Looking Ahead to December!

We have a lot going in in December and I will send a paper home with all the dates and events on it after Thanksgiving but I wanted you to know what's coming up in the Red Room!

December Events in the Red Room

Swimming Dates will be:


Wednesday, December 1 and Wednesday, December 22






World of Bounce Field Trip:


Thursday, December 16-I will send home an information sheet and a permission slip for World of Bounce after Thanksgiving.






Santa’s Visit:


Santa Bob will be here on Tuesday, December 21 and we’ll take pictures and share them with you!






Christmas Party:


Wednesday, December 22 is our last day of school before Christmas. At snack time, which is at 2:00, we’ll have our Christmas Party and you’re all invited!






Christmas Vacation:


Thursday, December 23-Sunday,January 2, 2011. School starts again on Monday, January 3, 2011.

Thanksgiving Week

Tomorrow we will eat our Thanksgiving lunch together and the children will wear the Indian necklaces that they made and either their Indian headdress or their turkey headdress that they created....it should be a lot of fun!  We'll send them home tomorrow so you can enjoy them too!  This is a finger play that we liked learning a lot last week and I wanted to share it with you:

Our Turkey is a Big Fat Bird

Our turkey is a big fat bird. (hands to your side and rounded to show size of turkey)

He gobbles when he walks. (move thumb to fingers as if talking, saying, gobble, gobble, gobble)

Our turkey is a big fat bird. (hands to your side and rounded to show size of turkey)He waddles when he walks. (move hands at your side back and forth as if waddling)

 

Our turkey is a big fat bird.  (hands to your side and rounded to show size of turkey)He spreads his tail this way. (spread fingers on hand like a fan)

On Thanksgiving Day our fat bird lifts his wings and flies away. (flap arms to fly)

We'll have school tomorrow, Tuesday, November 23 and then we'll be off for Thanksgiving and we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends.

Swimming and the Food Pyramid

We'll be swimming this Wednesday, November 17th and I'll send a reminder home on Tuesday.  We've introduced the Food Pyramid this week. There's a great website with ideas for preschoolers at My Pyramid for Preschoolers and it's worth checking out.  It's interactive and you can input the specific age of your child and get an individualized pyramid plan.The children are learning to categorize familiar foods on our food pyramid and we'll start talking about eating healthy foods vs. non-healthy foods and what it means to be healthy and active. 

We are continuing our study about Pilgrims and Indians and the Mayflower.  Our corn seeds that we planted a few weeks ago needed to be transplanted so they're in a larger container.  So far our sunflower and pumpkin seeds have sprouted and we're still hoping our apple seeds will sprout this week.  We made Indian bead necklaces and headbands.  We'll wear them for our Thanksgiving Feast on the 23rd and then we'll send them home with the children.  The whole school eats a Thanksgiving Feast on that day.  We're making place mats that share some of the things we're thankful for and we'll use them at our Feast. 

We made bird feeders out of pine cones rolled in peanut butter and then rolled in the sunflower seeds that we harvested.  With the great weather this week, we hung them up as soon as we did them along with some ears of corn.  We hung them on the tree that we can see out of our classroom and we hope to be bird watching soon!

Important Dates

Wednesday, November 17th-Swimming

Wednesday, November 24th and 25th-Thanksgiving Break

Wednesday, December 22nd-World of Bounce Field Trip-We welcome any parents that can come with us and I'll send permission slips home right after our Thanksgiving Break

November Studies/Vision and Hearing Screenings

November will be a busy month with our studies as we have a lot going on!  We're continuing our study of seeds with our plants in the classroom.  We planted corn, sunflower, apple and pumpkin seeds and we're charting their growth. We'll make bird feeders this week from our sunflower seeds and hang them outside our window along with a bird bath and hopefully we'll attracted some feathered friends that we can observe and learn about this winter. We'll take what we've learned about seeds and start learning about nutrition and the food pyramid.  With Thanksgiving right around the corner we'll learn about food the Indians and the Pilgrims ate and how that ties into our Thanksgiving feast of today.  We're already read about Indian Two Shoes as we're starting to learn about how the Indians lived and what they ate.  We'll continue that as we learn about the Pilgrims and how they lived and what they ate.

Our Nurse Karla began our Hearing and Vision Screenings last week and she'll finish up this week. She'll write a report and let you know about her findings with your child and please contact us if you have any questions.

Swimming

We will be swimming tomorrow, Wednesday,November 3 and Wednesday, November 17th this month.  We'll try to see how that works for our children swimming twice this month.  We want it to be fun for them and not tire them out too much. During Thanksgiving week we'll set up the swimming schedule for December.  Then, it's hard to believe but it'll be 2011 before we know it!

If your schedule allows you to join us for swimming please do!  We plan to board the bus at 10:00 at Brooks-Yates and then drive to the Y.  If you want to meet us there at 10:15 that would be great.  Then we'll swim from 10:30-11:30 and change and go back to school in time for lunch at 12:00.  Please know that you're always welcome in the Red Room or on any field trips that we take.