Cheerleader Alex

This blog has nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with my new baby, my Camera:0) I am in love with it. These are not special pictures (they are because they are of AP), but now that I have a new camera to play with I thought I would try using Picasa to edit and other fun things with my photos. It is fun, but it takes while to get things done. Is this common or is it because my computer is a fossil at almost 3 years old?
During these particular pictures AP said she was a cheerleader. I asked her where she learned her moves, since they were similar to those of a cheerleader and I have no idea what video we have that has any in it. We also do not have cable. She replied, "The show we saw with Karen". I still didn't know what she was talking about since I didn't remember seeing a show with Karen and finally she found the words she was trying to say. She saw cheerleaders at the Christmas parade. I wasn't curious becasue I mind cheerleaders, I was one, I just didn't know where she learned what they actually did. She pays more attention than I thought she did.

Santa

Yesterday we had the awesome opportunity to go caroling at a nursing home with my MOPS group. Another awesome mom friend, Thanks Heather, helped me get the 5 munchkins there. We sang songs and had the opportunity to see Santa, while my 3 kids M, AP and mainly AR didn't want anything to do with him, G and S were all about "Santa". It was really adorable. AR went by him, but only because she was tempted by the candy cane he held.
To tie into all the excitement, I chose to read books about "Santa" today. First I read the classic The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore and then I read a new favorite of my 3 kiddos Careful, Santa!, by Julie Sykes. Once we were done reading about Santa I helped the kids decorate paper Santa Hats that are now decorating my windows. I used red construction paper for the hats, helped them glue a cotton ball on the tip, and let them use fun foam Christmas shapes to decorate the rest. They really love the fun foam stickers. They spent a good 15 minutes decorating it. AR takes a long time to get each back off of the stickers. I only have to help S get the backing off and he goes to town sticking them on. Everyone else does it on their own. I love it:0)
I would love to say that everything went smoothly when we went caroling, which for the most part it did. AP just threw in a hitch when she said she had to go pee (we were in the car and moving), but couldn't even wait long enough for me to get her to the garbage can in the car. She ended up going on her pants as I was pulling them down. Thankfully it was not in the car seat, as everyone knows how challenging that can be to clean out, especially in the winter.

Gingerbread

I haven't posted in a long time it seems. With all the snow and the fast approaching holiday season our household has been pretty busy. We have been working on Gingerbread stories and activities. First we read the story Gingerbread baby, by Jan Brett, which is a version of the Gingerbread boy/man. She is one of my favorite children's lit authors. There is an exhibit featuring her at the Oshkosh museum that I get to see with M's class in 2 weeks. I can't wait. We worked on basics with the story. I also had prepared gingerbread fun dough for them to play with. They loved it and spent about 30 minutes playing with it. A bonus for those who love the smell of cinnamon is that even after washing their hands the kids still smell like cinnamon.

Mix 1 c. cinnamon, 1 tsp. ginger, 1 c. applesauce, 1/4 cup school glue.

Another day we read the story The Gingerbread Doll, by Susan Tews. It is a story about a little girl who lived in Wisconsin during the great depression. I thought it was a good story and the kids listened to it. Good lesson about being grateful and loving to for what you have, if presented in that fashion.
I am also going to post things that I intend to do with Gingerbread theme, because I just don't have time to post every day, but think they are fun ideas. I intend to read the following books this week Gingerbread Boy, by Paul Galdone, Gingerbread Friends, by Jan Brett, Maisy Makes Gingerbread, Who's in My Gingerbread House, and The Gingerbreadman, by Jim Aylesworth. There is a poem I am going to read.

Stir a bowl of gingerbread smooth and spicy brown
rollit with a rolling pin
up and up and down
with a cookie cutter
make some little men
put them in the oven
till half past ten

I am going to have the kids decorate a gingerbread man cookie and eat it for snack. I am going to attempt a gingerbread house with grahm crackers, works better for small childrenthen makign real gingerbread houses. You can also use a milk carton and wrap it with brown paper, but I don't have any small milk cartons:0) Sand paper is a great paper to cut gingerbread men out of to decorate, you could just use brown paper. To get older kids more activily involved you could have them make the batch of cookies and/or the gingerbread dough, with five kids and limited time I am not able to, but wish I could.
To add to any of the lessons you could have the kids talk about the similarities and the differences in the different versions of the Gingerbread man. Even young children will be able to do this, especially if you read them in the same sitting. These stories also lend them selves to sequencing. See if your child can remember who the Gingerbread person came across first second, third, etc.

Turkeys

Today we started making turkeys that we will finish tomorrow. We used coffee filters to paint with water color. These will be the turkey feathers. Tomorrow we will trace our feet to make the turkey body. As well as review shapes that we will glue on for the turkey features. We started by reading Thanksgiving Day at our House. It is a book of poems for the young. We did not read it all, just a few. We also worked on counting the numbers on the calendar and what day and month it is today. The kids really seemed to get into painting on the coffee filters.

Families

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Today we began to talk about families. First we looked at the calendar and practiced our number counting and the month and date information. Once we were done with routine we read the story The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman. This is one of my favorite stories about a woman who has 7 children that all have particular tastes in food. Once we were done with the story we counted how many children she had. Then we talked about the fact that there were 9 people in their family. Each child had the opportunity to talk about their family if they were able. I asked them how many children were in their family and and then how many people were in their family total including mom and dad. Once that was established I explained the art work that we would do. I had a framed sheet of paper for each child. I put one up and drew people explaining that if they did not know how to draw their family members they could use circles for heads and ovals and triangles for the bodies. I then showed them how to add things such as arms, legs, hair, eyes, and mouths. It was a good reminder of our shapes. I passed out the paper and away they went. I turned to read M's school papers and looked back and G's paper. She a a great drawing of a person. She had just told me she did not know how to draw people she is just 3 years old. I praised her for her great job and she flatly said "AP did it for me". I was a bit bummed that I had made such a big deal about it, hoping that she did not feel bad that she had not done it, but from her reaction I don't think that she did. It would have been nice to add going over with each child what they had drawn, but with the younger 2 that was not a possibility for me. The 2 that I have posted are from my older 2 M and AP.
When we were all done with the coloring we headed outside for some fresh air. We worked on skipping, galloping, hopping, and just plain old running. They were all happy to be playing. G and AP were pretending to be the wicked step sisters from Cinderella and the mean looks they were making scared even me:0)

SNOW ...

Well I wasn't excited about seeing the snow, but I wasn't completely disappointed seeing it either, the first one that sticks is always beautiful. I was going to start talking about families this week, since we are just before the holidays. With the snow on the ground I switched directions while the kids were eating their snack. I read Sam's Snowy Day By Mary Labatt. It is about a dog and his first experience in the snow. Which I am sure that four of the five kids could relate to since I am not sure how much they remember about snow from last year. Then we took a look at the calendar. We reviewed what month we were in and sang about the days of the week. We also counted to the 17th together. Then we read A Silly Snowy Day by Michael Coleman, a story about a tortoise that goes out in the snow and finds that it is much better off inside in the winter. After we read the story I put a blue piece of paper on the frig. I had the kids tell me things that we could see that would be white when there is snow. M said a snowman, snow fort, and a snow hill, AP said snowflakes. Then I gave each of them a blue sheet of construction paper and a white crayon to make their own snow scene.

Frogs Frogs and more Frogs

We worked on the usual today (calendar letters, numbers, shapes, color). We read Froggy Gets Dressed again. We discussed what the story was about. M saked me "Why does Froggy have all those clothes if frogs don't go out in the winter?" My answer, "It is just a story, but maybe the author Jonathan London would know. " While we were reading the story we talked about the different sound words in the book and how things make sound as we do them. (IE. zipping up a coat) I made up paper puppets for the kids to play with. I made them rahter then having the kids make them, because I didn't think they would be able to do it. This is the website I got the directions from http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/puppets/frog/ . I used it about 2 years ago for MOPS as a take home craft to do with kids. It is a really fun and cheap puppet. Once the children had their frog we sang 5 Green and Speckled Frogs. The song lyrics are on the following website: http://www.songsforteaching.com/fingerplays/5greenspeckledfrogs.htm . We practiced the song once at the table jumping our frogs and then we went to the living room to do a dramtic play with the frogs and the song. I places a blue colored fleece on the floor as a pond and a spotted fleece blanket rolled up as a log that the 4 younger ones could fit on. I was the 5th frog, M was busy doing older kid things (drawing the statue of liberty with all it's many visitors). I have the kids sit on the "log" and had each one jump into the the pool (onto the fleece blanket as we counted down. They had fun making their frogs hop. They don't sing many of the words, but it is still fun to do. FInally we hoped around the livingroom like frogs, yes I hop too, always a good extra calorie burn:0)