December

Wow, the month of December has just flown by! Sorry there havnt been many posts but things have been busy around here getting ready for santa and enjoying time with people we love.. more posts will be coming soon to show our new theme starting in January where we study different kinds of jobs people have!

The start of Christmas crafts

Now that it is getting close to Christmas we are starting to make our Christmas crafts.. To start, we made rudolphs! First we traced their feet onto cardboard and then used handprints to make antlers.. and of course we couldnt forget the sparkles to make his shiny red nose!

Winter Activities

This month we are learning about winter so I thought I would share a few of our winter activities

Our calendar.. Each morning during our circle time we have a different helper who puts the number of the day up. This teaches them about days of the week, months of the year, counting and patterning. I try to match our numbers to the theme each month so the kids get into it that much more.

Snowmen are always a big hit when we learn about winter so when I saw this game I couldnt pass it up. To play you roll the dice and take the piece with the same number on it. If you get a 5 you dont get to take any pieces and if you get a 6 you can take any piece you want. Whoever makes their silly snowman first, wins! This game is working great to get them to recognize their numbers under 6 and to also count small ammounts like the dots on the dice without counting pieces twice.

Decorating christmas trees is always a big hit every year. This year we made advent ornaments so they are numbered from 1 - 24. I find giving them their own tree also keeps them from trying to redecorate the big tree.

Decembers sensory bin! We started by dying pasta, lentils, peas and rice in red and green and then mixed in a bunch of small plastic snow flakes, cotton balls to make snow, cotton ball snow men, a christmas tree and lots of ornaments to put on the tree. As always, our sensory bins are a work in progress, changing slightly all throughout the month. I find nothing calms a busy kid more then sitting down and running rice through their hands for a few minutes :)

Ok so theres a few of our activities we put out this month. I'm still trying to get used to writing this blog so hopefuly more posts will be coming soon again!

Various activities - Part 1

Ok so i finally found a memory card and got some pictures of some of our activities! theres still lots more to come when I get some time though

Our W game - You have to take turns going around the board. Anytime you land on a picture that starts with W you take a snowman piece and whoever makes 2 snowmen first, wins!

Our land and water forms from November. We were learning about the System of Lakes and Archipelegos!

An Eye-spy bottle. Theres about 2 dozen different things in the bottle to look for. Next time I make this I'm going to put a control sheet with it so they know what to look for.

Touch and Feel sensory balloons and scent bottles. For the balloons they are filled with rice, flour, beans and more. Each green one matches one of the white ones. For the bottles I put cotton balls with different scents in them. To match them you need to find the wide lidded one that matches a normal lidded one. I find with the bottles especially they work great for all ages. My bigger kids love to match them while the little guys will just carry them around smelling them.

Ok so theres a few of our activities but theres still lots more to come!

No pictures yet :(

Unfortunetly, I seem to have lost my memory card for my camera.. with any luck i will find another one at some point today and get some pictures up!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog! I'm hoping through this blog that I will be able to better inform the parents of my daycare kids about what we do all day long. As long as I can find time I hope to every day post pictures of our crafts, activities, new skills the kids have gained and just random cute things that happen :)
Children you will hear about in this blog:

D - 1 1/2 years old
T - 2 years old
N - 2 years old
I - 3 years old
E - 4 years old
R - 4 years old
A - 4 years old
X - 5 years old

I'm excited to get some real posts on here, I'm hoping this weekend to get our December theme ready - Winter and Christmas - and put up some pictures of new activities. If nothing else, I will try and get some pictures of some of our permanent shelf activities to show what they have been doing so far :)