A Letter To Mom and Dad

Well, Thanksgiving is over and we are so excited that the annual "Winter Snow Festival" is near. This year we are planning to have the festival on Friday, December 18th at 3:00.

We will have the snow again, so plan on bringing gloves and snow boots for your child.

Every year we try to incorporate the traditions from as many cultures as we can, being that our school is full of children from so many different ethnic backgrounds. Last year the children started a project on the clothing from each country and wound up making snowmen dressed in clothes from all around the world.

This year it looks like we are hooked on FOOD!!!

We sat down to talk about the festival, and the children were talking about what food they want to bring and where their parents are from. These were some of the comments:

- Trevor said, "I think I am from Mexico, I don't really know where I live!"
- Dimi said, "My dad speaks Greek and English. I am not sure what they eat in Greece. But, when my mom and dad were little kids, I lived in Africa and ate meat from lions.
-Faraz said, " "My mom and dad speak Farsi and English. They eat vegetables and fruit, but my grandma lives far away in Iran."
-Ella said, "My dad is from Mexico, and I think they eat hot dogs there." "Oh! They eat tacos and tortillas!"

We continued to talk and the teachers asked them, "Well since we are not sure what people eat in different countries, what should we do?"

The children wanted to write a letter to the parents. We worked together and this is what the letter says:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Where do you come from and can you please tell me it please? You can please tell me what you eat where you come from? And can you tell me what you do where you come from and where you don't come from, and also from Mexico?

Thank You!

Little Wonders Kids


In other words ;0) The children would like to know more about their family's nationality, what foods are common from those countries, and any traditions your family has during the winter time. And if anyone has additional information on Mexico, they would love to hear about that as well!

I will have a letter to pass out in class so that the children can read it with you at home and they can bring in any information to class.

Let me know if you have quesitons!

From Christmas Trees and Snowflakes to Shapes and Colors

One day Lily wanted to draw a Christmas tree. She started drawing and said, "I can't do it!"

We talked about the shapes we see in a Christmas Tree. We got a new piece of paper and started to draw the shapes we talked about.

And right before our eyes.............Lily made a BEAUTIFUL TREE!!!! One by one, the children started admiring her work. Soon, half of the class was making trees with her. We cut them out and put them on one big piece of paper to make a "Christmas Tree Forest!"

Ella and Natalie wanted to make two "giant" Christmas trees, so they drew them and then wanted to paint them. Only.....we had one little problem! There was no green paint!!!

This was the perfect opportunity for some problem solving! "How can we make green paint?", we asked. The girls started suggesting mixing different colors together. We made charts to record our "tests"........

And in the end, we found out that yellow + blue = green! You can see by our charts that we learned several other color combinations........

So the girls started painting away...








They painted the tree green, and started making plans to decorate the trees. The topic of snowflakes came up, and the children started talking. Some of the kids said they couldn't make snowflakes, so the teachers provided the children with this picture.....

We had the children look at and discuss what they saw. The children said:

• There are lines
• There are spikey things
• I see stars
• There are hexagons

The comment about the hexagon opened up the door for a whole new direction in our project - SHAPES!!!

We showed the children a page full of shapes and we started to name the shapes. We found the hexagon and counted the sides. We started to focus on hexagons, octagons, and pentagons. The children drew the shapes and wrote the numbers on the sides of the shapes. (This was good practice in writing our numbers, we spent extra time writing our numbers if we had trouble with them).

In order to incorporate the shapes in the Christmas Trees, we had the girls make ornaments out of the different shapes...

So far, they have made circles.....

Squares..............
Hexagons..............

and Triangles......

The rest of the children wanted to make snowflakes like the ones in the picture. The teachers gave the children pictures of hexagons, pentagons, and octagons. They counted the sides and then talked about what shape they had. We wrote the numbers on the sides of the shapes. The teachers put the words, "hexagon", "pentagon", and "octagon" in front of the children. We asked them to pick the word of the shape they had. The children said the word, and we talked about what sound we heard first as we said the word. They figured out what letter made the first sound of the word and then were able to choose the correct word to copy on their paper.

Once the children picked the shape of their snowflake, they used popsicle sticks to create them. We are making snowflakes with octagons, hexagons, squares, diamonds, triangles, and pentagons!

We are even getting to use very special paint to decorate our snowflakes! ;0)

Florescent paint is making our snowflakes look "super cool"!!!!!

Stay tuned for more on this project!

Unicorns

Ashley, Lily, and Mikayla started talking about unicorns. We printed out pictures of unicorns, the girls talked about the pictures and started drawing....... Here are the three unicorns!

They glued them to the big piece of blue paper and made houses and grass for them!

When the drawing was done, we spelled different words that helped us describe our project. We are learning to sound the words out on our own, and try to spell the words by what sounds we hear

Fall Festival

We are happy to say that our children planned a beautiful fall festival and it turned out perfectly!
The younger children made a colorful pumpkin patch and filled the school with beautiful fall art work!












The afterschoolers had booths full of fun, games, face painting, and candy!

But best of all was the "Fall Festival Costume Show"!

Look to the right on the blog and scroll down to see some of the costumes from our show!

Yes! Our children designed and made the costumes all by themselves, and they did a fabulous job!

They are better than store bought costumes ;0) And, the children learned SO much along the way. (For more information on the costume project check out the "Inside the Costume" posting from October 8th)

The Zoo

Here is one project that was done by Ella and Natalie.............

One morning the girls started drawing animals and they both wanted to make a zoo. They looked through books and each chose some animals. They drew the animals, cut them out, and then glued them in their "cages".

When the zoo was finished, we sounded out and spelled the name of all of the animals. We made signs for each cage!

Watch out for our lion..........he is pretty ferocious!

Pirate Ships!

Take a look at this piece of art...........

This is a pirate ship! Underneath all of that blue paint is a beautiful drawing made in pencil. Ashley wanted to make some water for the ship, and when she was done she said,

"Now you can't see the ship anymore, so I need to make a new one."

The new drawing started a project that lasted all morning long! Below you can see the final product, but the process of how this art work was made is really a wonderful story.......
First Ashley and Kiersten drew the pirate ships. They used crayon to make the water all around the ships, and then they drew three pirates around the ships. One of the children said,

"The pirates are not in the boat! They fell in the water!"

So the girls said, "That's okay, we will save them."

They both drew themselves in the picture. They are holding the hands of the pirates so that they don't sink in the water.

When the pirates were safe, we asked, "What are the pirates going to do?"

The girls said, "Find the treasure!" So they drew many little squares all over the picture to show how many treasures they were going to find. We counted 20 treasures! We practiced writing the number 20!

The girls then said the pirates say "Arrr! Go!" So the teachers helped them sound it out, and write the words for the pirates!

They cut out the words and glued them on the picture for the pirates!

No one would have ever known that all of this learning was involved in those two pieces of art! Very impressive for 3 year olds ;0)

Jae's Birthday Party - Michael Jackson's Thriller

For Jae's 4th birthday party, his mother arranged for a dance instructor to come out and teach the children the dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller! It was a great party!

The children decorated masks, learned the dance, and then made a final performance with the masks on! Take a look at some of our footage ;0)