Celebrations

I absolutely love December. So many holidays in one month! I am sometimes tempted to start celebrating all of them. Probably not the best plan, but it has been fun to learn about them!

Here is what we've been up to the past two weeks (since last week's post just didn't happen).

Last week we learned about the letter N. One of our games was 'Mixed Up Alphabet' where the alphabet got all mixed up and the kids had to put it back in order. They worked in teams and I have to say that I was very impressed. I did not expect them to get past N, but they got the whole thing done! They did a lot of it on their own and problem solved for the letters they didn't know. They found many solutions like singing the alphabet song or looking at one of the several places that the alphabet can be found around our classroom.

In our travels last week we visited Mexico, Italy and Sweden.

In Mexico we learned about some of the many holidays they celebrate during December. There are quite a few feasts honoring different saints and one of my personal favorites, Night of the Radishes, when they carve radishes into elaborate decorations. Since poinsettias play a part in a lot of these celebrations, we made our own paper poinsettias to decorate our classroom with!

In Italy we learned about La Befana, who brings the children gifts. We made our own broomstick ornaments to remember her.

In Sweden we learned about St. Lucia Day. On this day, children dress up as either St. Lucia or Star Boy and take part in parades, religious services or just serving breakfast to their family.

The kids made pictures of St. Lucia and we read a few stories about St. Lucia Day.

This week we learned about Christmas in England, Australia and the USA.

In England, the first Christmas card was sent many years ago. The kids made some Christmas cards that hopefully they gave you today!

In Australia, Christmas celebrations are very similar to our celebrations here. The biggest difference is that it's in the summer time. Children in Australia often go to the beach on Christmas and build sandmen instead of snowmen. The kids had lots of fun making their sandmen!

Today, we learned about Christmas in the USA and since the kids were so good this month and definitely earned a party, we had some fun with it! I sent home the hearts they earned during the month so you can see some of the nice things they have done.

Today we made snowmen, gingerbread men, gingerbread houses and wreathes. We also spent time reading stories, playing games and singing songs.

Thank you so much for sharing your kids with me this month! Have a great break and I will see you in January! (January newsletter will be coming home in the next few days via email, since I did not get it done in time to send home today.)

Christmas Around the World

Our letter of the week this week was M. Since we have several kids who love monsters, I had to use that! They had so much fun making their M into a monster.

We also learned about the number 6 and worked on number order this week.

Our unit this month is Christmas Around the World. We will be learning about Christmas and many other holidays that are celebrated around the world in the month of December. 

We started off our day on Monday by reading "How The Grinch Stole Christmas". We now have this Grinch hanging in our classroom. Each time I see the kids doing something kind they get to put a heart on him. If they cover him up by the end of the month we will have a party on the last day before break! I will send the hearts home at the end of the month so you can see the kind things your child has done. 

We also made our suitcases on Monday. For each place we 'visit' we will be adding a flag and a symbol of their holiday celebration to our suitcases.

On Wednesday we started our travels by visiting Israel and learning about Hanukkah. We read some books and talked about why and how Hanukkah is celebrated, we made latkas for snack, 

learned about menorahs, 

and made one of our own.

We also learned about dreidels and played with them.

On Wednesday we traveled to Germany and learned about St. Nicholas Day. On St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6th), children in Germany leave their shoes out and St. Nicholas comes and fills them with candy. We tried it out and the kids found some candy in their shoes at the end of preschool! My favorite moment from the week was when we found it, one of them ran to the front door and yelled, "Thank you St. Nicholas!"

We also made salt dough ornaments, which is a common tradition in Germany. They are not finished yet, they should hopefully be ready to send home next Wednesday!