We love the holidays!

The end of last week was every bit as exciting as the beginning! The holiday gift drive is something we all look forward to each year.
As the holidays approach we have had the opportunity to learn about holiday traditions celebrated by and important to all of our little Bright-Eyed Bears.  Within every tradition lies love and kindness, gratitude and hope.  Your children learned a little more about those virtues last Friday when they were able to see teamwork, something we talk about everyday in class, in action as they delivered their gifts for the holiday gift drive.   Before we left to walk over to the Athletic Center, we talked about how our class was just one class helping one family, but when we join together with all of the classes at Shorecrest, we make a huge difference in the lives of those in need. The Bright-Eyed Bears were very excited to see the floor of their new Athletic Center covered in gifts to put smiles on children's faces for the holidays.

This week is another exciting one! Today, we started the fun with a walking field trip to the condominiums next door to sing for our neighbors at Winston Park. This is an EC holiday tradition that has taken place for many, many years. The children did a wonderful job of performing and sharing holiday spirit.  They had a an enthusiastic crowd whose smiles warmed the room! It was a lovely morning.

The children handed out cards that they made especially for their Winston Park friends.

There have been many fun holiday activities for the children to experience these past few weeks.  A picture is worth a thousand words!

Baking cookies is a delicious activity!

Gingerbread play dough, mmmmmm!

a homemade kite

Teamwork at it's best!  

How sweet!  Hanging out in a gingerbread house!

These cute little gingerbread boys and girls won't run away!

 On Thursday, we will rehearse for our Holiday sing and on Friday we will preform for you in the theater at 8:30am. After the sing, we will return to the ECC for our winter party. Please join us in the theater and if you can, stay to help at the party. It will be a lot of fun! Friday is an early release day and school ends at noon. Feel free to take your child after the party if you want to get a jump on your winter vacation.

Mrs. Cummings and I would like to wish all of you a wonderful holiday season filled with happiness and joy.  Looking forward to seeing you in the new year!

Learning about the holidays keeps us warm and fuzzy!

The sun does too!!!  It's hard to believe that the holidays are so close when it is still so warm and sunny!  Aaaaah!  The joys of living in sunny Florida.  Please be sure to send in those hats and sunglasses, and lather up the children. :)  We love playing on the playground.

Our garden is in full bloom!  The children helped to pick the wonderfully aromatic basil today to make pesto for tomorrow's pasta snack.  Yummy!  We have tomatoes that are getting big and round, and there is broccoli! The Bright-Eyed Bears love to walk through and look, smell and taste the yummy fruits of their labor.  They are such wonderful helpers with watering, spreading plant food, and even weeding.

This week the children have been focussing on the letter Jj.  They worked on many activities to build recognition skills, sound skills, and printing skills with the letter Jj. On Monday the children were introduced to the silly songs "James and Judy" about two children who jumped rope all day and all night, and "Jolly Jelly beans" about jelly beans who jiggled and jumped from jars and jugs.  They learned the shape of Jj and how to print it correctly from top to bottom, how to make the sign of Jj in sign language and the sound it makes.  The children practiced using scissors properly while cutting out the shape of a giant jelly bean on colorful paper.  The jelly bean was printed with the upper and lower case Jj.  The children traced the letters, then used the extra large push pins that are just perfect for practicing a tripod pencil grip to punch the Jj letters.  They really enjoyed cutting out paper jigsaw pieces that were later formed back together to make a huge upper case letter J, today.  Tomorrow the children will use jelly beans for a graphing activity. They may even get to eat a few too!

One of the most popular center activities this week was counting jewels.  The children worked with me in small groups to count jewels to match a number card.  The jewels were connected in sets.  The purple jewels were singles.  The green were in sets of two.  The yellow jewels were in sets of three. The red were in sets of four and the blue were in sets of five.  We started with the children trying to make the smaller numbers such as 7.  One child used a blue set of five and a green set of two.  Another child used seven purples and another child used a yellow set of three and a red set of four. As the time went on the numbers got bigger! It was a wonderful way for the children to explore the world of addition and to practice their counting skills too! They really took their time and I could see the wheels turning in their minds!!!

iPads!

It has been so exciting having iPads for learning in the classroom this year.  The children absolutely love working with them.  Mrs. Cummings and I absolutely love watching the children work together and share their knowledge and ideas with one another.  There truly is an app for everything! Today the children experienced an interactive storybook about Jingle, the husky pup.  This is a touching Christmas story about a puppy and a boy who find each other for Christmas, with a little help from Santa.  The children listened in pairs and then talked about the story together.  They then drew pictures together and dictated about their favorite parts from the story.  Some even drew pictures from every scene because they liked the story so much! Later, the pairs had the opportunity to share their work with the rest of the class.

It's so warm and fuzzy learning about the winter holidays!  Our classroom is bright with the magic of holiday decor! Last week we focused on the holiday of Hanukah and this week we are talking about Christmas.  The children have been sharing their favorite stories and family holiday traditions. There have been all sorts of fun holiday learning activities for us to share in class as well. Take a look........

Each child traced and cut out three triangles which they used to form into a Christmas tree.  They added a star that was printed  with a number to the top of the tree.  Last, but not least, the children added "ornaments" to the tree to correspond with the number on the star.  As you can see, they were very proud of the the final product!  But we know that it was all about the process! :)

Exploring the wonder of Holiday Science!

Building a Brio Train for all sorts of holiday fun!

AND SO MUCH MORE!!! STAY TUNED!

Progress Reports

Hello friends.
Your child's 1st semester progress report was mailed on Monday of this week.  If you have not yet received the report by mail, please let us know in the ECC office.  If you have received the progress report and have any questions and/or concerns that you would like to discuss, please feel free to call or email me.

I would like to thank all of you who have sent in milk/juice/water jugs for our igloo.  It is underway and we are hoping it will be a fantastically fun place to "chill" for your child this December and January!  We need quite a bit more, so keep sending them in please. :)

We have REALLY been enjoying the WONDERFUL books that were purchased for our class from the Scholastic Book Fair.  Thanks sooooo much!!!  There is nothing quite like a good book!!! The Bright-Eyed Bears know how to enjoy a good story!

Have a great weekend!
Nicole

It's That Holiday Time of Year!

Hello!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.  It was fantastic to see my little Bright-Eyed Bears again.  They came in to school all sweet and shiny, full of smiles and hugs.  


I cannot believe that the Holiday time of year is here! It is such an exciting time for children and adults as well.  In Jr. Kindergarten we celebrate all of the winter holidays.  It is our pleasure to celebrate each other.  Being able to share holiday traditions from around the world right here amongst friends and class family adds a special warmth to our classroom.  This week the children have been learning about the holiday of Hanukkah.  Our class friends who celebrate "The Festival of Lights" had the opportunity to talk about and share their traditions with the class.  The children all learned about the glory of the menorah, Star of David, and about the fun of gelt and playing the dreidel game!  We are reading stories and singing songs and so much more in celebration!

Our own little "festival of lights" on our classroom light table

This week we have been focussing on the letter Ss, as well.  The children learned the sight, sound, and sign of S, some silly songs, traced Ss in sand, learned about and practiced lessons involving symmetry, and so much more.


Other fun from this week so far....

Making masterpieces!

G drew Santa Claus and an elf!

A bunch of little friends built a holiday castle for woodland creatures.

We observed the newest arrivals in our beautiful garden....baby ears of corn!!

Exploring the wonder of "orbs" and other interesting mixtures and potions

Learning to recognize lower case letters, sounds and how to spell simple words

Symmetry with Pattern Blocks

Working together, learning together!

Measuring, mixing, and kneading scented play dough

and....of course......stay tuned for more to come!

Weedon Island and Happy Thanksgiving!

Now this is what dramatic play looks like in November. Imagine a Native American village.

Weedon Island

What a wonderful time we had together at Weedon Island last Thursday! Many thanks to our guide Ms. Emma who took the time to show us EVERYTHING!  She was very enthusiastic and the children really enjoyed seeing all the sights and hearing about them too.  It was the perfect way to wrap up our "Living Off The Land" study!

A ladle spoon, made from whittled wood and a deep shell.  I think he's imagining how much ice cream he can dip with it! 

An axe made from a queen conch and whittled wood

We met Ruby, the red rat snake!  She was a big hit!

Relaxing under the mangroves!

Cool!  A real dugout canoe! The children also enjoyed watching the visions projected on the wall of the Native Americans making them .

Piecing together Native American pottery

What lives in the mangroves?

Let's see what animals live in our neighborhood.

Look at all those fish!

Learning, Leading up to a Feast and Giving Thanks!

Drumming!

Baking corn bread! Yum!

Tracing, cutting and counting corn! Three skills in one fun activity!

Do you like my headband?

Smoking our pinch pots, just like the Seminole did!

Constructing!

Grinding corn

Imagining and creating

And so much more!!!

                              

Feasting with family and friends!

Yummy food that the children prepared!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!