Dear Parents,
This week we worked on our holiday gifts for our families. We used cut apples to make apple prints on paper bags. We compared the six apples before we cut them. The children noticed they were all different colors, sizes, and shapes. They knew that all the apples came from different trees. We cut the apples in half to see the star inside and then used red paint to make stamps.
On Tuesday we filled little bags with our potpourri. We dried out orange peels collected from many snack times. We compared new peels to old peels. The children noticed the changes in size, shape, color, and texture. We used the Amazing Apple Peeler to slice, peel, and core apples. We observed similar changes in the apples as we left the slices in the oven to dehydrate for an entire day. We ate the apple peels!
We looked at pictures of the cinnamon tree, the clove tree, and the allspice tree, from which all our other spices came. We used three of our five senses to explore the spices before taking turns to fill our own bags. Our last yoga class with Amanda was quiet and focused. While some were in yoga, the rest of us read Two Homes, Heather Has Two Mommies, What Mommies Do Best, What Daddies Do Best, and our own version, What Babas Do Best. We talked about what was the same and what was different in the books. The children said they noticed the number two in all the books, and a few children said they had two homes too. We looked at the last page of each book and saw the word l-o-v-e. A couple of people correctly guessed it spelled love. Yes! Although the homes were different, they all included love.
In the yard there has been running galore. Some friends were racing around shouting, “Batman is dead!” Others were digging away in the sandbox. Many are working on different styles of swinging, all exercising gross motor muscles.
On Thursday we used our senses of sight and touch to bead necklaces for gifts. Some children made patterns. Everyone was pretty focused for a while filling strings with red, gold, silver, and rainbow colored beads. We asked the class who they wanted to give their gifts to: parents, siblings, and babysitters were mentioned.
We read Why Do Grown-Ups Have All The Fun, My Princess Boy, A House Is A Home For Me, and Jamaica Tag-Along.
On Friday we read the Gingerbread Man and acted out the story. We read three versions of the story and talked about similarities and differences. Everyone chose which character they wanted to be. Of course, there was a lot of running! The class did a great job of listening to the story while acting. Some people wanted to play different parts so we switched characters and did it again.
Families are invited to our Cookies and Milk Party on Thursday December 23rd at 11:30 am. The children will serve their parents gingerbread cookies and milk. We will send home the gifts on that day too. We can have it outside as an extra precaution. It’s pretty short and sweet, pun intended.
Have a wonderful weekend,TheresePS Today at the very end of the day, Santa Claus drove by the OF yard, stopped, honked his horn, and yelled to the children. He was driving an Amazon van and blasting disco. The kids were thrilled and scrambled to the fence as fast as they could, all smiles. In case they mention it- this really happened!
Home Sweet Home
Dear Parents,
We began our week closing our eyes and looking in our mind's eye at the outside of our homes. We pictured what it looks like and asked, “What shapes do you see?” The class saw squares for windows, triangles and pyramids on rooftops, circles on doorknobs, rectangles on bricks, and so much more. We read My House, and My Nursery School. We made our own homes using paper shapes of rectangles, squares, triangles, and circles. We cemented them together using glue.
We went out to play in the yard, and some friends looked for shapes on the outside of Old First Nursery. They found squares, circles, triangles, and rectangles!
During circle we talked about who lives at our house. Everyone named their family members. Pets were included. While half the class did yoga with Amanda, we each got paper cutouts of our family members and used markers to decorate them. We talked about the sizes small, medium, and large when looking at our families. We asked the class “What can you tell us about your family?” The answers ranged from eating and playing games together, to ice skating and liking our family because they have backs. We glued our families into our paper home sweet homes.
We read Families, We’re Different , We’re The Same, The New Baby, Animal Homes, and Stellaluna. We’re reading about different kinds of families but also about what’s the same.
There has been lots of digging and building in the sandbox. Some children said they were building a skyscraper. “What’s a skyscraper?” someone asked. “When it’s so tall it scrapes the sky.” We all looked up. Others said they were building a home. Two of us said we would live there when it was finished, while others munched on pies and cakes made of delicious sand.
On Friday we all took turns using the Amazing Apple Peeler. It slices, it peels, and it cores the apples! All at the same time. We ate the peels for snacks, and one apple. We put the other apple slices into the oven to dehydrate, for the entire day. The children guessed what would happen to them in the oven. They wondered if their shape might change, or their color. We wondered if the smell would change. Someone guessed they would get harder. We compared our old orange peels we’ve been saving for many weeks to a fresh orange peel. They had changed in color and texture.
We have also been observing our pumpkin since Halloween. We put it in the yard in October and have been watching the changes as it rots and decomposes. The class said, “It’s smaller and browner!” The children have noticed our tree too. Friday someone said, “All the leaves are gone!”
Have a weekend!
Therese