the fire pup! One of the funnier moments of the day came when one of the students caught on that the fire pup was really a person wearing a costume and asked, "Can we see your face?" We also got to go out and see the fire truck. We heard the sirens and the horn and got to see the lights.

Overall, I'd say the firefighter's visit was successful and got many of the kiddos thinking about fire safety.

Just a heads up for Thursday: I will not be at school on Thursday. I will be attending a conference in Des Moines. Rebecca May will be my substitute.

(I apologize for the lack of pictures from the morning class. I used two cameras today - one for the morning and one for the afternoon. I left the one I used this morning at school. I'll try to edit this post and add pictures tomorrow.)

Diving Into Rocks!

Goodness! It has been way too long since I blogged. I'm sorry about that. I'm hoping to do better with this week.

As I mentioned in the newsletter last week, we started working on our first study: Rocks! I am so excited for this study. To many adults, I'm sure learning about rocks doesn't really sound all that exciting. In the eyes of a preschooler, though, it has so many opportunities. After exploring rocks for a few days, I had the students tell me what they would like to learn about rocks. Here are some of their questions:

1. Where do rocks come from?
2. How do they get everywhere?
3. How do rocks get smooth?
4. How do rocks get rough?
5. Can we color on rocks?

Starting tomorrow, we'll start investigating the answers to these questions. I have two big events planned to help us. First, I have a guest speaker, Lisa Ralls from Winnebago County Conservation, coming on Wednesday to show the kiddos her rock collection and introduce them to fossils. On Thursday, I'm hoping to take a walking field trip to Oakwood Park to see where we can find rocks. (See the bottom of this post if you would like to come with us!)

We'll also be experimenting with a rock tumbler to see if we can turn rough, dull rocks into smooth, shiny rocks.

For now, I'll leave you with a few pictures from last week. Enjoy!

If you are interested in coming along on our field trip to Oakwood Park on Thursday, please let me know. In order to go, I need at least two extra adults for the morning class and at least one extra adult for the afternoon class. Of course, we would welcome as many adults as we can get! Thank you!