Christmas fun at playschool

For the last week of school in December we got to explore how Christmas is celebrated all around the world.  We flew to new destinations and learned about new cultures and traditions.


Counting and Shapes:

We sat up chairs like an airplane and used our imaginations as we flew to Mexico!!  This was by far one of their most favorite places because in Mexico they celebrate with Pinatas.  They each got to make and fill their very own pinata.  We were just three today so we all picked out candy for Ryan's pinata and hoped to see him the next day.

We stayed in Mexico during snack time and had Cheese Quesadilla's.

We learned that the poinsettia or the Christmas flower is from Mexico

Eisley attempting to break her pinata open. :)

The next day Ryan pointed out that we had been to Mexico and today we packed our suitcases and buckled up and away we flew to Germany.

The people of Germany were the first to decorate Christmas trees using real candles, candies, apples, nuts, and gingerbread.  These kiddies decorated their own Christmas trees.

In Germany we had Lebkuchen a traditional German Christmas treat with apples.  Eisley provided a tea party as well.

After Germany we boarded the plane again and flew to Israel.  We learned that not everybody celebrates Christmas.  In Israel they celebrate Hanukkah and light candles for 8 nights on a special candle holder called a menorah.  They each made a menorah.

Our last day of school before Christmas break we learned about traditions in the U.S.of A..  In America Santa rides in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.  We made lots of reindeer crafts and sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer many times. 

Snack and a movie.  You guessed it Rudolph the red nosed reindeer

They each came in and cut out cookies to decorate with their mom's.  All the mom's are invited to join us for the last 30 minuets of school for our holiday party.

We made a craft and decorated cookies together.  The kids practiced singing Rudolph but were only whispers when the Mom's were there, so we stepped in and sang along. 

rainbow cookies

It was such a fun week exploring new places all over the world and learning all about Christmas in other places.  We also loved having all the mom's together for our party and of course eating cookies.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Rhyme Time

Today we practiced writing our names, and they all did a really great job.  We practiced air-writing the letter "J" and "j" with special sound effects.  We decorated our "J"s and bedazzled them with jewels.  

We had fun learning about the number four.  They followed my lead as I did different things four times like jumping, spinning, clapping, etc.  I taught them the basic hula step, the kaholo, which has four counts to it.  It was super cute.  I wish I had a better picture, but I caught the part when a couple of them got bored of hula.

  

Bored of Hula

We read the book, "Where Has My Little Dog Gone?" again.  We made dog masks and played a game where each of them took turns being the dog and hiding while the others sang the song and looked for him/her.  We read lots of nursery rhymes from our Mother Goose packet, and they were familiar with a few already.

Free time was spent running in a circle around the couch!

Air and Space Special

For the first couple of weeks in December, we're learning about nursery rhymes.  Today, he kids practiced writing their names on their name tags, we read the book, "Where Has My Little Dog Gone?", we learned about triangles, and we made goose hats in honor of Mother Goose.

The highlight of today was watching the Air Force Band at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum.  Well, it was a highlight for me anyway.  Mi Na kept asking to go home.  How fun that we could all be there and actually show up in the youtube video at 3:42!

 Friends and Airplanes

USAF Band "Flash Mob" 

Babies!

Thanks for the fun day everyone!