As am on christmas break and shopping around

I remember to pick up different items I use through the year in classroom . Tissue(.25cents ) paper as you seen or will over the year I use allot of it and love it . White boxes (.25cents.50) . I use these as trays for painting and different items . We will next month use them to write letters in the snow (flour) in them . I also picked up some form cut -out that I will make into lace cards next December (.50cents). I picked up a pack of bells to make bracelets or necklace next year , pack of 12 (.50). I saw but did not buy some form crafts like picture frames that would be a good parents gift and some other form crafts . I did pick up red shinny bag filler stuff we will use to make hearts with in Feb. (.50).
Then as this month am doing snowman , snow winter animals and snow flakes . I picked up a foam snowman kit , snow flakes to paint with.
I also picked up some sensor toys . They have the feeling and you can do your hand print and or face into them and it shows the image on the other side . Also remember holiday books finding .75% . of this time of year also tape . Preschool well all children love tape . Plus i use tons of it in my childcare . whatabout bows and wrap paper for your water table next year . or a matching game ? endless when i look around . that some stuff i been doing on break .

So what will the new year bring to your classroom , homeschool , child care or you as a teacher

So from September to now i had some classroom goal and personal teaching goals, i had individual children's goals i wanted to meet . So my personal goal was to blog my childcare ideas and get each theme and month organized . And a blog organized . Well i made 1/2 of it work . I missed a step in blog area about organizing it by theme or area . so on winter break i try to work on that . I did come up with a system for each month making folder or boxes depending what i have for each theme . Making sure everything labels but still not like i want . So that a work in process .( and i have many to find a home still from sept. until now ) but a good start .

We started September off with a big kick off of shapes and everyone seem to know their shapes now . Some other individual goals was learning her color another learning to write name and another learning number 1-5. It is interesting working with mixed ages two to 5. Goals complete with pretty much 100% . So am please also one that was learning to write can about 80% of time proper use.

For the classroom i wanted to bring in each month new recognition ideas and fine motor and i seem to come up and had a lot of fun making and using them in the room .

Goals for the new year . Keep blogging each day . Continue to organize my storage for curriculum . Continue in each child's goals . And have a great new year 2011 am ready !

ABC's of Jess's house: Ginger Bread house

ABC's of Jess's house: Ginger Bread house: "So i gather small milk carton form our local school . Next time remind me to check lunch menu was not a good day to go into s..."

Ginger Bread house

So i gather small milk carton form our local school . Next time remind me to check lunch menu was not a good day to go into school and dig in trash . Then i went and got gram crackers and a huge amount of candy as you see . Now you actual could do this all in paper and be really cute also . But i have one little girl that really wants to do a gingerbread house and has never done one and don't have one at home .So here we are . These houses are not to eat . We will try morels cookies with frosting and all the topping they want to try and decorate after . We will see if they eat these .(they did ) look at the one that a snowman . I did this project with 3 yrs through 11 yr olds . so you will see the different .All very creative and all really enjoy it . As we are not eating these i have hot glue gun handy for any frustrated children to help along the project.(actual only the youngest one i needed hot glue for and one roof pc on another child . So the frosting was strong enough .

Reindeer

Well today we celebrated Reindeer's I used to save this day for our party but i decide to change it up a bit this year. So first we start with Reindeer hats .
brown paper
red circle
tape
black marker
I make strips or older ones can cut two strips out . Trace there hands and cut two out . Glue red circle in the middle of the band , tape or glue hands on for antlers and give some eyes if like . (hint when i have kids cut strips i just have them cut the folded lines )

Then we played Santa says (Simon says) i worn a Santa hat and had a bell .(smile ho ho ho )
Santa say fly
Santa say prance
Santa say................

Reindeer food we made for Christmas eve night .
Oatmeal
sprinkles
zip lock bag
I pour oatmeal in big bowl and i let each child add sprinkles to the bowl then we each put a scoop in the zip lock bag .
we attach Reindeer poem

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/xmas/magic_reindeer_food.htm

We finished our reindeer envelopes to hold our parents gift . Reindeer ornament are in side .
http://abcsofjesshouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/twas-night-before-christmas.html

We also adding a picture ornament to the gift .
we color them just with markers and i added a picture of each child in a Santa hat . really cute wish i could show . We will take white tissue paper and let them add Christmas stickers ,

The Stocking hung with care (updated )

And already to be fulled . So the next two days we are going to be working on these over size stocking , This one was made a few years ago maybe 4 or 5 so we going to change it up some . Instead of water coloring painting we are going to glue scape's of paper and wrapping paper . Then we will lace the two together with ribbon . I might ad names when we are done .so we color , glue cut and laced this stocking last two days . They really cute and large kind of fun for the kids to make .

This week is going to be busy 4 days until Christmas break . we need to have a reindeer party . make gingerbread house , paint parents picture parent gift ornament and make these stocking .

So check for update all week .

Friday open ended

well today some where finishing up things they never finished this week . Others working on writing name and cutting skills . Just open play today. But here is a few extra ideas we have done this week .

This little 3d ornament cute easy and all levels can do it , the older ones like cutting the line to hook them together . We will add ribbon and a hole punch to hang from tree . www.coloring.we/christmas

The tree is they cut or you a triangle and we used water colors . Some also colored with crayon and then water painter over the coloring .

Thursday Birthday Party

well i showed you all my Birthday prop box which i love and used tons . every birthday .It includes birthday crown or sticker . Games paper products . play cakes for dramatic play and paper birthday supplies for them to play with .

http://abcsofjesshouse.blogspot.com/2010/11/birthday-friday.html

then we spent the morning out side today it mn and we need to get out when we can .

But i wanted to share what we did yesterday afternoon . My 2year old through 4years old all spent over hours making this . IT great to work on fine motor , cutting skills and hand eye coronation . Oh remember the pumpkins we made in Oct . Look formula .

http://abcsofjesshouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-in-bottle.html

ok lets see if it worked i added links to older blog on info am sharing . ok why one only working link i have try to fixed about5x sorry but if you like you can search friday birthday .

Ii Letter of Week

Ice cream ,Igloo ,ice cube . So first i intro the letter I then we graphed our favorite ice cream . Then we painted with Ice cubes . I took a ice cube tray filled with water add a drop of food coloring and popped a Popsicle stick to each cube . I cut a large I for them to paint . We will trace the letter Ii later . We made igloo i cut igloo shape and we glue then on a pc of paper and they put white square to finish their igloo . I gave them chalk to write letter I and add some snow flakes or snow . We will also play with shaving cream for some snow later .

Twas the Night Before Christmas

we read two Twas the night before Christmas but two things in common it all the tales is Reindeer of course one is the classic soft fabric book and 2nd one by jump at the sun . so today we made classic i call them hand print Reindeer ornaments . Then we made a reindeer package to put our ornament in and i think we save it until Christmas and see what other ornament we can ad for a gift. A picture ornament with date be cute to add for a gift .

Ok see the can of empty coffee what do you see ? when i look at it i see a Santa so we will see if i can make one before end of week .

Tomorrow will be our letter Thursday i know it only Wednesday tomorrow but we having a birthday party Thursday . so letter I here we come ice , igloo ice cream . Guess what to we going to do tomorrow .

Monday lost camera

Well i have some much i could still do On Oh Christmas Tree but am going to try to finish it up and start onto other December theme . Am sure i wont be able to do all i love to do . As i had a new child start today i need something easy to set up and for my 2 and 3 and 4yr old to do . So we cute a big white triangle and i like them glue green tissue paper to them . mod pod effect . Water down glue . They then paint a glue spot and lay a pc of green tissue paper down then paint glue over it again and fill up their tree . when dry we will add circle stickers and a tree truck . Once camera found i show finished product .

So today we had our special guess this month and with Mrs. Tee travel Christmas around the world with Traveling Tots http://traveltots.org/

But before Mrs. Tee came we work with Dot art , I need some new set as some lost tips and i toss last time we used them . but i found this great sheet on our Letters of the month g,h,i love it and my 3 and 4 year had no trouble completing sheet correctly . (i love when they surprise me )

I got the letter sheet from http://www.prekinders.com/ and it was pretty as Tree is our theme this week . So for my mixed ages they got the dot art trees . Look formulate i used this for our pompom fine motor skill activity for December . First i gave them a green to color the tree and trace and then gave them the dots to dob the circle .

Have a wonderful week end The dot art sheet are from http://www.kidzone.com/

Thursday Letter Hh

Of course we start with list Hh words that start with Hh hearts ,hats,ho ho etc Then we practice writing and tracing the letter Hh . Then we use a big cut out of an H and trace between the lines in the H color usually the color of month (green ) Then we added some hats (guess who's? Santa's hats )

They are in strips like i leave each month around for the children to cut up . (Montessori concept ) to practice their cutting skills and hold paper right . I usually have a pile of strips each month for the children to work on . I use a different color each month to match our color of month .When they are done i keep all the squares they cut and we will use through out the year . nothing goes to waste . You can also do lines like triangle for more advance children to work on .

We then did something called Play Dough mats . simply printed Letter H for us then i took green play dough of course and they practice rolling and cutting play dough to form letter H . I slip them in clear sheet protectors or you could laminate them . these are endless . May next month snowman play dough mats ? Christmas tree mat ? Am excited to add this to our months curriculum .

Get your ice tray ready for next Thursday .. I

Stick Christmas Tree

So all you need is
craft stick
some beads
green marker or paint
pipe cleaner
i also used ribbon to make hanger with hot glue
and my box of .69 stars i got at good well

First we just colored our craft stick
I cut the pipecleaner in Three 's one short and two longer (like yesterday lesson large to small )
then we wrap the pipe cleaner around the colored craft stick
then i had them pick what color Beads (lights ) they wanted .
When they where done we glued on a star and i add a hanger with hot glue before going home
I seen this on
http://www.teachpreschool.org/
Check her blog out .

Oh Christmas tree part 2

So this is not what i was planning for these so when it did make trees (maybe i should of let the kids make them ) i could not get them like i wanted here where idea came from (check her blog it great .
http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2010/12/pine-forest-playscape.html

but i do like what we did with the dyed coffee filter plus still talking about sizing large to small and triangle .

if you want to know how we made them to start read next post