Hanukkah & Kwanzaa

There are so many different holidays to learn about during this time of year!  This week our lessons focused on Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.  

As the week of Hanukkah finished, we decided to start the week with this holiday. The children learned about the Festival of Lights with a story about the facts and history of this long time holiday. Then they watched to see how the dreidel game was played then went to the tables to do it themselves. 

They also learned how to write the various symbols seen on the sides of the dreidel to work on their fine motor skills. 

By the end of the day they showed their artistic aides as they decorated driedles to bring home as a reminder of this fun traditional Hanukkah game. 

The special Kinara consists of four candles, three red, three green, and one black.  We made our own Kinaras by using our fingerprints as the candles!  

Continuing our Kinara theme, the children played a game where they tried to toss bean bags into buckets.  This represented the lighting of the the candles on the Kinara.  The bean bags acted as the flames and the buckets acted as the candles.  

The preschoolers learned even more about the African American culture when they listened to a book about Kwanzaa.  The seven principles of Kwanzaa are a big part of the celebration and led to a great discussion about creativity, responsibility and unity!  

The preschoolers worked very hard on our giant class Kinara!  They used their handprints to color the candles and learned about the importance of teamwork.  

The children made Kwanzaa themed necklaces out of red, green, and black pasta noodles.  Threading them onto the strings was a great activity for improving their fine motor skills.  

We ended the day on Wednesday with a science experiment where baking soda was out into a pineapple, apples, and an orange. Next Vinegar was added which caused a reaction. Fruit volcanos were made. Feel free to make your own volcanos at home by putting baking soda in paper cups and then adding Vinegar. Enjoy watching the reactions occur!

Friday was our annual Holiday Party and we had a wonderful time enjoying the treats catered by our Practices in Entrepreneurship (PIE course at PHS) which is the student run bakery we enjoy!  

We had a wonderful time with Santa and his elves and heard a traditional holiday story and sang Jingle Bells!  

Thanks for another terrific fall semester and we will see you all in February!

What's Coming Up?

This winter break, current preschool families will be getting emails from Mrs. Stary with all the photos taken for the fall semester.  We will also email a copy of the case study to you in January.  

Spring semester Preschool Orientation will occur Monday, February 8th and the first day of preschool without parents will be Wednesday, February 10th.  You will receive emails in January with further details.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

It is already time to say goodbye to fall and hello to winter!  The change in season is reflected in the preschool's theme this week, Winter Wonderland!  

The holiday season has finally arrived and the deadline for elf applications is coming soon!  The children enjoyed filling out the questionnaire!  They drew pictures of themselves dressed up as elves and explained to their teachers why they would be good candidates.  After the activity, they brought their applications to a teacher who gave them a certified elf name tag!  The kids were eager to finish their worksheets in order to wear these special name tags all day long!  

Working on our fine motor skills, we played the iPad app Antarctic Winter Wonder-Land.  The preschoolers had to match shadows to the correct animal picture and spot the mistakes between two Arctic scenes.  Although some of these games were challenging, the children worked very hard and loved receiving the small rewards that the game offered for correct answers!

After our two table activities, we woke our bodies up with a few games of Santa Says!  They had to really use their listening skills to follow Santa's directions and be careful not to move when Santa did not say to move!  

We had a very busy afternoon on Monday!  The preschoolers had to complete two number of the day worksheets.  They learned and practiced the numbers 4 and 5.  

We created minty volcanoes in honor of our winter wonderland theme and he children giggled as they watched candy canes disintegrate before their eyes in a bubbling fizzy mess. 

When it was time for math we followed directions to attach certain candy items to the walls and roofs of our gingerbread houses. We will be using these as centerpiece decorations for our upcoming holiday party. 

Hot chocolate is the perfect drink to warm us up in the winter!  Each preschooler received a mug with a number on the back of it and then had to glue the correct number of marshmallows to the front!  

This project taught us that snowmen are made of three balls of snow, a small one, a medium sized one, and a large one.  Constructing a snowman outside is the perfect winter break activity!  Now that all of the preschoolers know how to make a snowman, maybe this break you can help them make one outside!  

After we learned about making a snowman, we sang a song about them similar to the 5 Little Monkeys one!  The kids loved the song so much that they asked to repeat the song over and over again!  We gave the children a turn to hold up the 5 little snowmen and sit down each time one "bumped his toe"!  

Penguins love living in the chilly Arctic!  What would you do if you were a penguin?  The preschoolers enjoyed coloring their penguins and telling us all about the different things that they would do!  

Another craft we made in preparation for our upcoming holiday party was homemade ornaments! We constructed the 'dough' and each child rolled it and cut their own ornament using cookie cutters. They have been drying this weekend to be hung up on our tree at the party. Don't forget to look for your ornament at the party, take it home and color or paint it over break. 

Distinguishing the difference between capital and lower case letters is very important as the children begin to write different words.  To gain this recognition skill, we matched the capital letters to the corresponding lower case letters.  

Dot-to-dot drawing exercises are great pre-writing and math activities.  Following the lines helps us gain the dexterity necessary for writing and the numbers help us practice counting.  

With two simple household materials, baking soda and shaving cream, you can create fake, squishy snow. Although this snow is slightly cold to the touch, it provides hours of fun since it won't melt!  

Each and every snowflake is unique.  We used popsicle sticks and sparkly paint to create our own masterpieces! 

After making snowflakes we warmed our hands by decoration mittens for our classroom! Each child chose one or two mittens to decorate and hang up in the room for the winter wonderland week!

Using fluffy stuffing, the kids were able to create a mock snowball fight, which was a huge hit for everyone (except our maintenance crew). 

Jingle! Jingle! The time of year when jingle bells are taken out of storage to make music with is here! On Friday, the jingle bells where extremely useful when we sang "Jingle Bell Rock". The kids enjoyed ringing their jingle bells throughout the whole song.

What's coming up?

The last week of preschool is here! We will be talking about Hanukkah and Kwanza Monday and Wednesday and finishing off our fall semester of preschool with the holiday party on Friday where Santa will make his annual appearance to bring gifts to every child in attendance. If you have not sent in your RSVP please make sure you do soon. Santa would hate to leave someone behind. 

We still have a little room in our afternoon preschool session from 1:00-2:30 Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Email Kris Stary if interested and feel free to check out details in our website.