During Jesus time we reviewed the true story of Mary learning that she would have a baby - Jesus our Savior! The people of that time had been waiting for a Savior for a long time! We don't have to wait - our Savior has come! He died on the cross and rose again to save us from our sins.
During small group time the friends worked with me to increase letter recognition, letter sound correlation, and beginning sounds of words.
With Mrs. Zwettler, the friends drew pictures of wise men, shepherds, or animals for our collaborative nativity scene.
The friends also strengthened subitizing, counting, and one to one correpsondence as they rolled a dice, identified how many dots were showing, and counted out the same number of "ornaments" for their Christmas trees.
The friends worked collaboratively in the blocks too!
During free choice time, some friends wanted to do more exercising. :)
Gift making is an opportunity to practice many skills including fine motor development, writing skills, and showing God's love to others!
Some of the friends figured out how to make candy canes using pipe cleaners.
We then worked to write a sign so others could make them too! This is a great opportunity to engage in meaningful writing practice. This also strengthens concepts of print as we identified the space between words!
The market is open!
It can be very tempting to knock down someone else's hard work. In order to resist that temptation, children opportunities to practice self-regulation. Self-regulation is an important skill for the friends to learn. It is also a major component of executive function!
Here is what The Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University has to say about self-regulation and executive function:
"Executive function and self-regulation skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Just as an air traffic control system at a busy airport safely manages the arrivals and departures of many aircraft on multiple runways, the brain needs this skill set to filter distractions, prioritize tasks, set and achieve goals, and control impulses. When children have opportunities to develop executive function and self-regulation skills, individuals and society experience lifelong benefits. These skills are crucial for learning and development. They also enable positive behavior and allow us to make healthy choices for ourselves and our families"
You can read the whole article (HERE).
Exploring volume, measuring, and counting
As we play, we learn important concepts.
"When I use the magnifying glass, the wolf looks big! When I put the magnifying glass on the acorn, it looks bigger than the wolf!"
During morning meeting we read this fun book! As we read the numbers of the days, the friends held up the same amount of fingers. When we sang "five gold rings" many friends used two hands to show five! They are applying their knowledge that numbers can be composed of smaller numbers.
Caleb brought cinnamon ornaments for us to smell! The friends described the smell.
"Good!"
"Spicy!"
"Christmas"
Second outside time
Some of the friends put on a show for me!
During small group time we practiced letter sounds and beginning sounds of words.
With Mrs. Helmkamp the friends drew pictures of animals for their individual nativity scenes.
With Mrs. Lipsey the friends explored the concept of numbers being composed and decomposed to make new numbers. Today they explored how to make and break the number six!
Free choice time
Mrs. Helmkamp helped write some wonderings at the wonder window.
