C is for Cotton balls, Circle, Christmas, Candy, Cookies, and Corteney and Claus. We had fun learning about the letter C and making lots of Christmas Crafts!!!
Here's the Christmas Countdown to help the kids learn their number 0-10 forwards and backwards by spinning the number wheel and taking a chain off everyday.
You can use subtraction language for your child to help with this concept:
"If you have 8 chains and you take away 1 chain, then how many do you have left?"
Help them do 1-1 correspondence with counting by pointing and counting with their finger and making sure they can associate one number with one item. (You can do this all the time with chores, picking up toys, folding socks, setting the table, etc. It's easy to practice counting- just put it in your everyday activities and make it fun- count the steps to bed, count the stairs, do exercises together with counting, how many stop lights or stop signs did we see?, etc.- just incorporate it into your everyday routines and language and your kids will learn their numbers much easier and without them even knowing that they are learning)!
Being able to verbally talk adding and subtracting will help them understand the concept easier when they see it on paper. "If I have 3 bath toys and put 2 more in the water, then how many are there now?" (Tyler loves doing these things with us when we make it fun!)
We had one snow day on the 4 year old day, so we just ran out of time to get everything done that I was hoping to do- there's always too many fun things to do around Christmas time!
So, just the 3 year olds were able to do the Christ story with me:
What can you do with a bag of Cotton?
Have a SNOW BALL fight!!
Since the snow was not good packing snow this week, grab a bag of cotton balls and throw them at each other- it makes for a soft and fun indoor snow ball fight- the kids loved this activity!
I put on the Chipmunks song version of this story and we looked at all the beautiful pictures!
We made Christmas ornaments with their pictures on them:
The 4 year olds each individually put the numbers 1-9 in order for me (I had them all mixed up). The nice thing about a really small class is that I'm able to do lots of 1 on 1 teaching and interaction with each of them.
Instead of the weather chart at calendar time, we are now learning the months of the year- so appropriate for this time of the year with December being the end and January being the beginning. We sing a song about the months.
And we still do calendar and practice counting everyday. The kids LOVE it when it's their turn to be the leader and to help me with calendar time!
The 4 year olds loved the button activity as much as the 3 year olds did! It was fierce competition to see who could string the most buttons on their pipe cleaner!
The next time we get the buttons out, we're going to do sorting by color, shape, and learn patterns- black, white, black, white, etc. It's good for them to play with an activity first and then to do teaching activities with it- that way their not frustrated that they can't just play with them and it encourages them to do more than what they were just doing. It's all about keeping it fresh, exciting, and changing things up!
Everyone brought 6 bag of cookies or candy and we did a Cookie/Candy Exchange. My ideas was this: turn on the music and pass the bucket of cookies/candy around the circle. When the music stopped, they could pick out one of the treats and put it next to them. The activity didn't go so well. They didn't pass very well, because they kept getting distracted by what was inside and wanting to open up what they just got. We were in a hurry, so we ended up just passing them out and practicing our "Merry Christmas ____" (insert kids name) and that kid practiced saying, "Thank you _____". So, that worked well. They liked passing them out to their friends.
Thanks everyone for the yummy treats!!
We put on a performance for the parents. The 4 year olds sang, "Jingle Bells, Rudolph, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas". They did great for the little time that we had to practice and they loved jingling the bells!
Here's the 3 year olds- minus Wynter. We missed you Wynter.
Tyler eating all of his yummy treats! Thanks everyone!
As I close this 2010 addition of pre-school, I can't believe I've done 15 weeks of pre-school. Wow! Where did the time go? It's been a JOY to teach and spend time with these sweet little ones everyday. We've done so much and had a lot of FUN!
Thanks to all the parents for driving their kids to my house everyday, bringing snacks, and allowing me to teach your children.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Be safe and have fun and we'll see you in the New Year!
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