Welcome to December

Happy December 01! 

WOW!!! How is it that it is already December 01!  I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving Holiday and you all were able to find time to spend with family and friends.  As the holiday season is now upon us and it is a very busy time of year please remember the true reason for the season is that God gave us the greatest gift he ever could give and that is his one and only son Jesus.  We will be spending the month of December talking about the birth of Jesus and the Christmas Story.  Also during the month of December we will be talking about the Christmas Holiday we will not be focusing on the man in the big red suit, but we will talk about all aspects of Christmas.  We will be learning to count to 5 and recognize the number 5, the shape of a triangle, the color green and the letter M-N-0.  We will continue to work on our fine motor skills, pre-writing skills, gross motor skills and working on expanding our vocabulary and language.  Lots of things will be done and I encourage you to talk with your child about the Christmas Holiday and what it means to your family and what traditions you may do to help with getting ready for the Christmas Holiday.  

Enjoy viewing pictures and reading about our day below!  If you have any questions or concerns please contact me at hhorn@zionharvester.org.  God's Blessings on a warm and happy holiday season to you and your families.  

Free Choice/First Round of Centers

Today and through out the Christmas Season we will be listening to a wide variety of Christmas Music.  Some will be very familiar to your child and others will be new and different songs.  We had fun exploring the classroom as it has been changed around a little bit and we had new toys, puzzles and activities to explore and learn with.  

Green Play Dough was back and so many of my friends were excited to see play dough return.  As we experienced the week prior to Thanksgiving Break play dough is a lot of fun but some of my friends have a hard time finding other things to experience if the play dough is out.  So it will be out here and there but not every day.  

We had fun making different cookie cutter shapes and talking about what we made out of the play dough.  We had some great "bakers" in our class. 

Airport

Many of my friends traveled over the the Thanksgiving holiday and some did by air so we were excited to play with the airport and airplanes.  

New Puzzles / Blocks 

Decorating the Christmas Tree

We had fun decorating the flannel Christmas Tree we have in our classroom.  We are able to work on our fine motor skills as we put them on and off the tree as well as our shape recognition skills as we identify what we are putting on the tree and we are also working on our cooperation skills and language and speech skills with this fun activity.  

Chalk Board

We are having fun using the chalk on the chalk board where we are working on our pre-writing skills and building our arm muscles as we have to hold our arm up as we draw and write.  

Painting

We had fun painting paper different colors that will be turned into Christmas ornaments to help decorate our classroom in the weeks to come.  

Cooking in the Kitchen

Advent Wreath

Today some of my friends water colored an advent wreath.  We talked about how the advent wreath helps us get ready and prepare for the coming of Jesus Birth.  During our Jesus Time we looked at an advent wreath and talked about how this is the first week in Advent and that we light one candle that signifies Hope.  

Letter M Alphabet Books

Today we learned about the letter M and some friends worked with Mrs. Wegener in their letter books looking talking about the letter M.  

Christmas Wreath

Today we also worked on placing 5 red stickers (berries) on a Christmas Wreath.  This exercise helped us with our fine motor skills and pincer grasp as we had to take the sticker off the sticker sheet and place it in the proper place on the wreath.   Once we got all 5 stickers on our Christmas Wreath.  We practiced counting to 5 and then we worked on our coloring skills and pre-writing skills as we colored our entire wreath Green.  Green is also the color we are working on this month.  

Exploring More New Toys and Some Old 

Books

We have a collection of new books in our classroom and some of my friends really enjoyed looking at them through out the center time today.  

Big Helpers 

Julija helped me peel up lots of the Mickey Mouse's on the floor so that we could lay down some new places for us to practice standing in line.  Giving my friends small jobs help them to become more independent and feel important and like a big kid.

Morning Meeting 

HAPPY TUESDAY!

New month new Calendar we will be putting up different parts of the Christmas Story during the month of December.  

Mr. Weather Frog is ready for the Christmas weather

Our studies for the month of December 

New month new pattern… Christmas Wreath and Candy Canes 

Learning all about the Letter "M"

We read this book about the angel that is my angel.  It was a touch and feel book which is great for us to work on our sensory skills and helped us get ready to talk about the angel Gabriel that came to Mary and told her she would have a baby and name him Jesus.  

Transition and Snack

Today we put up different ornaments with our name on in them.  We are working identification of color when we put them up as well as name recognition and the what the first letter in our name is. As well as our listening and following direction skills. 

What a beautiful tree we made today! 

Standing in line! 

Commons Time 

It was way to wet on our playground for my friends today so we headed to the big school to play in the commons today.  We had a lot of fun running and playing with our friends from the other PDO classes! 

We did a great job listening when it was time to line up to go back to our classroom.  

Jesus Time

Today I brought in a special Nativity Set, that Cheryl Haun, the Early Childhood Director purchased for our classroom.  We talked about the Christmas Story today and looked at all the different pieces to the nativity set and why each one is important and a unique part of the Christmas Story 

We read this book about the Christmas Story 

Advent Wreath

We also talked about the Advent Wreath and sang the Advent Song Light One Candle for Hope.  

Christmas Sorting

We then sorted green Christmas Ornaments and Red Candy Canes

Center Time Round 2

We listened to more Christmas Music during our Center Time it was funny to see how many of the songs they knew and when a piano version of Let it Go from the movie Frozen came on they all knew the song and many of them were singing the words.  

Books

More Friends enjoyed looking at all the new and different books that are in our book baskets. 

Playing with the Nativity Set

This is for the children to play with and we talked about how it is very important and special and we need to treat it with lots of love.  It is neat to watch them act out the story and create their own story.  

Cutting Center

Today some friends practiced their cutting skills as they cut out pictures of Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus.  Once we had them cut out we had to match up the pieces to make a picture of Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus.  We were working our cutting skills as well as our problem solving skills as we had to put the picture together the correct way.  These will displayed in our hallway for you all to see.  We are doing really well with cutting with scissors and will continue to practice with them weekly.  

Painting

Today we painted a green Christmas Tree that we will be displaying in our classroom soon as well.  We are studying the color green so this helped to reinforce the color green today.  

 More Chalkboard Time  

Christmas Tree Farms!

We had fun stamping green triangles on a piece of paper and making a Christmas Tree Farm.  This helped us with our study of the color green and the shape of a triangle.  We also talked about how some of us have our tree up at home and some of us don't and some have theirs up with lights and ornaments and some are not decorated yet.  We also talked about who has a real tree and or an artificial tree

Music and Movement

We had fun dancing to Shake Your Body Down, Five Day's Old and the Wheels on the Bus.  

Our Final Book for the day was about counting down to Christmas and many things we may see during the Christmas season.  

We are learning another new prayer this month.  

Transition and Lunch Time 

We had a fabulous day in our classroom and one of our best days yet!   We were busy, engaged and good friends to each other.  Have a wonderful evening and look forward to seeing you all later in the week.  Blessings on your evenings.