Gingerbread Men

Joan and I looked around during activity time and saw kids playing so nicely, including each other, even holding hands with one another as they transitioned from one room to another.   Some of the kids were working with gears, others were coloring and using stickers, others were playing with the kitchen and the dolls, still others were using letter blocks to make words.  Wow, have the kids grown since the beginning of the year.  Their attention span is longer, they've formed connections with one another, and they are becoming more independent as they work!  Maria Montisorri once said, "the greatest sign of success for a teacher is if the children are now working as if I didn't even exist!"  It's a great feeling when that starts developing in the classroom, and it is!!

We've been talking about Gingerbread this week.  On Tuesday we read the original Gingerbread Boy and today we read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.  We had fun talking about the similarities and differences betweent the two books.  The kids noticed that the fox was the same in both books but in one book the fox ate the gingerbread boy and in the other book the gingerbread boy was saved by Matti in a gingerbread house.  Of course we had to make gingerbread men during art time!  

We also celebrated Emma's 4th birthday on Tuesday.  She brought in jello that we made together in class and we set it outside in the snow to jell!!  It wasn't quite finished when it was snack time so we ate it today instead and it was delicious!!  It was made with cran-apple juice and bovine powder.  We also had cupcakes yesterday and Emma even brought in red and orange peppers to have with ranch dressing!  Thanks Emma for the wonderful treats!!  Happy Birthday!!

Holidays Around the World

We had a wonderful week learning about holiday traditions both at home and around the world  On Tuesday we started by asking the kids what they think about when they hear the word Christmas.

Kate said, "Putting ornaments on a tree!"

Carter said, "Santa goes ho, ho, ho!"

Liam said, "Santa comes down a chimney!"

Jonas said, "Toys!!!"

Gavin said, "Santa"

Duncan said, "Playing Outside!!"

Emma said, "There's a gingerbread house downtown!!"

Jacob said, "Sleigh and reindeer and dreams of Santa!"

Mrs. Gould said, "Candy Canes."

Mrs. Chyko said, "Family."

We heard the story The Twelve Days of Christmas and practiced our holiday songs in music.  We learned a song about a dancing Christmas Tree.  Here's the link:

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlr4uXAz-JM

Dec 5, 2011 - Uploaded by KidsTV123

Report. Uploaded on Dec 5, 2011. A Christmas song for children. This song was written and ...

We made ornaments to hang on our Maple Leaf Tree during art.  We glued down our picture and decorated around the outside using mosaic squares.

On Wednesday, we talked about traditions, or things we do year after year.  Then we talked about how people all over the world celebrate Christmas and have for a long time.  We looked at the globe and found where we live and looked at different countries and then found Germany.  We talked about how this is where the tradition of bringing a tree into a house and decorating it started and then people liked it so much the idea spread around the world!! We also talked about how they used candles to light it because lights weren't invented then!

We heard 2 stories about Christmas Trees.  One was The Nutcracker and the other was Max's Christmas.  We had fun decorating our own Christmas tree during art using glitter glue and painting with q-tips.

We listed words that start with "C" and then had a chance to use markers and write C's on the whiteboard.

We got a new game on our Ipad called "jumpstart preschool."  During activity time some of the children chose to work on that while others played with cars, played with the babies, used the sand table, and worked on an art project.  

Thursday we started the day with stringing cheerios on pipecleaners and making bird feeders with them.  We went outside and put them in the bushes outside our window so we can watch and wee if the birds eat them.  Some of us made another one to take home and feed the birds.  

This was the day we talked about Holland.  Mika's dad was born and grew up in Holland so he came in and told us about the holiday called Sinterklass that they celebrate.  St. Nick comes on a boat from Spain to bring treats to the girls and boys.  He has a horse that he rides and the children put out their shoes at night with food inside to feed the horse, like a carrot or sugar cubes.  St. Nick feeds his horse and leaves treats in the shoes for the kids.  There is also a special cookie that the kids in Holland eat called, pepernoten.  Mika's grandma still lives in Holland and she sent some of these cookies to Mika who wanted to bring them in and share with her friends at preschool.  They were delicious, they tasted sort of like gingersnaps.  The kids all wanted more!!  We also learned how to count to 5 in Dutch and saw pictures of a Dutch castle, windmills, and beautiful tulips!  Thanks Mika and her family for coming in and helping us learn about Holland!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We spent the past two days getting ready for Thanksgiving.  We heard several books about Thanksgiving including Franklin's Thanksgiving and I'm Thankful Every Day!!

Yesterday we made two turkey art projects, one with Mrs. Chyko and one with Mrs. Gould.  Mrs Chyko painted our hands and helped us make handprint turkeys.  Mrs. Gould helped us turn a toilet paper tube into a turkey using a coffee filter and do-a-dot paint bottles for the feathers!!

Even though it was cold outside most of us went outside to play in the snow for about 15 minutes.  We had fun running around in the snow and making snow angels.

We made butter again today to have with our Town House Crackers for snack.  

We watched a short video about things to be thankful for and then we made a class list.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJYXFDKOoH8

Jul 4, 2008 - Uploaded by friendofraul

Raul does Raffi! Great arrangement. (*Raffi is a noted children's entertainer.)

Kate is thankful for slides and kittens.

Carter is thankful for Grandmas and Grandpas.

Liam is thankful for snow.

Gavin is thankful for walks to the park.

Duncan is thankful for best friends.

Jonas is thankful for Grandmas and Grandpas

Jacob is thankful for snow and sunshine.

Mika is thankful for her little brother.

Emma is thankful for kitty cats.

Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Chyko are thankful for all the kids who come to Maple Leaf

and all of us are thankful for our families!!

                              HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING!!

Potato Day

We read the Lois Ehlert book Eating the Alphabet during circle time.  We also passed a potato around the circle and played hot potato.  Then we each got our own potato and we dipped it in water and washed it and then we tried cutting it up.   They were really hard to cut!!  We put the cut up potatoes in a pot covered with water and we watched as Mrs. Chyko put the pot on the stove and started cooking them!  When they were done we added the butter we made on Wednesday to the potatoes and we each got to mash and eat our own potato!!  

Mrs. Bulgerin came in today and did vegetable prints with the kids for art.  We each made a bowl of vegetable soup using potatoes, celery, and carrots dipped in paint.  We added some rice to the soup too!!

It was extended day so after lunch we walked to the park and had fun playing outside on the equipment.  When we returned we made get well cards for Kate.  We all missed having her in class today!  We hope she feels better soon!!

Fun with Food

With Thanksgiving next week we're taking this week to help us get ready for all the great food we'll be sharing with our families soon!!

Yesterday we learned about cranberries.  We saw a short video of a cranberry bog and watched as the cranberries were harvested.  We all thought it was cool how the cranberries floated to the top of the water before they were harvested.  We also were introduced to a new word "bog".  We talked about how it's a wet, marshy area where cranberries like to grow.  We were each given a cranberry to smell and touch.  We used our senses to describe how it felt smooth, it looked mostly dark red, and it didn't have much smell before it was cooked. Jonas was the only one brave enough to eat the cranberry before it was cooked.  He said it tasted sour!!

Then we put our cranberries and the rest of the bag into an electric frying pan.  We added 1 C orange juice and 1C sugar and turned the pan to 350 degrees.  We listened as the orange juice started to sizzle and we heard the skins start to pop.  The juice started boiling and we kept stirring the cranberries until some of the juice had evaporated and the cranberries had turned into a thick sauce.  The cooked cranberries smelled really good!!  While we were cooking the cranberries Mrs. Gould read us the story Gregory the Terrible Eater about a Goat who was a picky eater.  Then we talked about healthy foods and the different food groups.

While the sauce was cooling we had music with Mrs. Jenkins.  We've been working on our Holiday Show which will be in December.  More info on that will be coming.  Then we went outside and enjoyed the beautiful, sunny day!  Back inside we had fun spreading our homemade cranberry sauce on Ritz Crackers and eating them, yum!!!

Today we talked about cows and food made from milk.  We heard a story about A Big Red Barn that had some cows inside.  Then we went into the big room, sat in a circle and poured whipping cream into small jars.  We screwed the lid tightly on top and shook the jars as hard as we could.  We had two jars going around our circle and we all took turns shaking.  We called this "friendship butter" because we all worked together to make it.  After about 5 minutes it seemed like the cream wasn't making a sound when we were shaking it. We wondered what had happened so we opened the lid and found out that our cream had become very thick and turned into butter!!  It was so creamy and declicious.  We spread it on bread and had bread and butter, a banana, and apple juice for snack.  We're saving the 2nd jar of butter to use on our mashed potatoes tomorrow!!

We went into the church nursery today during activity time to use the fruit and vegetable stand that they have in that room as well as their kitchen and train set and some of their riding toys.  It was exciting to have a chance to play in a different room!!  

We finally finished with our hand print bats based on the story Stellaluna.  We added glitter to put some stars in the night sky.  Mrs. Chyko told us that Stallaluna means Starmoon in Italian!

Favorite Stories

Kids love good literature.  We heard some classics this week.  On Tuesday we heard the story of The Little Red Hen.  After hearing the story we saw a video of it on youtube.  Then we had flannel board pieces so we could retell the story ourselves.  

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRwo-vPseao

Aug 9, 2011 - Uploaded by wileyk209zback

As requested by BKDBrian2, here is another early Golden Book Video Classic making its ...

Since it was red day, We had bread and raspberry jam for snack.  Yum!!

The kids are developing longer attention spans and it's great to see all the things they enjoy doing first thing in the morning.  They are getting so good at choosing what they're interested in and then putting it away before moving onto something else.  They are forming friendships and learning invaluable social skills, not to mention all the things they're figuring out as they're "playing".  They are counting, reading, writing, retelling stories, developing geometry skills, as they use peg boards and blocks, expanding their vocabulary, practicing their speech, and even discovering basic physics as they figure out how high a tower can be built and why it falls over if it's smaller on the bottom then on top!!

We heard Stellaluna on Wednesday.  A wonderful story about a mother bat who gets seperated from her baby but eventually they get reuinited.  You could have heard a pin drop as I was reading this story to the class...they were all so interested.  

tellaluna - YouTube

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLRIvyWUzxs

May 21, 2012 - Uploaded by StorylineOnline

By Janell Cannon. Read by Pamela Reed. When Stellaluna is separated 

We also learned a song about bats which is sung to the tune of "Down by the Bay"  The kids each wrote their own verse that rhymed with the song.  If you aren't sure of the tune, check it out here!!

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE6xzCI-TwE

Jun 14, 2012 - Uploaded by Kids-Songs.TV

Down by the bay Where the watermelons grow Back to my home I dare not go For if I do My ...

The kids are learning the original version with Mrs. Jenkins so they'll enjoy singing along with this as well as changing it to the bat song!!

On Thursday we heard the story Legend of the Indian Paintbrush.  A beautiful Native American tale. 

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyaifWkUWr0

Apr 12, 2012 - Uploaded by Nathan King

The classic children's book "Legend of the Indian Paintbrush" by Tomie dePaola put into ...

Mrs. Bulgerin came in to do a special project with us.  We learned about native americans and she showed us signs that they used to communicate with one another.  We each had a chance to try our own writing using symbols!!

See you all soon!!

Nature Art

So glad we got out last week to go on our leaf hunt before the snow fell!!  We read the story Going on a Leaf Hunt and then then went outside and collected our own leaves!!  Inside we used yarn to create a loom and then we wove our nature finds into the loom to create a nature wreath!!  So much fun!!

We painted with Indian Corn on Wednesday.  We heard a great story about raccoons sneaking into a farmers corn field at night and eating the corn that was left on the stalks.  We also pretended we were pieces of popcorn and played a game where we popped!!  

On Thursday we all brought in a spice to share during circle time.  We passed them all around and used our sense of smell to describe if the smell was strong or or not so strong and if it was a pleasant odor or one we didn't care for as much.  Some of the spices that we smelled were allspice, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, dried mustard, and italian seasoning.  Then came the really fun part, we poured the different spices into Dixie cups and added a little water and glue, stirred them up and painted with them!  It was fun to see the different colors and textures that the spices made!  

Here are the completed spice paintings!!

We used a paintbrush to paint the Indian corn and then rolled the corn on paper to see what kind of print it made!

Costume Party!!

It was great to see all the kids come to class dressed in their costumes this morning!!  Durinng circle time we heard the book Spooky Bunny Tales by Rosemary Wells.  We watched a short video on our Ipad about a lonely pumpkin.  We really liked it!  

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7s4QcpbbL0

Then it was time to go on a  costume parade through the church!  We went upstairs to visit with Mrs. Diane and Mrs. Candy and they had a basket with treats in it for us!!  They loved seeing us all dressed up!  

We went through the sanctuary and down the back steps to finish our parade.  Then we washed our hands and got ready for our snack.  We each had a cup with white frosting in it and Mrs. Chyko and Mrs. Gould added a drop of red and a drop of yellow food coloring to our cup.  Boy were we surprised when we mixed it up and ended up with orange frosting!  We used it to frost our sugar cookie, yum!

Thanks to everyone for sending all the goodies to help us have a wonderful party!  If you didn't send anything in for this one don't worry, we'll be having a Christmas and Valentine's Party too!!

The kids took turns telling what they were dressed up as:

 Carter was an astronaught,

 Kate was a surgeon,

 Emma was super hero,

 Liam was a pit crew worker for Lightening McQueen,

 Jonas was a cobra snake ninja,

Jacob was a pirate,

Mika was a cat, 

Duncan was a ninja and 

Gavin was Spiderman!!

We played party games after snack and got out our parachute.  We each had a paper pumpkin that we put in the middle of the chute.  We told a story and whenever the wind blew we shook that parachute as hard as we could until all the pumpkins flew out, then we chased the pumpkins, found our pumpkin and put it back in the chute where we did it all over again.  We loved watching the pumpkins fly around the room, it was fun to see how far of them flew before they landed.  We sang the song about Orange Pumpkins Growing on a Vine,  and we pretended to be pumpkins and we grew and grew!  Then we wanted some time to play with our friends so some of us played with play dough, some of us played with the babies, some of us played with the cars and some of us built with blocks....it was a really fun day!!  

Spiders

What a fun, busy week!!  We started out reading Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider.  This is such a great book because the kids learn the pattern of the book and can "read" along with it.  Memorizing text is one of the earliest stages of reading.  Ask your child why the spider couldn't play with any of the animals.....I bet they'll say, "because he was too busy spinning his web!!"  During activity time one of the projects was using yarn and a paper plate to spin our own webs!!  The kids really enjoyed wrapping the yarn around and around and it really helps strengthen young hands and build their fine motor skills. The link below is for a read aloud of The Very Busy Spider.  Hearing stories over and over again and trying to "read along" out loud is another great activity for developing literacy in young children!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz05diaKZmk

We had a great snack of mini cupcakes with gummy spiders on top that we all loved, thanks Carter and Carter's Mom!!

We also learned a new, big word "arachnid" which is what a spider is!  We sang a song to the tune of BINGO that went like this 

     "There is an arachnid that crawls on the ground and spider is it's name-o.  

      S P I D E R

      S P I D E R

      S P I D E R 

      and spider is it's name-O"

We had the letters on our chart so we could practice reading the letters while we were singing!

We also talked about the letter "H" this week and heard a poem about a hungry, hurried hippo!

We practiced the number 5 all week too, counting markers, beads, pumpkins and saying our rhyme about the 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate

If your child sings that song to you at home, ask if s/he wants to turn off the lights during that part in the poem....the kids loved doing this in class, it was their favorite part of the poem!  Thanks Mrs. Chyko for sharing your favorite Halloween Poem with us!

The kids have been playing so nicely together during our choice time and activity time.  They are playing nicely with the materials, interacting well with one another, and their attention span as they work with the materials is growing.  Mrs. Chyko and I have been letting the kids know how proud we are of all of them for trying their best and being respectful to one another.  (We're learning that respectful is treating each other well and using the classroom materials appropriately.)  We've also been working on cleaning up before we choose to go to another activity and the kids are really getting the hang of this!!  

More Pumpkins

We made it to the pumpkin farm on Tuesday and had such a good time.  We wrote a class thank you note to Ms. Dawn who guided us on our tour.  Here is what we wrote:

Dear Ms. Dawn,

Thank you for sharing your pumpkin farm with us.  We loved going on a hayride, feeding the animals, going through the corn maze, going through the hay maze, petting the animals and icking our pumpkins!  We liked the big pigs and one even tried to eat Emma!!  We had a great day!

Love,

The Kids from Maple Leaf Academy

Wednesday we baked a pumpkin pie in class.  We used the pumpkin that we baked last week and followed the recipe on the ipad.  We called it "Friendship Pumpkin Pie" because we all took turns mixing it up and adding ingredients and pouring it into the pie crust!! We scooped out the pulp last week and froze it so it would be fresh today when we baked it.  We added cinnamon, cloves, and ginger for spices.  Then we added some sugar, eggs, evaporated milk and the pumpkin we cooked!  Boy did our classroom

smell good!!  We served our pie with whipped cream for snack.  I was surprised by how many kids wanted a second piece!!  (It was really good!!)

Thursday was finishing our pumpkin art project and extended day!  We used small pumpkins last week and cut them in half and dipped them in paint to make pumpkin prints.  We used orange, yellow and green paints because those were the colors we observed on out little pumpkins.  Today we added pumpkin seeds and a stem to our projects!

We had lots of fun having lunch together and walking down to the park on 1st Avenue.  

Pumpkins

Today we had lots of fun with pumpkins.  We heard some good stories about pumpkins and then went outside to look at the pumpkins that are growing outside the church!  It was a great way to see the vines and the leaves and the different shapes and sizes of pumpkins.  

When we came inside Mrs. Gould had some pumpkins to share with us that she brought in from a farmers market.  We weighed the pumpkins.  The pumpkins we had were too light to weigh in pounds ( we tried putting them on a scale) so we decided to use a balance and weigh them in plastic farm animals!  We found out one of the smaller pumpkins weighed 26 farm animals!  We weighed the bigger pumpkin and found out it weighed as much as 2 smaller pumpkins plus 6 farm animals!  We had lots of fun weighing all of the pumpkins, counting the animals and comparing and contrasting their weights and sizes.  

Then it was time to cut them open and see what was inside!  We each has a chance to stick our hand inside the pumpkin and pull out the seeds and the pulp.  We talked about how it felt and we all decided that the inside of a pumpkin feels SLIMEY!!  We cleaned out the inside of the pumpkin and put it in the oven to bake it.  Next week we'll use the pumpkin to make a pumpkin pie!

Emma brought in a special snack to share with us.  She had a family party and her grandma made some special treats.  She had some extra to share with us, they were cupcakes inside of ice cream cones....YUM!! Thanks Emma and Emma's Grandma!!!

Since it was rainy on Thursday we had class at Maple Leaf instead of the pumpkin farm.  We were all disappointed but ended up having a lot of fun having an extra long play time and storytime at school.  We learned one of Mrs. Chyko's favorite finger plays and song  called 5 Little Pumpkins.  It goes like this...

5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a gate

the 1st one said, "Oh my it's getting late!"

The 2nd one said, "There are witches in the air."

The 3rd one said, "But we don't care."

The 4th one said, "Let's run and run and run"

The 5th one said, "We're ready for some fun!"

Then whoosh went the wind and out went the lights and 

The 5 Little Pumpkins rolled out of sight.

We had fun playing with pumpkin scented play dough too!  It's a great way to help us develop our finger strenght and fine motor skills! 

Making Applesauce

We had so much fun making applesauce today!  First we heard the story about The Little Red House with No Windows and No Doors and a Star Inside.  Then we cut open an apple to find the star inside!  Ask your kids to tell you the story, we told it together and acted it out a little bit as the story went along.

After we heard the story we washed our hands and got ready to cook!  We all got a few slices of apple on a paper plate with plastic knives and we cut up the apple into little pieces.  We put it in a bowl and we all poured a small Dixie cup of water on top.  Mrs. Gould added sugar and cinnamon to it and stirred it up.  Then we walked down to the kitchen and put it in the microwave to cook for about 10 minutes.  Mrs. Chyko stayed in the kitchen to keep an eye on the applesauce and while that was going on Mrs. Jenkins came in and we had music class. After music the classroom smelled delicious!!  We sat down and ate our snack, it was soooo good!!

We heard 2 other stories about apples today.  They were called Apples, Apples and A was just an Apple Pie.  We also learned a finger play that goes like this

Way up high in the apple tree,

Two little apples smiled at me,

I shook that tree as hard as I could

Down came those apples,  mmmmm were they good!!

See if your child remembers the actions that we put with the poem, maybe they can teach you how to say that rhyme like we did in class!!

Finally we painted apple trees with Mrs. Chyko at the easle and did apple printing with Mrs. Gould at the art table.  We tried to get the star inside the apple to show up when we did the prints, they turned out beautifully, we've got a bunch of budding Picasso's in our class!!

What a fun, busy day!!  Here is the recipe for the applesauce that we made:

4 apples, peeled, cored and cut up.

1/2 c water

1/3-1/2 c sugar (I used 1/3)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Put in microwave for 7-10 mins (we actually needed 14 minutes before the apples were soft enough) mash up and enjoy!!

We used Cortland apples, but Macintosh or Granny Smith work well too.  Add a little more sugar if using Granny Smiths.