Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel, I Made It Out of Air......Wait, Air?

What a great way to spend a week! We've been learning about different holidays people from around the world celebrate in December.

We started out by talking about what our families do to celebrate in December. All of the families at SON Shine celebrate Christmas, so the children excitedly told me about decorating Christmas trees, putting up lights, baking cookies, visiting Santa, and opening presents.We decorated our own Christmas trees, which will be hanging in the alley entrance way. I can't wait for you to see them! The kids were very creative, especially in the colors of paint they chose to paint their trees in.

 

 First, they painted their trees.

  

 Then they made their ornaments. This was a great chance for them to practice their cutting skills.

 

Glitter is our forever friend. We're still finding glitter everywhere in the room, and we haven't had it out since!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we learned about Hanukkah. It's amazing to me how much the children remember about how people celebrate Hanukkah after hearing just one story. Their favorite part is that the Jewish people eat doughnuts in celebration of the holiday! 

We made dreidels on Tuesday and played the traditional dreidel game. The kids had a blast with it! I was impressed with their sportsmanship too. If they spun the letter that meant they didn't get any of the "pot" of candy, they just waited patiently until it was their turn again. The earlier children learn life skills like this, the better off they'll be when they have to handle competitive situations in real life. While we were playing the game, I played some Hanukkah music for the children. That's where the title of this post comes from. In one song, the lyrics talked about making dreidels out of different materials, like mud, sand, and air. The kids laughed and laughed when the singer sang about making a dreidel out of air. What a ridiculous thought!

We started learning about the nights of Las Posadas, which is celebrated in Mexico, on Thursday. We'll continue on Monday, and I'm hoping to have a full blown Mexican celebration! 

The children handled the classroom rearrangement beautifully! I feel this change is an incredibly beneficial one; I've already noticed a change in how they are playing. Here's my favorite example:

The children generally avoided the block area in the past. For the last two days, there has constantly been at least one kiddo in the block area. The play that comes out of that is fabulous too! Check this out: I walked over to the block center on Thursday to check out what a rather large group of children were up to. They had lined up our wooden buildings so the doors matched and they were attempting to roll a marble from one side to the other. I was blown away by their creativity! It was the neatest thing! (I apologize that the pictures are sideways. My camera was not cooperating with me...)

 This is what the whole thing looked like.

Here's a different perspective. (P.S. I love this picture!)

Also, just for fun. Here's what happens when the kiddos catch me watching them read:

They make me love my job! 

I hope you have a fabulous weekend! I'll see you all on Monday (or Tuesday).

Classroom Changes

Ok, I apologize the lameness of this post. I will post about what we have been up to at the end of the week. (It has been a fantastic week too! We've been learning about all kinds of cool holiday traditions, and I definitely look forward to sharing them with you!)

Today, I want to give you a heads-up about some major changes the board and I made to the classroom today. As we're getting closer and closer to our Department of Education verification visit in February, I've been working harder and harder to make sure we're demonstrating our implementation of the standards. As a result, I needed to change the room around to make sure the students were able to play in every interest area every day. So, when you come tomorrow, you'll see this in the north room:

and this in the south room:

It'll be interesting to see how the children respond to these changes, but I feel like we have more opportunities this way.

If you could do me a favor and prepare your children for these changes, that might help me out a little bit. Sometimes with young children too much change can unnerve them a bit, so letting them know the classroom is going to look a little different might help them adjust easier.

See you tomorrow!

Holiday Celebrations Around the World and a Whole Bunch of Singing!

Wow! This week went by super fast! I realized yesterday that we only have two and a half school weeks until Christmas break! How did that happen?

We spent a lot of time this week trying to get back into our routines. Coming off of long breaks can be a challenge for preschoolers, but luckily we didn't have any problems! We also spent a lot of time preparing for Sunday! I cannot wait for you all to see the hard work the kiddos have been putting into our little program! I think you'll enjoy it. :)

We have been working on transitioning from our Lake Mills study into a study of holiday traditions around the world. In the next two weeks, we'll be learning about various celebrations families around the world celebrate, like St. Lucia Day (Sweden), Los Posadas (Mexico), Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas. To start this study I added a few celebration artifacts to the classroom and let the children explore. They:

 made bouquets out of artificial poinsettias and

decorated a Christmas tree.

A few of the kiddos made and decorated trees out of play dough and a few painted some trees too!

Outside of those beginning exploration activities for this new study, we also: 

 played doctor and patient in our clinic,

played many new math games where we practiced counting, patterning, and number recognition, and

played with endless amounts of play dough.

Next week, we'll really start to delve into the different celebrations, and I'm incredibly excited about it!

I'm also excited to see you this Sunday! Remember to have your child in the classroom wearing a yellow SON Shine shirt by 10:00 so we can be ready to go by 10:30! I know there are a few kiddos who don't have a shirt yet, but I'll have one for them to borrow on Sunday and I'll be ordering a few more so that you can have one to keep. See you then!

 

What I'm Thankful For....

Okay, I apologize for missing a full two weeks of blogging. Between parent/teacher conferences and Thanksgiving, there was a lot going on. I should be back on my regular blogging schedule now though!

I know I'm a little late in this post, but I wanted to take some time to mention all the things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving/holiday season.

1. I'm thankful for each and every one of my awesome young friends. They bring smiles to my face every single day and make all the work completely worth it. 
2. I'm thankful for the SON Shine families. You all care so much about your children, and I am so grateful you let me be a part of their lives.
3. I'm thankful for the parent board members. You five ladies help me make many, many decisions and plan our fabulous events. I certainly couldn't make SON Shine the place it is without you!
4. I'm thankful for the staff of Salem Lutheran Church. They are always there to lend a helping hand whenever I need it. Their support means so very much to me. 
5. I'm thankful for the members of the state legislature who fought hard to keep the Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program going. Being able to release the financial burden preschool can have from the shoulders of the families is a fantastic thing, and I know it is helping all of you!
6. Lastly, on a more personal note, I'm thankful for my own family and friends who support me and provide me a chance to step away from SON Shine and relieve some stress.

I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving! I'll leave you with some pictures from Monday and Tuesday.

We made body tracings and the children used all kinds of materials to decorate them. (They're hanging in the hallway outside our classroom, so feel free to check them out!)

 Kick Bowling - it's like bowling, but you kick the ball instead of rolling it!

 Lots of music....

Lots and lots of music!

Quiet End to a Busy Week

The last two days have been very quiet at SON Shine, and I’ve got to say that I really enjoyed them. Of course, quiet does not mean that we haven’t been learning; I just mean the kids have been very intent in their play and I have been doing my best to let them lead the way.

(First of all, I apologize for the lack of pictures. My batteries died yesterday, and I didn’t have a chance to get to a store to buy new ones last night. Sorry about that.)

We spent yesterday taking a little detour from our Lake Mills study. The kids have been increasingly interested in the marble tubes we have, and I decided to capitalize on that interest and see how the children solve problems. I built a few towers and took pictures of them before the kids arrived on Wednesday. During interest areas, I had the kids look at the pictures and try to build the same towers I had. It was cool to see them work as a team (or at least try - that’s definitely a skill that is still being developed) to create the towers. It was a great opportunity for them to practice taking turns and using words to communicate their ideas too!

We had Cooking with Jodie yesterday, and we made grilled cheese sandwiches! I think my favorite part about these sessions is the time the kids have to talk to each other. They share the craziest, most detailed stories during these times!

Today, since the afternoon class didn’t meet, the morning class had a relaxing day. Instead of doing my planned teacher-directed activities, I let the kids have complete control over what they wanted to do during interest area time. Many of them decided they wanted to use the listening center to listen to our letter songs – the ones from our graduation program last year. (It’s so much fun listening to them talk while they listen to those songs. They’re constantly saying things like, “Hey! This is Keely’s letter!” and “I remember this one! It’s Tara’s letter!”) The others spent a great deal of time building with the Legos. There was the inevitable singing and dancing to Tooy-ta and The Penguin Dance, and we even had some fun with the parachute.

All in all, it was a great way to end the week!

Have a great weekend!

From Freezers to Safes to Paint Mixers - Our Walking Tour of Lake Mills!

Our study of Lake Mills is in full swing, and it is turning into one of the most exciting studies so far!

Our walking tour of Lake Mills yesterday was a great experience! My goal was for the kids to start thinking about what kinds of experiences they’ve had in Lake Mills and what kinds of workers there are in this town. I had originally only planned to walk by the businesses on the sidewalk, but Judy and I decided it would be even more beneficial to the kids if we went into those businesses and asked the employees what kind of work they did. I’m so glad we decided to do that!

We got to see the different areas the mechanics use to fix cars at Dave’s, explore the ice cream freezer at the grocery store (Brrrr!), see the librarian in action, walk into the safe at the bank, examine the paint mixer at Singelstad’s, and learn all about what kind of workers it takes to run The Grand! We were even surprised to find some bakers in Lake Mills. I was so proud of the kiddos who were brave enough to walk into these stores and ask the employees what their jobs were! What a fantastic experience we had.

 Learning about being a mechanic at Dave's!

 In the freezer at the grocery store!

 Watching the coin machine at the bank!

Also, I need to send a huge thank you to Judy for changing her schedule and coming on a Monday! Without her, we probably wouldn’t have been able to go, so thank you, Judy!

We spent some time writing our very own stories yesterday too. We created characters for our stories by cutting shapes out of peanut butter sandwiches. Then everyone helped write a story about these characters. It was so much fun to see how different their stories were! Children really do have the very best imaginations! 

Today we spent a chunk of time opening a Pizza Ranch in our dramatic play center. Many of the children asked to go into Pizza Ranch on our walk yesterday, but I didn’t want to walk in without letting the employees know first. I’m hoping I can set up a field trip specifically to Pizza Ranch in the next couple of weeks, but I’m still working on that.  Until then, the kids will have fun pretending to work in a pizza restaurant at school!

Dramatic play scenarios like this are perfect, real-life experiences for the children to practice writing skills! Take a look at some of these notes the children wrote while they took orders. Keep in mind that there are stages of writing. Everything from scribbles to letter-like figures to inventive spelling are typical of preschoolers and all lead up to the writing skills they will learn in elementary school.

I'm so excited to see where this study will take us! 

Please remember to sign up for a conference time for next week!

F.Y.I: On Thursday, we will not be having our afternoon preschool class. The school district is getting out at 1:30 to allow for families to head to the volleyball game, and I want to make sure you all have those same chances.

When I Grow Up, I Want to be Micky Mouse!

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping your children with their homework on Monday! Taking that time to count with your children shows them that you care and it is a memorable experience for them!

With that homework, we did a couple of activities. On Monday, the children all guessed how many pieces of candy they thought they might get. I had guesses from 2 pieces to 1721 (pronounced seventeen twenty-one – it’s impossible to not smile at these things) pieces. We compared our guesses with our actual number of pieces the next day. No one guessed completely correct, but there were a few who were pretty close.

The wrappers opened up a whole new world of sorting. We sorted by color, type, size, and chocolate/not chocolate. The afternoon class was particularly interested in this activity, so they helped me create a graph of some of the favorite treats. The two favorite candies in the afternoon class were Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Willy Wonka candies. 

We also started a study of Lake Mills this week. We began by talking about what kinds of workers we might have in Lake Mills. We made a list of all the jobs our parents hold, and wrote a classroom book about what we want to do when we grow up. Some of my favorite answers to that question were an engineer (almost fell backwards out of surprise at that vocabulary!), Mickey Mouse, and Diego.

In the block center, we built our own model of Lake Mills. The children helped build The Grand, Pizza Ranch, Mills Theater, and a horse pasture. After they finished these buildings up, they started on their own houses. As they played in our pretend city, they discovered a need for a gas station and a fire station too. It was a blast to watch them build and label their constructions!

We also started building a city outside. My hope is to find some big boxes we can paint and decorate to be the different businesses in Lake Mills, but for today, we simply used sidewalk chalk. I drew a set of roads, complete with stop signs, for the children to ride the scooters on. The children helped me come up with ideas for what kinds of businesses we would need in our city. We ended up with a grocery store, a hardware store, a hospital, a farm, a gas station, and some houses. The children had fun as they pretended to drive around the city.

On Monday, we’ll be taking a walking tour of Lake Mills (just the downtown area, most likely)! The children will have a chance to look around the town to see what kind of businesses there are, and hopefully, they will begin to incorporate them into their play. Please dress your children warmly!

Have a fantastic weekend! See you on Monday!