More Holiday Fun

Tuesday was a day of celebrations and food!  It was Emma's 5th birthday and Charlie was The Maple Leaf this week. The morning started off with Charlie coming to school with a super cool rocket ship that he wanted to share with his friends.  Everyone had a chance to go inside and push the buttons that made it light up inside.

Then for snack we had rocket ship cupcakes...so yummy, thanks Charlie!!

We practiced for our holiday sing, heard some holiday stories and had activity time.  Then it was time for extended day and lunch at school!! After we ate, we looked at books for awhile.  Next we got together to make Emma's special birthday treat. 

We whipped cream together, added vanilla and sugar to make it sweet, cut up pumpkin bread as well as red, yellow, green, and orange peppers and had a wonderful afternoon snack...YUM!!

Happy 5th Birthday, Emma!!

Then it was time for baking cookies!  We used pretzel O's, peppermint Hershey Kisses and red and green m and m's.  We broke into small groups of 2 or 3 and each had our own cookie sheet.  We put pretzels on parchment paper, took off the hershey kiss wrappers, put them in the center of the pretzels and baked that in the oven at 200 degrees for about 2 minutes, or until they squished down when we put an m and m on top!!  Then we put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes to harden.  It was time to go home before we got a chance to eat them, but for snack tomorrow....

We decided today should have really been called "Eat, Stay, and Eat!!"  What a day!!

Wednesday we "visited" Mexico. We learned about a holiday tradition called Las Posadas.  Mrs. Chyko told us that las posadas means shelter.  We  found Mexico on the globe and on  a large world map and then settled down to hear The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie De Paola.  We  discovered that this event lasts for 9 days and is a parade with people dressed up as Mary and Joseph, sometimes Mary rides on a donkey.  Each night there is a parade of people dressed up as figures in the nativity story who visit houses, ask if they can come inside and when someones lets them in they sing Christmas Carols, break a pinata, and have hot chocolate and cookies.  We talked a little bit about nativity scenes that are set up around our town and several of the children talked about nativity sets they have at home.

We  walked in a parade to wash our hands and for snack we had hot chocolate and the cookies we made yesterday.  

Charlie loves sea creatures so his dad came in towards the end of the day and talked to us about snorkeling and the sea.  He  put on a snorkel mask, breathing tube, and fins and showed us a book filled with sea creatures!  Then we made our very own shark and added fins and teeth and colored it in! So cool... 

During circle time on Thursday we had another special guest.  Charlie's "Grandma G.G" came to visit.  She read us a book with no pictures and had all of us rolling with laughter.  When it was over the kids wanted her to read the book again, so at the end of the day she read it one more time and made it even sillier....everyone loved it!!

  



When G.G. isn't busy being Charlie's grandma she's an author.  She told the kids that books are just stories written down.  She brought in her tape recorder so the kids could all tell her a story.  Watching the kids reaction to a tape recorder was hilarious; they had never seen anything like it before...

In case anyone wants to visit G.G. here is her web site:  http://lesleykagen.com

Friday morning we had another special guest.  Charlie's mom came to create a winter art project with us. We painted on canvas, sprinkled on glitter, made a foam snowman, glued it to the canvas, and added foam stickers to complete the project. 

 Beautiful!!!  Thanks for helping us make this!!!

We had a chance to get outside for a little while and then we came inside and played with home made peppermint play dough.  We also heard some good stories and had activity time!

Hope you're all having a great week-end!

Christmas Around the World and And Firemen

We started our unit on Holidays around the world.  Using a globe we located the United States, then Wisconsin, then found where our school is located in Grafton.  We talked about how a lot of people like to decorate Christmas tree's to help celebrate Christmas.  The kids were very excited about Christmas trees and they all wanted to share whether or not they had their tree set up yet and what they put on their tree.  Then we heard a story titled, A Wish to be a Christmas Tree.  

At our art center,  we began making and decorating Christmas trees.  We used foam stickers, pom poms and glitter glue, then attached them to a toilet paper tube so the trees had a trunk and could stand up.  We learned the word "conifer" means trees with cones.  While we were outside, Mika found part of a pine branch on the ground and it had a little cone growing inside of it, so we all passed it around and made the connection with the word conifer.  Mika also happened to find something else under a giant conifer at the bottom of the hill.  When she brought it up it looked like a frozen birds nest, or a frisbee...it turned out to be her missing hat...frozen solid with needles, leaves, pine cones, and twigs all mixed in!!  

Caden was our "Maple Leaf" this week.  He brought in a great display of pictures and yummy rice krispie treats for snack on Tuesday.  On Thursday his mom and dad came to visit the class.  Caden's mom read us a really good story about fires and firemen and then Caden's dad told us he is in training to be a volunteer fireman for Cedarburg.  He showed us all his gear and put it on for us.  He put on fire boots, fire jacket, fire gloves, a breathing mask, and a fire hat.  (I hope I didn't miss anything!!)  Then he gave each of us our own fire hat, badge and coloring books.  Caden's mom made badges we could wear around our necks.  Boy did we have fun!! Thanks Caden!!

We visited the country of Sweeden and learned a little about Santa Lucia day and how children 

wear crowns of lights and eat special rolls to help celebrate the holiday.  We made our own Santa Lucia crown at the art center!

http://www.amazon.com/Disney-Small-World-Christmas-Around/dp/1423162323/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417894292&sr=1-4&keywords=christmas+around+the+world

On Friday, we visited The Netherlands and talked about Sinterklass.  We heard a really good story about Saint Nicholas and how he visited a dutch baker in the town of Albany, New York.  The story is called The Baker's Dozen.  During activity time, we each made a Sinterklass puppet. Here is a link to the book we read.  

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