Happy Holidays to All

Hello Followers,

This week has been so busy...cookie decorating, making more craft projects than you can shake a stick at, singing Christmas Carols, counting down the days until Christmas and having lots of fun! I didn't even have time to to take pictures to accompany my posts! We played outside everyday (yeah!) since the sun was out. Had fun decorating cookies today and watching some classic Christmas movies. Loved it!

Here's hoping to even better 2012 for everyone and especially for our school. Have a great holiday and rest up. My New Year's Resolution is to blog much more frequently...time has gotten away from me these last few weeks.

Enjoy your holiday,
Miss Sue

Six Short (or Long) Days Until Christmas!

Hello Followers,

It's either 6 short or long days until Christmas...depending on your vantage point! As a child, I remember thinking Christmas would never get here. As an adult, I am still wondering where the year went, let alone Christmas being here on Sunday! Whew! The days are long, but the years are short...said a wise person.

Friday's party was a smashing hit with every child here with family, friends and especially Santa! He came right on time and brought beautiful books for every child to enjoy. It was great to look around the room and see families reading to their children and friends. Yummmm-o food including pb & j sandwiches, fruit, fresh veggies, cookies, cookies, cookies, juice, candy and so much more.

Today, by popular demand, we went ice fishing again....bundled up and ready to go. We had 2 ice buckets out...one had 15 fish dropped in it and another had 41 in another bucket. We looked at how much more 41 is than 15...wowee! Then we counted out how many were big, small, easy to catch, hard to catch. Lots of perserverence, eye hand coordination, and chants of "I think I can" to try to catch fish. I did have one friend say: "Miss Sue, these fish are not listening to my words...." when they had trouble catching the fish! I remarked: "Many fisherman say the same thing..." :)

More holiday fun all week as we wind our way to the very end when we have our Christmas cookie decorating party and hot chocolate on Friday. Can't wait!

I found this leaf this morning. The picture does not do it justice, it was really huge! I showed it to several friends who wanted to take turns holding it while they played in the yard. I asked why and each one said, "because it's beautiful". Ahhhhh! The words from the mouth's of babes.

Additionally, we had someone humming Beethovan's 5th Symphony. I played it for them on You Tube, several stated that it is from "Little Einsteins" or some cartoon with a witch in it. So they were either scared or loved it. We talked about what a symphony is, about Beethovan and that this is his 5th Symphony. Classical culture at it's best!

Enjoy the photos! Hurray for the sunshine to play outside!

Miss Sue

Jingle All the Way....

Hello Followers!

Yahoo and party on! Today is the 27th annual Christmas Party. Decorations? Check. Food? Check. Presents from Santa? Check. Lots of holiday spirit? Check. And...word on the street is that the jolly old elf himself will be here around 3:15 to surprise all of our friends here! Simply fabulous!

Can't wait for the photo ops, the songs, the laughter and fun....See you if you can be here!

Hugs to All,
Miss Sue

Holiday Decorations Galore!

Hello Cherub Friends,

Wow! You think Santa's elves at his workshop are busy? That's nothing compared to the work we are doing here on making our school look festive! Stockings, reindeer, polar bears, mittens, trees and more are being created every day and hung on our bulletin boards for all to see, especially for our party on Friday, 12/16, when a special visitor is making a special trip from the North Pole all the way to Martinez to see our friends!

Also, we had a fun time this morning finding out which letter each of our names start with and matching them to the alphabet hanging in our room. We found out today we had:

3 people with the letter S

1 person with the letter L
1 person with the letter C
1 person with the letter M
1 person with the letter K
2 people with the letter J
1 person with the letter B

We drew a graph and saw that 3 was more than 2 and more than 1. See our white board for more detail. This brought both counting/math and prereading skills to our classroom this morning. We loved it!

Baby, it's cold outside!

Hello Followers of Cherub,

Wow! How the time slips away. It has been so busy here with all the projects and plans and me being out ill for 2 days, the blog slipped away from me last week. Whew!

Winter is here, even if it is not officially here until the 21st. It is wet, wet, wet and dreary on the outside, but not so on the inside here. We have a small group today, so we had lots of spontaeous fun here! We had mitten making...not the real ones, but faux paper ones, playing with the firehouse, hearing some favorite flannel board stories, coloring with markers on big sheet of paper and more. It's an all request day!

Enjoy the photos! Santa's on his way for Friday, 12/16! We can hardly wait!

Brrrrr...Perfect Weather for Ice Fishing

Hello,
In the land of make believe, anything can happen. Well today we pictured ourselves outdoors on an icy lake fishing! First we bundled up in our imaginary boots, jacket, pants, gloves and put on real scarves to keep us warm. Then, each of us got a "fishing pole" and caught as many "fish" as we could. Easier said than done...lots of eye hand coordination, determination, counting and patience! We had 4 "ice buckets" where we could put our fish after they had been caught. Then we counted them up and put the results on the white board about which basket had the most fish, the least fish, which number is bigger, smaller etc. Our final result was:

Bucket 1= 6 fish
Bucket 2= 14 fish
Bucket 3= 16 fish
Bucket 4= 19 fish

Lots of fun and lots of requests to have a do over real soon! A great lesson in counting, greater and less than and having lots of patience to actually catch your fish!

Holiday projects and art activites are on the way to fill up our bulletin boards....keep your eyes peeled for this. This is a busy time of year with lots of things on the horizon.

Hugs,
Miss Sue

Each one Teach one

We have had fun during our friendship week....today we made friendship salad. We had a great response from families....raspberries, blueberries, watermelon, oranges, bananas, persimmon, pomegranate...it included fruit that some of our friends had not had before...but were willing to try something new. Yippee! We talked about what made it a friendship salad. Each one of us had a piece of fruit, but together we made something yummy, delicious and it worked better together! Sort of like friendship, it works best when we have a friend to share things with!

Here is picture of one child helping another with his shoe, unsolicited...each one teach one....both were very patient with each other as they worked on getting the shoe on! The true essence of friendship!

Have a great weekend....I won't be blogging tomorrow, because I am off...I will be back on Monday, 12/5.

Miss Sue