The week before winter break was wonderful!

On Monday we created these beautiful snow trees...

On Tuesday Miss Marlowe had us singing and dancing to all kinds of holiday songs. 

On Wednesday we went to the Leader of the Month assembly and painted some beautiful snowflakes - we used Q-tips to paint all the dots. 

On Thursday we had a wonderful breakfast together - we ate, and ate and ate!

We enjoyed being in our pajamas and thought it was very funny to have Center Time in them!

We also had fun playing dreidel games...

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday break. We will be back in school on January 4, 2017! I know I will miss all of your sweet children and will be excited to see them when we get back! 

We Went on a BEAR HUNT!!!

Last week we had so much fun with gingerbread stories. This week we surrounded ourselves with bears! We read and re-read the story, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". We acted it out, created art work, and used it in our word study sentences. We almost hate to put our bear hunt props away!We worked with partners to create a story map of our bear hunt!

On Friday we read two stories about a bear named Corduroy and made our own Cordoroy bears....we added buttons and pockets, just like in the stories we read. 

We also brought our bears/stuffed animals to school and let them spend the night in our classroom!

We measured our bears with cubes....this snake was really long! 

When we came to school on Thursday, this is what we found them doing!!!! We had fun drawing our animals and writing about them and what they did! 

Report cards went home in folders on Wednesday. 

We worked on a new coping skill this week, and the kids had a great time talking about different situations they could use it for. The coping skill was called change your plan. This would be a great one to rehearse at home since plans often change and our children need to have a coping skill to help them with that. The picture I drew shows what happens when we can't go out to recess. It is similar to one we learned last year called change your thinking, but I think this is a little more concrete for our students.  

We welcomed a new student to our classroom this week - we are now a wonderful group of 14! 
Next week will be a four day week - and surely a busy and exciting one. Don't forget that we will serve breakfast to our class on Thursday morning! We will have plenty to eat for everyone! This is something we love to do for our students. And the students at Loon Lake may wear their pajamas to school that day as well!  We will be cozy and full that morning!
*** I also want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season and winter break. I am excited to see my children who live out of state. When we return in January we will be reading all about snowmen and winter! 

More Gingerbread Stories....

We read many more versions of gingerbread stories and learned that some authors changed the settings and others changed the characters...and we found out that the fox didn't always get to eat the gingerbread cookie! We practiced retelling the story, identified the beginning, middle and end of the story and wrote about some of the story events in our journals. Our classroom is filled with gingerbread art! 

We were successful last week naming, showing and writing about a coping skill...so this week we worked on teaching a coping skill! These girls showed us how to do deep breathing...

And this boy taught us how to do count and breathe...

Another classmate explained self-talk to us...

In our social skills lessons we how to identify emotions based on visual cues such as noticing how a friend's mouth and eyes look...are they smiling, are their eyes turned down, do they look happy or sad? This is an important skill in developing empathy and helps us adjust our behavior in response to how a friend might be feeling. 

Thank you to those of you who sent in canisters of Lysol/Clorox wipes - we appreciate having them on hand to wipe off tables, especially during cold and flu season. We can still use more! 

Next week we will return to bears - and we will have fun with both fiction and non-fiction books about bears. Your child should bring a stuffed bear or any stuffed animal to school next Wednesday, December 15. The stuffed animal will spend the night here! I will send a reminder note home next week - and if by chance your child forgets, I have several spare stuffed animals. We will be writing about our bears and their overnight adventures! 

We have added a few new centers for Center Time...here is a seasonal favorite of some children...

We have been very lucky to have had some extra help for about 2 hours each day from a third para-educator named Mrs. Snyder. She works in all three of our EI classrooms and has become a wonderful part of our room. Your children may have mentioned her to you. 

Bears and gingerbread stories

We started our week off learning a little about bears and hibernation. We made some sleeping bears for our den - we learned that bears eat ALOT of food before they go into their dens for the winter, and they are very hungry when they wake up in the spring! Sometimes baby bears are born during the winter too. We will come back to bears before the end of December. 

We also began reading some "gingerbread men" stories and we will continue this into next week. We made some cute gingerbread boys and girls for our classroom. The children will be exploring things that are the same and different as we read different versions of gingerbread stories. We will also work on retelling gingerbread stories, identifying main characters and the setting. Gingerbread stories are a fun way to learn these story elements. 

Our class has demonstrated real progress in their behavioral growth - this gave us a little extra time to work on a big group project! We cooperated and worked on a winter mural... we painted sky, we made trees and houses, and then we put it all together....we think it looks beautiful! 

We worked hard on being able to name a coping skill, show a coping skill and draw a picture in our journal about a coping skill. We have added "yoga" to our list of coping skills as well! 

This Friday is the end of our first trimester. I will send home a paper copy of your child's report card on December 14 in his/her folder. That copy is yours to keep. 

It is colder out now - please send warm clothes for outdoor recess. 
We are in need of more tubs of Lysol or Clorox type wipes - we try to wipe down our tables daily to help keep germs out of Room 113! 

Our last day of school before Winter Break is Thursday, December 22. On that day, we will serve our students a holiday breakfast. This is our Winter Party. We will have pancakes, sausage, fruit and juice for your children - you can send them in a little hungry that morning!