New post coming soon with the New Year!

Jan. is coming! It is going to be a busy month in K!! We'll have beach day, 100th day (if we don't have any snow days), and Open House! Winter crafts are coming too! This teacher is going to enjoy her snowy Christmas break and get rested up because there will be no rest in Jan.!!

Happy New Year!

Dr. Jean~

"Let's all do a little ringing
Let's all do a little ringing
Let's all do a little ringing
It's a Happy New Year!"

Then you add dancing, clapping, stomping, and whatever else. It's sung to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

What God Wants For Christmas

Tomorrow is the last day of K until 2010! We have been going through the book and boxes of What God Wants For Christmas. You can get the box set at your local Christian book store. In each box is a member of the nativity. We'll open box # 7 tomorrow. I love that one! What God wants for Christmas is you!

We'll end our day tomorrow with a tradition at our school, the Happy Birthday Jesus Party. We use this time to focus on Jesus and the great gift He is to us. This is always such a special time. The whole elementary meets together and the teachers read the Christmas story. In between Bible verses we sing Christmas songs. Then, Principal reads a story focusing on Christ and His gift to us. To end our time, each class has a cake that is chocolate (for our sin), iced white (Jesus covers our sin), with a red cross on top (for His sacrifice), and a lit candle (Jesus is the light of the world). The classes leave to go to their rooms singing "Silent Night". It's such a wonderful time and gets our focus on the real reason for the season, Jesus.


"What Can I Give Him?"
"What can I give Him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I'd bring a lamb.
If I were a wise man
I'd do my part.
Yet what can I give Him?
Give Him my heart!"

May all our hearts be full of His love this Christmas!

It's the MOST wonderful time of the year!

4 days left of Christmas fun!! Our parent gift this year is a cute fun foam gingerbread frame. I ordered it from Oriental Trading. Just a tip, sometimes the crafts from OT have LOTS of tiny pieces that little fingers have trouble with. This year I took a chance and it was easy! They did a great job on them too. I took each of their pics in a gingerbread baking hat and apron so they could be the "Gingerbread Baby" in the gingerbread house. :)

We had two other fun OT crafts that a mom sent for us to do. One was a little gingerbread notebook. Our writing center this month has been the Gingerbread man. The notebooks came with fun foam stickers so that the kids could decorate it. I was thankful for them, they were perfect for our writing center AND we didn't have to make our own journal! The other craft I had to do some work on myself. It was a gingerbread house that was like a puzzle. It came with all the extras to decorate it. I put the house together. It took some time, but the kids really enjoyed decorating them.

You can find these things at the Oriental Trading website. Sometimes they have specials too.

I'll leave you with a few fun Dec. poems~
"A Package"
"If you see a package
Happily wrapped and tied.
Don't ask too many questions
'Cause the secrets inside!"

"Christmas Goodies"
"It's hustle and bustle at our house,
So I try to keep out of the way!
But I sniff with delight at the cookies,
That are baking for Christmas day!"

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and other hand print decorations!

We've had a handprint Christmas this year!! We made a handprint Christmas tree, handprint wreath, and my favorite a handprint Rudolph!

The Christmas tree~ We used glitter green paint from Lakeshore, I love the glitter! Then we added tissue paper for the ornaments. Good fine motor!!

The wreath~ We traced our own hands and cut them out. My aide cut out the middle of a regular sized paper plate. The children cut out their hands, about 8 to fill up the plate, and glued them around the plate. To decorate, I had some Christmas sprinkles that I found at Super Target last year. We put a dot of glue on each hand and sprinkled the various sprinkles on the dot.

Rudolph~ I bought brown fun foam. Each child traced their hand and cut it out. The thumb is the head, so they had to stick their thumb out a bit. Then we glued on two curled pipe cleaners, a google eye, and some glittery green fun foam for a collar. Last, they used a sharpie to color in the hooves at the bottom of each finger. So fun!!

Whew! There are so many fun crafts to do at Christmas and not enough time!! Maybe you'll get your hands on some fun crafty things this Christmas season too!
Merry!!

Hat and mitten day in K!

The weather outside was cold~ high 39, so it was a great day to celebrate our author of the month, Jan Brett! We had hat and mitten day in honor of her books The Hat and The Mitten. Fun times.:) It's amazing how excited the kids get to just have a special dress up day. Again, here's a plug for Jan Brett's website~ she has a hat print off that kids can design their own hat and a large mitten too. She also has the character masks so the kids can do a reader's theater. Check it out! It's free!!

Still cold, so be sure you bundle up and wear your hats and mittens!

We Caught the Gingerbreadman!

What a fun Dec. 1 in K! Yesterday we made our gingerbread dough and today we baked "the man"! He escaped out of the oven leaving a trail of ginger crumbs on the floor. We were on the hunt! We visited almost every room looking for Ginger using his smell to lead our noses toward him. When we finally found him, he was yummy!! It was an exciting time. :) We doubled the Jan Brett gingerbread baby recipe so we'd have plenty of gingerbread to enjoy!

There are so many fun things to do in class this time of year, just not enough time! We are reading One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham. It's a little longer book, so we are reading a few chapters at the end of each day. If you've never read this Christmas story, it's wonderful. It talks about our need for a Rescuer, Jesus. It tells the story from creation to Jesus' death and resurrection. It's truly one of my favorite Christmas stories, and Ruth has such a way with her story telling. Truly a must read this time of year!

Hope you have visions of Gingerbread dancing in your dreams tonight!
Merry December!