mini-rad!: January 2010

calendars for 2010!

in addition to talking about the four seasons we also spent quite a bit of time discussing the different months of the year. we sang our "months of the year" song and read from the story of clocks and calendars by betsy maestro. the kids also began to make their own calendars- something we are still working on!

winter time!

last week we focused on the four different seasons, with an emphasis on winter. we read what happens in winter? by sara latta and talked about how winter affects us. we also read first snow in the woods and talked about what animals do in the winter and about hibernation. afterwards we made a cave and pretended to hibernate.

i turned out the lights and once the lights came back on they knew that it was warmer and therefore time to come out of hibernation! we also made it into a rhyming game- if i said two words that rhymed they could come out of hibernation, if not they had to stay in their cave. as you can imagine, this was a very popular game!

once they were out of the cave they used their sense of smell to find food (aka teddy grahams).

we read in the snow: who's been here? and played a game where the kids had to match the animal track to the animal it belonged to. afterwards we went on a nature walk searching for different tracks.

we pretended to be birds migrating south in a v-formation, taking turns who was the leader...

since we didn't exactly have enough kids to make a proper v shape they opted to make a line formation instead!

practicing our reading and writing skills...

matching pictures of animals with the letters they begin with...

i put out the letters "a" and "t" at the top of the alphabet and the kids took turns picking a letter to place before them. some made a word, while others didn't!

practicing our math skills...

i placed strips of blue paper and the numbers 1-10 on the work tables. the kids then put the numbers in order and glued them to the paper!

the final products!

working on our pratical life skills...

peeling their own oranges, something everyone was successful at!

using our practice chopsticks to move shelled almonds from one basket to another...

...and practicing pouring water from our pitcher

christmas 2009!

we made salt dough ornaments...

...and decorated them

fiona made the most and was kind enough to give sonny and coco (who made the fewest) some of her ornaments to decorate! the kids are becoming such wonderful sharers!

we took turns using the electric beaters to make icing for our gingerbread houses...

making the houses (and trees) proved to be an easier task than i had planned! i honestly only watched as everyone worked independently- the kids did an excellent job being extra careful as to not break their cones...