Christmas Party!

The Christmas Party at Miss JaNae's is always a highly anticipated event with the children, and this year was no exception.  We had so much fun - and so much to do!  We played games, did crafts and had special treats.   Everyone loved it.

We played Christmas Bingo, got to decorate holiday placemats, made reindeer food to take home for Santa's reindeer on Christmas Eve, and got to decorate our own gingerbread houses (with this one sometimes there was more eating than decorating :).

But of course, the highlight of the party was the gift exchange.  All the children brought a gift to exchange with someone in the class.  We played a numbers game to decide who got to have which gift.  It was a big hit!  The kids all watched to see what the other children got, and waited impatiently for it to be their turn.  Merry Christmas everyone!  We hope you had a great Christmas with your families.

Christopher Pop-in-kins

When we returned from Thanksgiving break - we had a special visitor at our class.  Christopher Pop-in-kins!  He is an elf who has come to observe our behavior until Christmas.  He reports back to Santa Claus to help him with his naughty and nice list.  The kids had a blast trying to find him, and every day he moves to a new spot - so they race to see who can be the first to spot him.  He is just another one of those special touches that Miss JaNae brings to her classroom.

P.S.  In case you have never had the opportunity to observe Miss JaNae read a story to the children - this is what they look like.  Rapt attention.  She has a special way of making each story memorable and the children are always fascinated.

Thanksgiving

Miss Janae told the story of the soldier and Stone soup.  Each child was a villager and took turns coming up to share their vegetables for the stone soup.  Then we had a big feast with yummy "stone soup" , rolls, and pumpkin pie!

Recess

We got to spend some time outside before it got too cold.  The children had fun feeding the chickens, playing on the jungle gym, airplane, and teeter totter, and digging in the sand box. 

Halloween Party!

The kids always anticipate one of Miss JaNae's parties - and the Halloween Party was no exception.  We had so much fun - and got to experience a lot of fun crafts and games that were totally new.  We started our day with the pledge and show n share - and then got done to some party fun.

First - we had a costume parade.  The kids are always happy to show off their costumes and it is fun to see what they want to pretend to be.  It is especially fun that we had so many "matches" this year.  Costumes that looked like they were planned together - even though they weren't!

Once we finished our costume parade it was time to get down to our party fun.  The kids divided up into small groups and went to the many different craft and game stations.  We had cookie painting, bracelet making, spider ring toss, candy corn pitching, and a guessing game for the kids to do.  They got prizes and or got to keep their craft from each station.

Most of the prizes were non-edible.  Pencils, erasers, bracelets, kaleidoscopes, tattoos, stickers, bubbles and activity books.  But the bracelets were candy - and we ate our painted cookies with our witches brew at snack time.

When we finished all our activities we calmed down with a cute Halloween story from Pirate Trish, and then we welcomed a special guest.  Witch Julie (she was a teacher last year) came to make us witches brew!  It was so funny watching the kids faces as she added swamp water, squished toads, crushed bones, and dragon breath.  When she asked who wanted to taste it they all had the silliest gross-out looks on their faces.  I tried to get a picture - but they disappeared too quickly because they were trying to be polite I think.  They finally agreed to try it when they realized it smelled an awful lot like root beer.  Yummiest witches brew I had ever tasted!

Thanks to all the fun teachers who helped with the party.  The kids had a great time and it was a definite success!

Music Day

On Wednesday, we got to have a lesson on music.  Maria Montessori believed that "there should be music in the child's environment, just as there does exist in the child's environment spoken speech."  She believed that exposure to music - listening, learning, and playing music would have a beneficial effect on children of this age.  Today we were learning about the composer Beethoven.

Beethoven was an amazing composer who was born on December 16th, 1770.  He was a child prodigy and a musical genius.  He lived with hearing loss that ended in total deafness and yet still composed amazing symphonies and sonatas.  His deafness did not stop him from playing or writing music.  He "felt" the music. 

We finished up our work a little early so that we could get out our musical instruments.  Miss JaNae has instruments from all over the world and so many that the children get to try out as many as they want.  The kids sure had fun experimenting with them.

I am adding this little video of the children trying out their instruments just because it makes me giggle.  Maybe we should have had a lesson on cacophony.

Harvesting Grapes

We went on a little field trip to the neighbors grapevines for a little harvesting. Everyone got to pick one bunch of grapes.  They did such a great job and now one of the new fun works is grape washing and sharing!