We came back to school after the long Thanksgiving break excited to see all our WIPP friends, play, and ready to share all our Thanksgiving adventures! December is right around the corner, with Christmas coming soon, so we jumped right in to getting ready for a new and busy month at school.
Our sensory bin has changed! This is favorite classroom spot, and so much learning happens here as the kids interact with each other and the materials. Right now they are enjoying red and green pasta, with jingle bells, mini candy canes, stocking to fill and Christmas characters. Throughout the month, new manipulatives will be added to keep it fresh and interesting.
A new month also means calendars and placemats must be made! Our December calendar is a snowman with a moveable nose to help us count down the days until Christmas. Our placemat is a festive tree that we built by using small, medium and large strips of paper. We had fun decorating, and snuck in some learning about comparing sizes while we did it!
At this point in the year, everyone is able to write his or her name, with varying degrees of teacher support. Now is the time to practice and polish our skills!
I am SO PROUD of how well the kids are improving on the letter formation, scale, direction and ease of writing!
Letters and sounds are always a part of our week. This week I brought out a new set of acorn cups with phonics manipulatives (Thanks for the Scholastic book orders- these were a free bonus point pick!😃). Each cup has a capital letter, each cap has a lowercase letter, and there is a small toy that starts with each of the sounds. I originally planned this for a single teacher led center on Monday, but it was so fun that it came out the rest of the week as a free choice activity for morning table time and after our regular centers.
We have free choice book time every single day, and the kids do love their books. But if you really want to see 4 year olds actively engage with text, match words with pictures, and ask a grownup to help with reading, then put out a bunch of toy catalogs! We will be looking through these for a couple of more days, then narrowing down our choices to cut out items for a Santa wishlist next week. Thank you so much for all the catalogs sent in to school!
Christmas crafts! We started a few special projects, but you'll have to wait a while and be surprised! No peeking (and please don't take home anything that might be drying on the top or in the higher cubby compartment- anything to go home will be put in the backpack.)
Hark the Herald Angels Sing!!
Not only did we make the sweetest angels this side of heaven, we have been singing every day to get ready for our Christmas program on December 19. We especially love our song just for the 4s, because we get to visit (or be visited by) Ms. Deborah's class to practice together.
We ended our week with a special visitor! Pastor Andy came to tell us all about the first Christmas, and the birth of Jesus. Santa, presents, crafts and yummy baking are all wonderful, but we celebrate Christmas because of the birth of Jesus and God's great love for all of us.
Last, but not least, we celebrated another friend turning 5.
Happy Birthday!
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