A Very Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful week of Christmas fun in pre-kindergarten. Our party day was so much fun! The students enjoyed rotating through a variety of Christmas stations. 

Gingerbread House Making

Making Reindeer Food

Can you build a snowman?

Christmas Scavenger Hunt

THANK YOU!!

Thank you to all of our families for making our party day so much fun. We could not have built houses without all of that candy, thank you for your donations! Thank you to the parents who made icing for us, we know that can be a messy job and we appreciate your efforts! Thank you to Christina Plowman, Jillian Halliday, Misun Martens, and Serena Grimson for volunteering at our party, your time and help is very appreciated! And of course, thank you to the parents who sent in party food, we thoroughly enjoyed our party snacks, it is always fun to share a special snack together on party days.

P.S. The gingerbread houses are 100% edible! They were put together with melted sugar.

Christmas Baking 

We had fun baking Christmas cookies this week. This yummy activity works on early numeracy (counting and measuring), turn taking, and fine motor skills (dumping, scooping, stirring). Here is our recipe:

CAKE MIX CHOCOLATE CHIP SANTA COOKIES RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 box of white cake mix
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips + extra to press on top of the cookies prior to baking
• 1/4 cup red white and green holiday sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the cake mix, egg whites, flour and oil, mixing well. Add in the 3/4 cup of chocolate chips.

Roll the cookie dough into 1-2″ size balls and place 2-3″ a part on your baking sheets.

Gently press down on the cookie dough balls and place a few extra chocolate chips and sprinkles on top.

Place in the oven and bake 8-10 minutes. Do not over bake.

This Cake Mix Chocolate Chip Santa Cookies Recipe makes approximately 2 dozen cookies.

Looking for Boxes!

Please think of us and save any boxes you collect over the holiday season. Big, small, we will take them all! We want to make a box city with the students in the New Year. Feel free to send in any boxes you may have during our first week back. Thank you in advance!

Staffing Update

Robina Baker has had some staffing changes and it has created a domino effect for some of the educational assistants throughout our school. We will be having a couple of changes to our pre-kindergarten team in the New Year. Miss C is off to be a kindergarten educational assistant in Beaumont. Ms. Sloan will still be with us in the mornings, but will be supporting students in the older grades in the afternoons. We will be welcoming Mrs. Smith to our team full time. Ms. Sloan and Miss C, you have both been an amazing gift to our PK team. Miss C, the morning class will miss you, Ms. Sloan, the afternoon class will miss you - be sure to pop in for hugs when you can! 

Click here to see the many, many pictures we took this week!

Coming Up

We are excited to dive into our outer space theme in the New Year!

• January 8th and 9th - Early Dismissal Days
• The morning class will dismiss at 10:25 am
• The afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm

Wishing You a Very Merry Christmas

From our entire pre-kindergarten team, we would like to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope your Christmas has time for relaxation, family time, and fun! See you in 2020!

It's Been a TOP Secret Kind of Week!

We have  been busy this week working on a couple of top secret projects!! Sorry Moms and Dads, you are going to have to wait until Christmas to find out the special surprise!

Winter Walk

We enjoyed a mindful walk around the school yard on Tuesday. The students had fun looking at the trees and taking time to enjoy nature.

Christmas Joy Sing and Share

Our Tuesday morning students did a fantastic job at the Christmas Joy Sing and Share. We were so proud of our little singers, it was a beautiful little way to share some Christmas joy.

Our Tuesday afternoon class worked on their fine motor skills and pincer grasps by painting Christmas lights with corks.

Christmas Fun

We had different Christmas centers set up for the students to enjoy this week. They had fun exploring the light tunnel, decorating the mini Christmas trees, as well as participating in Christmas yoga.

Most of our pictures from this week are top secret! However, you can see the ones that don't give away our surprise by clicking on this link. 

Coming Up

• December 19th - Christmas Party Day! All students are invited to attend
• Every child needs to bring one bag of candy for decorating gingerbread houses (you can just send one kind and we will mix all the candy together for the kids to share).
• We have enough parent volunteers - thank you to those who have offered to help out!
• We are still looking for a couple of more volunteers to make icing for our gingerbread houses. Please let us know if you can help out and we will share our favorite recipe.
• Wear you pajamas for this fun filled day!
• December 20th - January 5th - Christmas Break, no School
• January 8th and 9th - Early Dismissal
• The morning class will dismiss at 10:45 am
• The afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm

Christmas arrives in Pre-K

It was a very special week in Pre-K as we started our Christmas festivities. We put up and decorated the tree, met Snowflake the elf, and of course, had our Christmas concert performance.  We are so proud of all our Pre-K's for getting on stage and giving it their all! Thank you so much for getting your little one all dressed up and bringing them to school for this magical evening. We hope you enjoyed the adorableness as much as we did!

We engaged in some pretty cool learning experiences this week.

Snowman Science

What happens when we bring snow inside? The students made predictions of what they thought would happen. Some thought it would melt or explode. We set outside to find out! The Pre-K's made a snowman in a bag and then we brought them inside to observe. After our first observation, we saw the snow had shrunk. The next day, all the snow was gone! It had changed to water! It was fun to explore this science concept.

Games Day

We hosted a Games Day this week. Students had the chance to play three different games: Pop up Pirate, Penguin Pile up, and Who Knows Whose Nose. Taking turns, sharing, cooperating, and building language skills are all developed when playing simple board games. We really enjoyed this time together.

Check out more pictures of our week here.

Upcoming

• December 10th - Christmas Joy Sing and Share. 
• We will be walking the Tuesday/Thursday morning kids to this fun event at the community center. Parents, you are required to sign the online permission slip through your child's Power School account in order for your child to attend.
• December 19th - Christmas Party Day! All students are invited to attend
• We have enough parent volunteers - thank you to those who have offered to help out!
• We are still looking for a couple of more volunteers to make icing for our gingerbread houses. Please let us know if you can help out and we will share our favorite recipe.
• December 20th - January 5th - Christmas Break, no School

Snowmen Fun!

Snowman Place Mats

With the return of wintry weather , it was time to create some new art for our snack time placemats. After watching a lovely book called, Snowballs, the Pre-K's created their own snowman on a snowy background. Using a q-tip to paint with is a wonderful pre-writing skill. We also developed pre-numeracy skills while comparing the size of the snowballs as we built our snowman (large, medium, and small). They turned out so unique; we'll enjoy seeing our art everyday while we have snack. 

Collaborative Art

It was a team effort to make the most beautiful decoration for our upcoming Christmas concert! Each student was hard at working painting and decorating a paper plate. We used the paper plates to create an astounding Christmas tree! Be sure to look for our masterpiece next week at our concert!

Christmas Concert

We have been busy practicing our concert songs. Our students are pretty excited to perform for you next week. Our concert will be happening on Wednesday, December 4th at 6:30 pm. Doors will open at 6:15 pm - you can drop your child off in the classroom with us and then go find a seat for the big show!

Christmas Party

Our Christmas parties will be happening on Thursday, December 19th. The Monday/Wednesday students are welcome to join in the fun during their regularly scheduled class time (either the morning or afternoon).

• We will be asking some parents to send snacks for our special day, watch for an email soon to see if it is your turn!
• We plan to decorate gingerbread houses with our students. We will be asking each family to send a small bag of candy (one kind is fine) and we will mix all of the candy together for the students to share so they each get a variety of candy to use for their house. 
• We are looking for a couple of parents to help out by making icing! If you can make some icing for us please let us know and we can share our Royal Icing Recipe.
• Our afternoon class is still looking for volunteers to help out with our Christmas party! If you are interested in decorating gingerbread houses with us, please let us know.
• This day will also be a pajama day, don't forget to wear your coziest pajamas for our last day of classes before the New Year.

More Pics of our week can be found here!

Coming Up

• December 4th and 5th - Early Dismissal Days
• the morning class will dismiss at 10:45 am
• the afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm
• December 4th, 6:30 pm - PK and Kindergarten Christmas Concert
• December 19th - Christmas Party Day! All students are invited to attend
• December 20th - January 5th - Christmas Break, no School

Comfort and Joy

This week started with PJ Day #2, ended with Cookies, and was filled with all kinds of fun in between!

The Pre-Ks have been practicing singing Christmas songs for our upcoming concert on Dec. 4th. We can't wait to perform them for you! You can practice at home too - the songs were posted in last weeks blog, feel free to have a look!!

PJ Day #2

Repetition of familiar stories is wonderful for building literacy. The class was really engaged in our retelling of  Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It was great to hear them chime in and read along too! After the story, we had to go for a walk while our porridge cooled, then we got creative by adding all kinds of toppings to our own bowl of porridge as part of snack time. The Pre-Ks are pretty great chefs!

Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox

We read a new story this week. In this beautifully illustrated book, we met many animals and acted out their sounds and actions. We chose one of the animals and created our own mask by painting, gluing, and sprinkling glitter on paper plate halves.  They turned out so wonderfully unique!

Cooking Making

The Pre-Ks followed a recipe and mixed, mashed, and stirred some delicious cookies! The recipe has just a few ingredients and are healthy enough to be called Breakfast Cookies. Here it is in case you want to make some at home!

Mash 2 bananas

Add 1 cup of oats

1/2 cup of chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

a sprinkle of cinnamon

Bake at 350 F for 9 minutes on a greased cookie sheet.

You may wish to double the recipe, they are so yummy!

See more pictures of our week here!

Upcoming

• December 4th and 5th - Early Dismissal Days
• the morning class will dismiss at 10:45 am
• the afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm
• December 4th, 6:30 pm - PK and Kindergarten Christmas Concert 
• December 20th - January 5th - Christmas Break, no School

Pajama Fun!

Well, that might have been the shortest week in PK history! We missed seeing our Monday/Wednesday kiddos this week, we hope everyone has enjoyed a relaxing break from school!

The students were excited to wear their pajamas to school on Thursday. After reading Goldilocks and The Three Bears we made porridge for a special snack. We had to take our bears for a walk because just like in the book, our porridge was "too hot." Our students enjoyed being chef's and jazzing up their porridge with milk, bananas, raisins, coconut, and brown sugar. Delicious!

We also brought our bears to the gym and had fun shaking them in the parachute!

Snow Pants

Now that winter is settling in, please send snow pants, a toque, and mitts to school with your child everyday. If some of our student's are missing their proper winter gear we have to keep the whole class inside. Also, please be sure to label ALL of your child's winter gear. We already have had a couple of mystery toques floating around the hallway.

On that note, if anyone has old snow pants or other winter gear that they want to get rid of, we will happily take any donations for our 'extras' bin. 

Christmas Concert

Our PK and kindergarten Christmas Concert will be on Wednesday, December 4th at 6:30 pm. We introduced the songs to our students on Thursday and will be practicing daily until it is concert time! These are our songs if you want to practice at home as well:

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way,

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh,

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way,

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh.

Dashing through the snow

In a one-horse open sleigh

Through the fields we go

Laughing all the way.

Bells on bob-tail ring

Making spirits bright

What fun it is to ride and sing

A sleighing song tonight.

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way,

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh,

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way,

Oh what fun it is to ride

In a one-horse open sleigh.

Santa Shark

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Chorus:

We wish you a Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year

Good tidings we bring

To you and your kin

We wish you a Merry Christmas

And a Happy New Year

Chorus

Shake Them Santa Claus Bones

Click here to see the rest of the pictures from our little week!

Coming Up

We are excited to have another pajama and bear day next Monday! We will carry our bear theme for one more week. Important upcoming dates:

• November 18th - wear your pajamas and bring your favorite bear to school
• November 19th and 20th - Jersey Day, wear your favorite jersey to school
• November 20th - Christmas Card orders due
• December 4th and 5th - Early Dismissal Days
• the morning class will dismiss at 10:45 am
• the afternoon class will dismiss at 2:25 pm
• December 4th, 6:30 pm - PK and Kindergarten Christmas Concert