Merry Christmas

Mrs. O'Connor and Mrs. Magee had some fun activities planned for celebrating Advent in the classroom.  Turns out the Bunnies had some fun plans of their own.  They had a blast making cards and ornaments for our big tree.  They used recycled Christmas cards and cut them up, added a pipe clearner as a hook and decorated our tree from top to bottom.  Charlie made so many ornaments that Mrs. Magee was calling him Christopher Radko. heehee!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord

At School for Little Children, we keep our eyes focused on the real meaning of Christmas.  We try to give the children some reasons for the traditions we have in our homes and in our community.  There is a wonderful little book called Jesus, Me and My Christmas Tree.  It uses rhyme to explain what goes on a tree and why.  We have a teeny tiny tree and lots of decorations that follow the book.  The children got to decorate the tree and then we sang a cute song with motions to get us moving.

Chimes

Mrs. Vaughn, our music teacher, does a fantastic job!  She has been introducing the Bunnies to a variety of musical instruments.  One day she brought chimes and taught them a little song.  Each child got to play the chimes and Mrs. Vaughn sang along with their beat.  What a hoot!  Some kids played really fast and some played slowly.  The Bunnies really look forward to music.

Creation

Our focus on creation lasted the entire first semester of school!  It seems like ages ago that we began with light and dark.  Here's a recap of the activities you can see in the children's art above.
light and dark - marble art
sun - painting on paper plates
stars - fingerprints in paint and glitter
the world - water color on giant coffee filters
birds - owl faces on paper plates
plants - rubber stamping ferns, leaves
animals - farm animal stencilling and wild animal stamping
people and families - die cut shapes of Jesus' family and each child's family

The best way to teach children about creation is to allow them to be creators!

Construction

In every class there is a great builder.  We never know who it will be.  Usually a few months into school the identity of the great builder emerges.  What's neat about having a great builder is that they inspire other children to be great builders, too.  When kids see cool structures being built, they can't resist pulling blocks off the shelf and building one of their own.  It's a win-win!

According to the builder, this house has "lots of rooms and bathrooms and roofs and a loooong sidewalk".  Usually the child who is the great builder has very creative ways to play with other block enrichment toys.

Recognize that little blue tennis shoe?  He's our great builder!

Making Literacy Meaningful - A Three Part Series with a Fourth Part

Recently we read a fun book called Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm.  In this book, the farm animals don't like getting baths, so they run away to the big city.  It's a classic fish-out-of-water story and when they return to the farm, they decide baths are just fine. 

To reinforce the concepts in this story, we had story props.  We had a bucket, little stuffed animals, felt patches to represent mud and a little scrub brush.  The Bunnies chose an animal, and pretended to scrub the mud off.  It was fun and they liked it.  However, it was a little limiting. 

To further the bath experience, we filled our sensory table with bubble bath and added our play farm animals and some small sponges. 

This was a big hit - everyone loved giving the animals a real bath!  We overheard one little Bunny talking to an animal saying, "See, a bath isn't so bad!" 
There are so many ways to connect to books!  At School for Little Children we provide a variety of play opportunities to develop literacy.  This is how children learn through play!!