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!