All Aboard the Polar Express!

Choo! Choo! We all "boarded" a week full of fun in our class!

A quick note to start about our Christmas program on Wednesday... Please arrive by 5:45...I will take them all back stage at that time and get them in order. Hint: The auditorium fills up crazy fast...you may want to get there a bit earlier! We are asking for a $1 donation per adult when you come in...This year we will be donating to Casa Calla. Calla is a former LAP student who lost her battle with a rare brain cancer over the summer. She was only 9... Her wish was to go to Romania and serve others as a missionary. Her parents have set up a foundation in her name to fulfill Calla's dreams of helping others. Any donation is greatly appreciated. Let's honor this sweet girl and her family. They currently have another little gal at our school in Kinder Prep...

Back to this week... In addition to all of our Christmas fun, we focused on several literacy skills, including the letter J, rhyming, beginning sounds, and the sight words "I", "see", and "the". We also got to write a letter to Santa and draw three things we are hoping for for Christmas! We saved these for portfolios!  Using our book "I See the Polar Express", we worked on predicting words by using pictures and the first sound of the word. See if your child can read this book to you this week (from their poetry folder). 

Some of our other fun fine motor work and art work included practicing our cutting skills with wrapping paper, stringing Christmas beads, and building "stables" out of play dough and craft sticks. We also painted Christmas lights to find a surprise message! These light reminded us to "Be a light!" Using Nativity stickers to create our own Nativity scene was also a hit as we focused on J is for Jesus on Wednesday. We even made a fun Nativity paper plate craft to hang up at home. 

Our Polar Express day was a hit! While we weren't able to watch all of the movie, we did have fun drinking our hot chocolate and eating cookies while we watched some fun clips from the movie. Ask your child if they can hear their bell when they ring it! (Everyone should have made it home with one.) We all even got our own ticket to board the train! 

We also made name trains, a craft that gave each child a chance to practice putting the letters of their name in order. You could maybe make your own paper train at home to work on making an AB or an ABB pattern. 

This week, see if your child can...

1. Practice for the Christmas program with you. PLEASE PLEASE! :)

2. Read their Polar Express paper book with you. 

3. Write the letters B, D, J, N, and T in sugar!

4. Cut a piece of wrapping paper out for you and wrap their own gift. 

5. Help you label three objects in your house with their initial sound.

Nativity fun

J is for Jesus!

We had fun building "mangers".

We saved these letters to Santa

for portfolios. 

Picking up jingle bells with magnets.

Look at that good painting!

Counting marshmallows onto hot chocolate

Snip! Snip!

We had fun building our name trains. 

All aboard!!

We tried a jingle bell experiment... Kind of a fail! :)

We made Santa bananas!

Grandparents and Gingerbread Men...

We had another great week as we began celebrating the Christmas season! Grandparents’ Day was an absolute blast. We are so thankful for each grandma and grandpa who took the time to come and make their little person feel special and loved. Everyone loved painting the beautiful ornaments from Earth and Fire and doing other fun activities with their grandparents in our room. It was so fun to see the smile on each child's face as they enjoyed their special time with whoever came to be with them. Mrs. Andrea and I were reminded what a blessing families truly are.  

In addition to Grandparents' Day festivities, we had fun learning with gingerbread men! We read The Gingerbread Bear, Gingerbread Man Lost in School, and The Gingerbread Man. We also worked together to bake and then of course try gingerbread cookies, decorate gingerbread cookie paper cutouts, and even go on a gingerbread man hunt.  Our hiding gingerbread man sure was tricky... Make sure to ask your little person about this. We truly all laughed until we cried; we had so much fun. 

We also had some fun with Christmas trees this week! We used Christmas lights to work on reading our sight words and color words. Make sure to have your child read the new book in their poetry folder to you! We worked on counting by decorating a paper tree with colored "ornaments" and had fun hanging real ornaments on our class tree. Everyone loved getting to decorate the tree themselves! We also dot painted lights onto a paper tree, which is now hanging in the hallway!

This week, we introduced the Christmas story with talking about the angel Gabriel visiting Mary. We will continue with the story next week!

At home, see if your child can...

1. Count the ornaments on your tree. We are trying to master counting to 50! 

2. Tell you the shapes of the ornaments on your tree (2D and 3D)

3. Name all the colors they see on your tree and write them down together. 

4. Make a name ornament to put on your tree. 

5. Tell you our new Bible verse: "God has sent a son to us!" (Isaiah 9:6)

Too many smiles to count!!

We sorted beginning sounds 

with these fun ornaments!

See if your sweetie can tell you what the Christmas star reminds us of!

Christmas play dough cutting

Make sure you have this read to you at home!

Matching uppercase and lowercase letters

We loved naming the gingerbread men we decorated!

These will be in our portfolios. :) 

We are working together so well! And we love searching for hidden letters

around the room!

We all got a turn helping make our gingerbread cookies!