December 12th

Circle time: Pledge of Allegiance, Good Morning Song, Calendar, went over N words of the the day. Talked briefly about the History of Christmas (I'm sure Farah will go into greater detail next week. . .)

Craft Time: We laced stockings, bells, snowflakes and tree shapes. Lorien and Darius decorated them by painting and cutting and gluing fabric and adding bells. Lorien worked really hard on her craft, while Darius finished his fast and went inside to put the United states puzzle together again. He really likes that puzzle!

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

Library Time: Vanessa and Leila (I always forget how to spell her name!) stayed home with Farah, while I took Lorien and Darius to the Library. They read Christmas books, and sang Christmas songs. After story time Darius went to look for his Pokemon book and it was there! Yeah! Lorien looked at her princess primer book. Gotta keep up on royal etiquette!

December 10th

Circle Time: Pledge of Allegiance, Good Morning Song, Calendar, English word of the day (that's really french): Noel, Spanish word of the day: Nada (the kids had fun with that one, Lorien quized me when we got home by asking me what was on the table and in my hand.)

Reading and Writing: The kids read and wrote the following words: nest, net, new, news, newt, next, nick, ninja.

Craft Time: I had them made a night time snow scene. We folded paper and cut out triangles to make snow flakes. The little triangle pieces were used as tiny snow and we cut sparkly fabric for the stars. Lorien went to town making snowflakes, while Darius lost intrest very quickly. (I realized that I should have found a science project for them to do instead!) Darius decided to do the huge United States of America puzzle. When Lorien was finished with her craft, she decided to play with the Magni-tiles. She build a giant tower. It was pretty amazing.

Math: Darius has been showing a great intrest in math. He's been doing quite difficult problems adding a single digit to a double digit. So I made cards with numbers on them and made a plus and minus sign out of paper. Then they got to make their own equation up and figure it out. Darius figured the answers out in his head, while Lorien and I counted on our fingers. I'll be working on Math with Lorien at home.

Reading: Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes by Judy Hindley illustrated by Brita Granstrom, The Whole Night Through by David Frampton.

Closing Circle: We had to do Jack be Nimble about 5 times. We jumped over the imaginary candle. Darius didn't want to stop! It was fun. Lorien suggested we stretched. So we reached to the sky and to our toes and made butterflies with our leggs. It was a good closing time. Lorien did not want to go!

Dec 8th

Ok, so since I was gone last week, and Lorien didn't get to do work, I decided to do N. Darius already had a couple days of N, but now he knows N really well! We've got our morning schedule down pretty good now:

Circle Time: Good Morning Song, Pledge of Allegiance, Calendar, Letter of the week: N, English word of the day: Nation, Spanish word: Nariz (nose). Nursery Rhymes, Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, Jack be Nimble, Never Smile at a Crocodile. Lorien and Darius LOVED to do Jack be Nimble. Lorien and I were humming Never Smile at a Crocodile the rest of the day!

Reading and Writing: They read and wrote the following words: nag, nap, navy, nay, neck, need, neon, nerd.

Science: The kids were a bit dissapointed that we didn't do an experiment. The topic was the Northern Lights. It held their interest. After we talked about how it is formed (Benjamin Franklin first brought attention to the "mystery of the Northern Lights." He theorized the shifting lights to a concentration of electrical charges in the polar regions intensified by the snow and other moisture.) Lorien and Darius painted the "Northern Lights". They had a great time trying to get the colors to run together. I had them take white crayon to draw stars and they were trying really hard to paint over all their crayon markings to see what they drew.

Reading: Noodle by Munro Leaf pictures by Ludwig Bemelmans, Nikolai, The Only Bear by Barbara Joosse Illustrated by Renata Liwska.

Snack Time: Wash hands, eat, free play time.

Closing Circle: Sang The More we get Together.

(Farah, I need pics from you!)

Solo week! Monday, December 1st

Leilah showing Darius how to write his letters...hahaha:)
Evaporation!

Matching spanish words to pictures wreath & a home made cloud

Leilah joined in with our opening circle time song

Condensation!

Letter of the week “N”
Word of the day: Nuisance (English)

Naranja (Spanish)

9:30-9:45 Opening Circle time. Opening song (“Good Morning/Buenos Dias”). Calendar time. Words of the day. Talk about the new month & special days this month.
9:45-10:00 Center exploration: Letter of the week- coloring/writing letter. “I can read/write” .

10:00-11:00 Special project: The Weather System

11:00-11:15 Story time, special weather cycle story, "Drippy the Raindrop"
11:15-11:50 Wash hands/Snack time/Free Play
11:50-12:00 Closing circle time

This week it was just Darius and I as Anne was in Arizona with her family for a family funeral. Our condolences go out for Anne, Jimmy, and their family.

Preschool was a bit more quiet with half the class absent:) I took advantage of this time to concentrate on things that Darius was really interested in, like the weather! We went over the different steps of the the weather system (i.e., evaporation,condensation, precipitation, collection), and I demonstrated each individual step in our own kitchen (i.e., boiling water to show evaporation, putting the lid on to demonstrate condensation, etc...). Darius was just beside himself & seemed to grasp the concepts well :)

We did have a special guest in class, none other than the infamous, Leilah-Louise "Cutie Pie" Cuenca! She had fun for a second in circle time, and tried to do some 'class work' with Darius!