Christmastime!

I realize I'm *a little* behind in posting about preschool... Preschool is taking away some valuable blogging minutes;) But, I wouldn't have it any other way! It really has been a great experience for Isaac and I this year. One of my favorite things about teaching private preschool in my home is my ability to study and teach the things that are important to me and the kids. I LOVE being able to incorporate the gospel into school and being able to structure my curriculum to what they are interested in. I love that my kiddo has no distinction between religion and life. Does that make sense? To him, for now (fingers are crossed), they are one and the same. I love that.
     Anyway, Christmastime was no exception. Santa plays a small role in our family's Christmas celebration. I LOVE the spirit of giving, love, charity, hope, etc. that Santa brings, but I pride myself in not bringing in a huge amount of commercialization. We rarely talk about "what Santa will bring," though we do sing of Rudolph, Up on the Housetop, etc. I LOVE tradition:)
    This year at preschool, we started the very first week of December by talking about Samuel the Lamanite. He was a prophet who preached to the people the coming of the baby Jesus 5 years before his birth. We focused on the significance of the Star (Samuel and other prophets prophesied this would be the sign of Jesus' birth). It was so fun to give kids a whole new dimension of thinking about stars at Christmastime!
     We also studied Christmas tradition in other countries. We celebrated St Nick's day (Germany) and talked about the meaning of the Christmas tree, the origin of gingerbread houses, giving, celebrating, etc. We set up Santa's toy shop and painted our own ceramic banks, wrapped "gifts" (blocks) and loaded them into the "sleigh" to deliver for the children (among other things...) We also had some fun with texture table these weeks playing with ice, "snow," and cinnamon spiced playdough. What a fun week!
      Week 3 of Christmas, we talked more particularly about the actual events of the Savior's birth. We reenacted the story countless times (dramatic play!), played go fish with nativity cards, looked for the missing piece to the nativity set, made our own nativity scenes out of fun foam (as a shape activity). We had a great time celebrating Jesus' birth with our own birthday party. We each made a "gift" for Him by decorating a gift and writing on it what we were going to do this year that he would like (show kindness to my brother, remember to say my prayers, pick up my toys without being asked:) The kids thought of their gifts all by themselves! It was neat to really literally tie it all together by reading our gifts aloud while we ate birthday cupcakes under our crepe paper decorations!
       The first week of January we wrapped up our discussion of Christmastime by celebrating 3 Kings Day (Jan 6th) and talking about the Wisemen, their faith, how the stars led them to the Baby Jesus, and the Latin American traditions associated with this day. We had a celebration for 3 Kings Day and studied this culture as well. I think the kids really enjoyed learning how other children around the world celebrate Christmas:) We made some really awesome crowns this week out of painted paper plates, played phonics games with globos (balls- a common celebration toy during 3 K day) and ate traditional panetone. Fun! 

Gift Exchange- the kids had $2 to thoughtfully find a gift for their friend

Santa's workshop- painting banks

Mary, Baby Jesus, and the Myrrh Wiseman (Ike INSISTED)

      Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of time to take pictures during all of this month... It was a wonderful experience that kept me grounded to the real reasons for the Christmas season. We had some fun times and learned a few new things along the way too!

Healthy Me, Healthy You!

Along with the fall comes back to school and sharing. Lots and lots of sharing. Ok, most sharing is a good thing. It shows complex reasoning, higher thinking, creativity, etc. Unfortunately, it also means we all get sick:) Lucky for us, we haven't been too hard hit so far. I wanted to nip that idea of sharing germs in the bud by doing a week of Healthy Me, Healthy You. I think we may have a follow up week on nutrition after halloween because it was a HUGE hit! We had a GREAT dramatic play area this week with doctors and poor little cabbage patch patients (they ended up covered in bandages and oxygen tubes, gauze, etc. We were able to make doctor nametags, stethescopes, lots of germ demonstrations and experiments among other things. I think it made a real, lasting impression too! Ike keeps singing "5 Little Germs!" instead of 5 Little Ducks now:)

Ok, I know you're dying for the words...
5 Little Germs were busy at play
on a child's hand one day
They were playing side by side
Then the child washed and one germ died! (Each time you sing this line, the child takes a bar of soap and pretends to wash really well). ** I have great germ clipart that goes with this for feltboard

One demonstration was putting blue soap/paint mixture on one of the kids' hands and letting him touch several different objects in our classroom, thus showing how we spread our germs if we don't wash.

We also made doctor bags and painted at the art center with different doctor supplies like gauze, cotton balls, q tips, sponges, etc.

The other day, we paired up and I squirted blue paint/soap on one partner's hand. The other partner had to take a baby wipe and try to wipe it all off their partner's hand. This demonstrated how well we have to scrub tops, bottoms and in between. It was a great week!

writing prescriptions

Wouldn't you trust them to take out your appendix?

Artwork called "Tissue Tina"

Colors of the Rainbow

Well, did I mention how busy I have felt lately? Thus 1 month has transpired in the blink of an eye! Week 3 of Preschool was spent learning and experimenting with color. We learned many ways to mix colors and get different results. Our favorite books this week were: Little Blue and Little Yellow (followed by mixing yellow and blue jello globs in a baggie- a very neat experience)! and Harold and the Purple Crayon. Our imaginations were running wild! The color pyramid we made this week with our handprints was such a concrete demonstration for the kids on color. I LOVED it!

rainbow jello- I made all the colors the night before and the kids added them in order by the scoopful the next day



Yumm!

Rainbow cheerio necklaces

Little Blue and Little Yellow in a baggie

All About Me and My family

In case you didn't know, I have taken on the great challenge (and reward) of starting my own home preschool for Ike and 5 of his little friends (and Z of course)! We started at the beginning of Sept and are going T/Th mornings from 9-11:30. Ike is so proud and happy to be going to preschool and (I think) to have his mommy doing it:) I will address the comment that seriously so blessed put this week... I'm not turning "all polygafrump"- a funny post if you haven't seen it- although, I am a little more pressed for time. It doesn't seem that 5 hours a week could add up to that much extra work, but if you know me at all, you know I'm a perfectionist by nature, and an overachiever, type A as well... put it together and you have late nights sitting on the carpet laminating, cutting, and preparing in every way possible! The result is what I'll put here... fun preschool days and sleepless preparing nights:) And, I love every minute of it!
     So, week one and two were All About Me and My Family (the kids' not me- though that would be funny to do a week theme on ME- I can see it now:) I digress... some of my favorite things from this week were:


Journals- we have started Journals we will write an entry in every school day. I just use composition notebooks but I am LOVING the thought provoking entries and answers already! For example:
"Today I read a book about a pet boa constrictor. If I could have any pet, it would be... a small dog that doesn't jump!"- Ike


We did measurements: height/weight and a writing sample of their names as well.

We also played lots and lots of getting to know you games these two weeks b/c the kids for the most part, did not know each other... Some of our favorites: Who's missing? The kids closed their eyes (no peeking- yeah right) and I tapped one person on the head. That person got to go into the other room. When the kids opened their eyes, they had to figure out who was missing- Very good at helping them be aware of each other!
Pass the Ball- we passed a beach ball back and forth, but before you could pass it, you had to say the person's name who you were passing it to- the kids LOVED it, but it was challenging at first:)
Commonalities- "stand up if you have blonde hair" "hand on head if red shoes" etc... pretty fun to find commonalities among the kiddos.

Guess Who? Parents answered a short questionnaire about their child's likes/dislikes, families, etc. And then I described that person while holding their baby picture for the whole class to guess who was who. Again, a big hit!

Class Memory- I made memory cards with the kids' pictures I had taken and we played memory with pictures of the kids in our class- We are still playing this one 2 weeks later! The kids love it!



We are also "cooking" everyday. This is one of my favorite things and a way to incorporate science each day, as well as give the kids a Healthier snack than oreos or you know...

Anyway, this week, we made trail mix out of a variety of things... cheerios, popcorn, raisins, etc. Oh, and the secret ingredient: yogurt colored craisins.

Also, we made mini bagel faces with strawberry cream cheese, licorice mouths, and raisin eyes- pretty cute and a big hit.

For the first day/week of school, I had the kiddos bring their favorite book from home. This was a great way to learn a little about them and to find out what they might be interested in. It also gave them a little familiarity at school. We took turns reading these at storytime the first week.

I could go on, but this is a pretty good idea of the first two weeks:)

Reflection Paintings- I covered cereal box cardboard squares with aluminum foil (so they could see their reflections) and let them paint them with a cornsyrup/food coloring paint I made. There were 4 colors and they made AWESOME paintings. Again, this is hanging on our fridge.



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Paper Boys and Girls with custom shirts and pants/skirts made with different scrapbooking paper and textured paper... complete with little mary janes, belts, hair yarn, etc. super cute- I added a magnet to the back of Ikes- I think he has the fashion sense of my dad in high school... plaid pants, striped shirt:)

 





Class Quilt- Took a picture of each child and had them glue that pic to a 6x6 piece of cardstock. They then decorated their "quilt block" and I fastened them all together. This hangs in our classroom everyday... A visual that they indeed belong here, together:)







All in all, it was a really fun week!

Signs...

I have a friend who collects pics of ridiculous signs and I think it's a pretty good idea. Some people... you know what I mean?? Anyway, I'll post more as I find them. I'm constantly making Ben take pictures of them for me. In fact, I actually took a few pics in high school... Signs like "No Stopping or Standing" right in front of a crosswalk. This one is pretty special (inside the train, so we couldn't not touch it...)

This reminds me of a story about bizarre collections... Last summer my parents were visiting Jackson, WY and while my dad was at a urinal, a man came up next to him and took a picture. To which my dad replied something like, "Hey buddy, what do you think you're doing?" To which the old, presumably bored man replied, "Oh, everywhere I go I take pictures of urinals. I collect pictures of urinals from all over the world." 

What?!?! Who would've thought... I can't wait to see which of his kids inherits that gem!

Another collection... at my friend's garage sale, a man came up to us and asked, "You don't have any 35 mm cameras do you? I collect them." 

Oh! What an amazing collection you must have since all of us have at least 3 which have died over the course of our lives! Thats like collecting old remote controls:)

As you can see, I don't have much use for *most* collections, but I do respect the right of every individual (outside of my own household) to collect whatever they see fit... Just please don't will it to me:)

SWAGGER WAGON

too funny... almost makes me wanna drive a minivan. almost:) I'm not "3 deep" yet, as one of our friends put it!

Robin Hood

I know! It's been a LONG TIME since I've been to a movie that not everyone has seen yet! Here it is... Last weekend Ben and I went on a date (thanks Mike and Chalece)! and Ben won out in choosing the movie... I don't love violence, scariness, or stupid flicks... I LOVE Love stories, happy endings, etc. Ben deems these movies "not necessary for the big screen." Thus, the battle goes on... The sad part is, I'm actually with him most of the time... Why spend $9.50 when I could wait a few months and see the same flick with my BFFs for $1 (one dolla)! Anyway, THIS movie, Robin Hood, was totally worth it (granted, we used gift cards, but even if we hadn't, it would've been worth it, I probably would've just insisted on eating at home beforehand!
    So, if you care anything about my movie opinion, there it is. This movie was violent and intense enough for Ben, yet had a really great love story too. I think I also just like the medieval setting as well (and yeah, Russell Crowe and Kate Blanchett were pretty awesome- and this bad guy from LOST).  So, if you're sitting around having this same debate with your husband, let him think he "won!" You won't be too sorry!
    Oh, and you can see the trailer HERE:)