Jesus' Birthday

This week was our final week of fun-filled activities before Christmas Break.  We were able to finish up some special gift crafts for each family, and we had so much fun at our Christmas party too!  Thanks again to those of you that volunteered and sent in items for the party. :)   I sure will miss these little ones over the next few weeks.  Hope all of you enjoy the pics and have a wonderful Christmas with your families!

Mrs. Karen and my Mom came in to help us complete the cute picture frames and nativity plates that I sent home as Christmas presents.  I couldn't have done it without their help!  I'm so blessed and thankful to have such wonderful helpers when I need them! :)

We glued on pom poms to each Christmas tree and counted along the way.  Great fine motor, number recognition, and 1:1 correspondence practice.

We dotted our "J" for Jesus with Q-tips and tried to find our way through the maze from the three wise men to baby Jesus.  The mazes were a little tricky for some, but it was something new and fun to try!

We worked on making patterns with red and white candy cane painting.  We also used candy canes to talk about "J" for Jesus when you turn the candy cane around.

We used dotters for our Christmas trees.

Hudson told us about his adventures with Gumby and shared so many cute pictures for our journal.

Mason told us about all the sweet things in his basket when he was our Student of the Week.  (By the way, we didn't send either home over Christmas Break, but we'll start back up with both of them after we return in January. )

I brought in a nativity puzzle for the kids to try during free time.

My Mom is a retired school teacher and loves reading to children every chance she gets. :)

Play time with other kiddos.  (Sorry some of my pics are crooked!)

Getting lined up for our Christmas program.  They did such a fantastic job!  I was sooo proud of them for being so brave in front of a crowd of almost 700 people!  Wow! :)

Having some fun getting our wiggles out in the Minds in Motion room.

It's party time!  We had so many great helpers that made our party a success.  We got to make some cool crafts, played a game, and had some yummy treats!

We finished our class gingerbread house.

We made some goodie bags with wrapping paper Christmas trees on the front of paper bags.

We made candy cane beaded ornaments.  This took time for these little hands to use these beads, but it was great fine motor practice and a test of those patterning skills too.

We made reindeer antlers and also had birthday party hats for baby Jesus' birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!  See you in January!

Polar Express and Trains

This was one jam-packed week full of fun!  Between painting ornaments, getting a visit from Santa, drinking hot chocolate, and watching part of the Polar Express, we have had one exciting week!  Hope you enjoy all these cute pics, and I hope you have a great week.  For those of you that volunteered to bring/send in items, I'll plan to text you tomorrow with details.  Thank you so much!

Thanks again to all the adults that came to help out with painting the ornaments.  This made the process go much faster, and I'm sure they'll turn out cute!

While we were painting our ornaments, we got a special visit from Santa Claus!  He came to our classroom with a bag full of candy canes, and each kiddo got to pick one.  What a fun surprise!

Logan was our Student of the Week and got to share a few special things from the basket. :)

Jake told us all about his adventures with Gumby, including an interesting hide-and-seek game with the fireplace.  Luckily, all is well, and Gumby was left unharmed! :)

We got to play "Conductor Says" and did everything Mrs. Hannah did.  I'm not sure who looked funnier, them or me!

 Using the letter "R" to make a railroad track with trains.  We glued on the tracks, painted and glued on the trains, counted the trains, and then identified the colors of the trains.  This was a great combo activity for the skills we worked on this week!

 We got to color a scene from the Polar Express.

 We counted out marshmallows to glue on our hot chocolate cups.  Each cup had to have the right amount of marshmallows to match the number on the cup.  The biggest challenge is not just counting them, but not eating them when we trying to do the activity!

We're also continuing to work on our pencil grip and tracing our names.

Tracing our rectangular trains for our shape of the week.

Such a sweet group of kiddos playing together with trains.  I had to take a picture of these boys who were sharing so nicely with each other.  It just warms my heart.  :)

It's Polar Express time!  We got to watch the hot chocolate scene from the movie in Mrs. Laura's room, and then we also joined her class to have hot chocolate and cookies in a train made of chairs.  What is it about little kids in pajamas that is just so stinkin' cute!?  I love it!

Have a great week, and I'll see you on Thursday!