Day #26: Snowman Friends

So we started out today learning about the letter "N".  Our word was "Nativity".  We got to have London's little brother, Gunner, join us today.  :)

Everyone got a couple felt pieces of a giant snowman and everyone took turns putting their pieces on the felt board until we had a big snowman!  There was a little disagreement on how the orange carrot nose should be placed.  Lucy's piece was the nose, but when Ethan saw the way Lucy put it up, he was pretty upset and decided to change it.  Well, that wasn't going to work for Lucy so she changed it back.  Finally I just put it up my very own way to avoid the continued disagreement.  Haha!  

We had a snack of wheat thins with snow balls on top (marshmallows) and some snow on the side (coconut).  Nobody likes shredded coconut just for every one's information!  

Here's what happened to our "snow".  Seems obvious that this would happen looking back....I don't know what I was thinking:

So....it was a bit of a crazy day.  Lots of balls of energy running around the room.  Finally, I kind of gave up on trying to teach any more of the lesson and turned on a Christmas show on Netflix (Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer-good idea Wendy!  Thanks!)  It calmed everyone down and I kind of needed that today.  

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  Oops!  Fun to learn about snowmen and snow!

Christmas Caroling - Merry Christmas!

Today we visited the Sunrise Assisted Living in Carlsbad. We sang some songs and wished the residents a Merry Christmas. The children were pretty shy at the beginning, but as the residents started to join in, the children got a little more comfortable.

That's it for the next couple of weeks. Merry Christmas & have a happy new year!

Day 23: Gingerbread Family

We had a lot of fun with our gingerbread family!  We actually had this lesson on November 29th.  I'm just very late putting it up.  Oops.  We learned about the letter "L" and our word was "Love".  (Apparently, my lips look like a boat, my lemon looks like a ball, and my light bulb looks like a hot air balloon-haha!)  

Natalie gave me her paper gingerbread stick figures to do a puppet show with and the kids loved it.  They would talk to the little stick figures and everything!  So cute.  I introduced the "family" to them and they were super into it.

We talked about preparing for the holidays.  Everyone is excited about Christmas!  We talked about how Christmas is fun to get presents but it's also very fun to do nice things for others.  We talked about what we would bring to eat to a Christmas party.  I slacked with putting this up on the blog and now I can't remember what the kids said.  :(  Then we had snack time: gingerbread cookies and cheese and crackers.  Yummy! 

After snacks, we played "Catch Me If You Can" which is another way of saying "Duck Duck Goose."

Everyone randomly rolled on the ground with a pillow for a bit.  :)

Then we played with play dough and made our own gingerbread men.  (This was kind of a disaster.  I made this the night before and it was perfect.  But the next morning it was WAY too sticky but the kids still wanted to play with it.)  London's hands were immediately covered in the stickiness and so she couldn't really make anything.  Ethan was kind of grossed out by the stickiness.  Mason and Lucy played with it the longest and made some little creatures with it.

We read some Christmas stories and then we had play time for a bit.  

Yay for gingerbread men, Christmas, the letter L, and Love!  :)

Day #26: Bells

I started out the lesson talking about the letter M. The value was M for manners today, so I read them "Monster Manners." We talked about the difference between good manners and bad manners. The children seemed to understand the concept pretty well by the end of the day.

We had sharing time and practiced a few Christmas songs for our presentation at the retirement home next week.

After introducing the theme "bells," we made some cute little bell angels.

For snack time we had a picnic on the grass behind the house.

When we came back inside I did a puppet show and read a few more stories.

 

Kids singing Jingle Bells video.

Day#25: Gifts

The lesson was on the letter M, the value being "Merry" for Merry Christmas. The children are saying "M" here.

We made these cute little Santas out of TP rolls. The children especially enjoyed putting the eyes on with sparkle glue.

Recess & picnic at the park. When we returned to the house we did some activities with gift boxes and had a gift exchange.

On our way out to recess at the park.

 I wanted to do a mini puppet play and read a couple of more books, but we just ran out of time. I took a little different approach for school yesterday and I think it helped me feel more comfortable and not stress out as much. When I was planning the lesson I mentioned to my husband that there are 2 hours and I need to make sure I plan a lot so that we don't end up with too much time. My husband reminded me that I should only plan for as much as their attention span would allow.

Remembering that advice, I didn't freak out as much to get everything done that I had planned. As a result, I feel like the children had a better time and everything went much more smoothly. It could have been that we only had 4 children, but I think my attitude helped a lot.

Day #22 Thanksgiving Feast

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! For Joyschool, Thanksgiving came one week early! It was only Lucy, Mason and London today and my husband took Levi, so it was really mellow!

First we learned about being Kind for Letter K.

I had each child think of ways to be Kind and then we wrote it on a feather and made our Kindness Turkey look pretty.


Then I read the book, that I meant to take a picture of, but you can kind of see it behind the turkey. It is called "3 young pilgrims" and talks about some pilgrim children on their journey from England all the way to the first Thanksgiving.

I showed them some pumpkins, squash and Indian Corn, which they all got very attached to and brought with them the rest of the day.


Then we pretended we were the pilgrims and we had to pack food and get on a boat. We sailed to America (the park) and found Native Americans (which we turned into). We snuck around the playground barefoot (hope you all don't mind, Lucy really equates barefoot with Indian).


Then we pretended to meet and the Native Americans showed us how to plant crops and grow things. Once they grew we had a feast!

Then we had some free play. They pretended they were Indians the whole time and brought their corn with them everywhere. It was funny to me how into it they were!



When we got back to the house, I taught them about hieroglyphics and how the Native Americans wrote stories. We made our own story. Each child got to think of part of it...Here is how the story goes (sorry you will have to crane your neck, I am too lazy to rotate)


"There was a horse who galloped over the mountains. Then we went home. Later he found a feather and then he found the bird and gave it back to him. The end"

What a happy story!

We finished by making hand turkeys. I traced each child's hand and then they colored the fingers for feathers. I was so into my art that I forgot to take any pictures of them! We are probably all better off for that, because my artistic abilities are about equal to the children. This way we can imagine they looked really good. Fun fun fun!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sound of Music Field Trip

Everyone came on a field trip to the Star Theatre on November 16, 2011 to watch me perform as "Maria" in Sound of Music. Thank you all so much for coming! It meant the world to me to know you were all in the audience! Thank you, Thank you Thank you!

Here's a shot with the Moms!

Day # 21 Performing!!!!

Today, I taught about performing, since the Sound of Music Field trip was the next day!

I got out the microphone at circle time and let everyone have a try being loud!



First We learned about the letter K. K is for King, kiss, kitten, kangaroo, keys, kick, and kind. I described the words and then let the children guess them and come put them up on the board.


Then we talked about Kings and how they are in charge and get to boss people around, kind of like a director. We all took turns being the director and telling the actors what to do (plus we played follow the leader).

Then we practiced being a good audience. Sometimes you have to be really quiet and other times you get to be really loud!

Next we dressed up and walked to the park to have a snack and perform on stage.
We all sat down and took turns getting on "stage" and singing. The kids were so cute and creative. The audience was good at cheering too!

Here's Mason...looks like a cowboy breaking hearts up there!

And Ethan, our proud fireman giving us a note!
Then they had some free play at the park, while I painted each kid's face. Should have took pictures of each of them, but I was too busy having fun I guess! Ethan got spiderman, Mason got a dinosaur, Lucy and London got princess masks and Jack was content just to be Jack!

When we returned we made masks with feathers and beads, to wear next time we perform!
What a fun day! Everyone was really well behaved and we had a great time!

Day # 20: Preparing for Winter/Getting Dressed

We dressed the snowman. The children loved it.

Reading a story.

After school snack.

Craft we made. 

The first half of class we read a few books and discussed our topics, the letter J, joy, and dressing for cold weather. We dressed the snowman and then had snack time.

The second half of the class was a bit of a blur... We made the craft, read a few books and then had some playtime at the end.