The sock puppets came alive today! Miss Laurie worked individually with every child here this morning to do the finishing touch: hair. The children spent a good deal of time “getting to know” their puppet and building relationships with the other puppets.

For a special art project, we covered the table in butcher paper and provided a variety of painting tools (brushes, loufas, sponges, etc) and variety of paint. The children painted different patterns on the paper with the knowledge that it would be transformed into our Christmas Tree for the reading area. Trimming the tree will be a delight in the coming days!

Early in our morning, Miss Laurie initiated a small group music time that grew to a large group music time as the children joined rhythm activities, singing, and dancing. We sang many different holiday songs including Jingle Bells and the 5 Days of Christmas (yes, just 5. I can’t even get through the 12 days!).

Since the light table has been so popular with all of the children, today we put out laminated number strips to encourage the children to match the jewels to the hearts. The children eager counted aloud as they filled the strips with the red hearts!

I wanted to do “Part Two: Journaling Time” today because I saw another neat moment that I wanted to share. At one point, I had Kai, Macy and Jane at the table with me. Kai had just finished his time working on our painting project and was excited to carry his Christmas tree enthusiasm to our journal table. He immediately began to independently draw a Christmas Tree. Macy, who was just finishing her journal about Mommy, grabbed another piece of paper and started to draw her tree. She was uncertain how to begin so she and Kai talked about what a tree looks like and she studied how Kai was drawing his tree. Jane sat down and began to also draw a Christmas tree. Kai, at age 5, was easily able to represent a Christmas tree through a sophisticated drawing. However, the shape of a Christmas tree would be far too sophisticated for Macy and Jane who are very young 4 year olds. However, by talking, listening and watching an older child, both Jane and Macy experienced success in their drawing.

Another instance with these same children was during Kai’s kids spelling. Kai was stttrrrechhinngg out the words ‘Christmas tree’. Macy and Jane were paying rapt attention as he spoke the sounds aloud and then told me what sounds he was hearing. When Kai got to the “ssss” sound, Macy excitedly jumped in and said, “that’s a S!”. Macy and Jane were clearly absorbing Kai’s kids spelling exercise.

These types of interactions clearly show the benefits of mixed age groupings of children: older children get a chance to present their ideas to younger children & the younger children are able to construct new ideas that they would not be exposed to if in a same age grouping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, on a sad note, we are saying goodbye to Addi today. She is moving to a program that is closer to home and work for her family in hopes of saving the 90-120 minutes of commuting each day that traveling to Wee Friends brings. We will miss you Addi!

Looking forward, we will be saying another sad goodbye to Alma on Wednesday. We send best wishes to her family as they prepare for their move to California. Looking even more forward, our classroom will return to normal size in mid January. Our friend Finn who has spent the semester in Spain, will be moving up to our classroom from WWF. Also, Marta, a current WWF will be moving up to WF sometime after she returns from her extended Christmas break:)

For breakfast we had toasted whole wheat English muffins and bananas. Lunch was whole wheat dinner rolls with Peanut Butter, mixed vegetables and apple sauce. For snack we will have apple slices and crackers.

Enjoy your day!

Tami