Sunday, January 27, 2013
Nursery Rhymes
Here's a video of the version of Hickory Dickory Dock we're reading this week to help us work on our counting and rhyming skills:
Friday, January 25, 2013
Fairy Tales
What a fun 3 days we had with this unit! I seriously could have done 3 more weeks, there is so much fun stuff to do with Fairy Tales. Due to a nasty inversion and gross air, we stayed inside which gets a restless. To switch things up a little, we started each day with a cooking activity, then went on to self-select time. That allows their "play" time to go a little longer, then snack and large group and we're done, and they don't really notice they're missing that time outside. They LOVE cooking and had lots of fun with the things we made. They all get so involved in it and love to help and eat. On to our week, it's easiest to share what we did with each Fairy Tale, other than by centers (except dramatic play that stayed the same), so here's a quick round up.
Dramatic Play
We had a castle that was just too much fun. Thanks to my sister for all the dress-ups! The girls loved playing princesses. There were also costumes for fairies, jesters, knights, princes and kings. Everyone loved the swords and shields and horses, and I loved that the girls used them too. We even had boys wearing high heels. It's fun to see them get creative and bend the gender rules a bit.
The mirror was a hit with the dress-ups. It even had kiss marks left on it. Sad I missed who was kissing themselves. I forgot to get a pic of the inside, but there were pictures of different characters they could be on the inside walls, with the coordinating dress-ups in a box below it. We still had the kitchen inside too, since princesses need to eat!
p.s. the cheap spray paint at Wal-Mart is cheap. I'll be re-painting this one.
Ok, now on to the different stories we read:
The Gingerbread Man
We made sugar cookie dough and cut them into gingerbread men for snack today. I just don't like gingerbread, which is why we did the sugar cookies. Then, after clean up time and before snack, we read the story together. They enjoyed pitching in with the chant "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" We then decorated and ate our gingerbread men.
The next day, they did a floor puzzle of The Gingerbread Man and I was amazed at how well they remembered the story, as several of them gathered around the puzzle and re told it. I also read the book over and over again through out self-select time the next 2 days, because they just couldn't get enough of this story.
The Tortoise and the Hare
We read this story the first day in large group, and then acted it out. We did it 2 different times, so all the kids got turns. They were great at retelling it. We then learned about opposites (from the fast and slow in the story). We acted out opposites, sang a song with opposites, and put together some opposites puzzles.
The puzzle was in the small manipulatives area the next day and we reviewed a lot more opposites!
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Before snack, we gathered to read this story. We had porridge for snack (malt o meal hot cereal) and I was surprised that only 1 child didn't like it, but she did taste it twice to make sure, and I think that's great. Most kids had seconds and some had thirds. Who knew hot wheat cereal would be such a hit?
We also acted out this story with masks later. They loved doing the high and low voices.
Jack and the Beanstalk
This was a fun story to read because I have so many fun things to go with it. I picked up at activity box a few years ago at UEA and it was a huge hit! We read the story on the big story cards first. Then, I played the musical version on the CD player and they were dancing and singing along. They caught onto the chorus quickly! We then retold the story with wood figures and I barely had to ask what came next, they all remembered with no reminders! Some even knew the lines their characters said. They asked for the song version again, so we played it while they danced with their wood characters and said their parts. I was so impressed.
We then read a giant letter we got from the Giant! He left us some big outlines of his feet, and we used them to measure things around the room. We found things that were bigger, smaller, and close to the same size. It was a great math lesson that they really got into.
That was Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, I had this all in the small manips area. They put the cards in the correct order of the story (great sequencing!), retold the story with each other with the wood people (awesome reading comprehension!), and also just played with the characters with each other (great socializing!). They replayed the song version over and over, dancing and singing (so much learning!). I seriously watched them do these things, with very little prodding and help from me, and was again impressed at their comprehension and memory over a week's time.
We also did bean collages for art, where they got to glue different types of beans to their paper. They sure do love playing with white glue!
The Little Red Hen
We started the day making bread, which requires patience because of all the different stages of rising. They all pitched in and helped. We learn so many great math and science skills when we cook together, not to mention learning to take turns and a little patience. Before snack, we gathered to read the story of the Little Red Hen. I had wheat and wheat flour for them to feel (and they all had to smell it) and we talked about why it's important to help. We then ate yummy wheat bread I made before since ours was still rising, and most tried it with both jelly and honey. Can't have too much sweet, I guess.
3 Little Pigs
For large group, we read the story, then acted it out again. The kids all loved huffing and puffing and blowing. We only had enough time to do it once, but it was perfect because we had roles for everyone, as some kids were the houses.
I'll talk more about this in the next post, but during Nursery Rhyme week, we had a puppet theater, so I added the stick puppets and masks we had used to retell most of these stories (Tortoise, Jack, Bears, Pigs and Hen), and it was fun to see them retell them again. I said it too much already, but I am so impressed with their comprehension as they retold and acted out these stories. That's probably why I enjoyed this unit so much.
Dramatic Play
We had a castle that was just too much fun. Thanks to my sister for all the dress-ups! The girls loved playing princesses. There were also costumes for fairies, jesters, knights, princes and kings. Everyone loved the swords and shields and horses, and I loved that the girls used them too. We even had boys wearing high heels. It's fun to see them get creative and bend the gender rules a bit.
The mirror was a hit with the dress-ups. It even had kiss marks left on it. Sad I missed who was kissing themselves. I forgot to get a pic of the inside, but there were pictures of different characters they could be on the inside walls, with the coordinating dress-ups in a box below it. We still had the kitchen inside too, since princesses need to eat!
p.s. the cheap spray paint at Wal-Mart is cheap. I'll be re-painting this one.
Ok, now on to the different stories we read:
The Gingerbread Man
We made sugar cookie dough and cut them into gingerbread men for snack today. I just don't like gingerbread, which is why we did the sugar cookies. Then, after clean up time and before snack, we read the story together. They enjoyed pitching in with the chant "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" We then decorated and ate our gingerbread men.
The next day, they did a floor puzzle of The Gingerbread Man and I was amazed at how well they remembered the story, as several of them gathered around the puzzle and re told it. I also read the book over and over again through out self-select time the next 2 days, because they just couldn't get enough of this story.
The Tortoise and the Hare
We read this story the first day in large group, and then acted it out. We did it 2 different times, so all the kids got turns. They were great at retelling it. We then learned about opposites (from the fast and slow in the story). We acted out opposites, sang a song with opposites, and put together some opposites puzzles.
The puzzle was in the small manipulatives area the next day and we reviewed a lot more opposites!
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Before snack, we gathered to read this story. We had porridge for snack (malt o meal hot cereal) and I was surprised that only 1 child didn't like it, but she did taste it twice to make sure, and I think that's great. Most kids had seconds and some had thirds. Who knew hot wheat cereal would be such a hit?
We also acted out this story with masks later. They loved doing the high and low voices.
Jack and the Beanstalk
This was a fun story to read because I have so many fun things to go with it. I picked up at activity box a few years ago at UEA and it was a huge hit! We read the story on the big story cards first. Then, I played the musical version on the CD player and they were dancing and singing along. They caught onto the chorus quickly! We then retold the story with wood figures and I barely had to ask what came next, they all remembered with no reminders! Some even knew the lines their characters said. They asked for the song version again, so we played it while they danced with their wood characters and said their parts. I was so impressed.
We then read a giant letter we got from the Giant! He left us some big outlines of his feet, and we used them to measure things around the room. We found things that were bigger, smaller, and close to the same size. It was a great math lesson that they really got into.
That was Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, I had this all in the small manips area. They put the cards in the correct order of the story (great sequencing!), retold the story with each other with the wood people (awesome reading comprehension!), and also just played with the characters with each other (great socializing!). They replayed the song version over and over, dancing and singing (so much learning!). I seriously watched them do these things, with very little prodding and help from me, and was again impressed at their comprehension and memory over a week's time.
We also did bean collages for art, where they got to glue different types of beans to their paper. They sure do love playing with white glue!
The Little Red Hen
We started the day making bread, which requires patience because of all the different stages of rising. They all pitched in and helped. We learn so many great math and science skills when we cook together, not to mention learning to take turns and a little patience. Before snack, we gathered to read the story of the Little Red Hen. I had wheat and wheat flour for them to feel (and they all had to smell it) and we talked about why it's important to help. We then ate yummy wheat bread I made before since ours was still rising, and most tried it with both jelly and honey. Can't have too much sweet, I guess.
3 Little Pigs
For large group, we read the story, then acted it out again. The kids all loved huffing and puffing and blowing. We only had enough time to do it once, but it was perfect because we had roles for everyone, as some kids were the houses.
I'll talk more about this in the next post, but during Nursery Rhyme week, we had a puppet theater, so I added the stick puppets and masks we had used to retell most of these stories (Tortoise, Jack, Bears, Pigs and Hen), and it was fun to see them retell them again. I said it too much already, but I am so impressed with their comprehension as they retold and acted out these stories. That's probably why I enjoyed this unit so much.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Winter Week
We had a lot of fun the last 2 weeks learning about winter. Too bad it was so bitterly cold and nasty outside that we never actually got to go outside and enjoy some snow. Oh well. Here are some of our Winter Week highlights:
Art
Epsom Salt Painting
The kids drew snowy scenes on black paper with white crayons, then painted over them with an Epsom Salt/water mixture. They were so excited to come back and see their crystals. They turned out pretty cool! They were all so different since each bowl on the table had a little different amount of salt in the water.
Frozen Paint
They LOVED this! We had talked the days before about things being frozen, then melting, and they loved having frozen, cold paint. It kind of colored like a crayon on the first few pictures, then as it melted, turned more into a liquid. They were talking about why it was melting and changing and it was a great integration of science in art. As the sticks fell off, most of the kids lost interest and went on to play elsewhere, but I had one girl stay all day! She turned it into finger painting, and I got her some regular brushes. Soon, the kids saw how much fun she was having and joined back in. We had some messy messy kids, but it was great fun and I was glad to have it be extended since we haven't had outside time. :(
Insta-Snow
I brought this back from our Arctic Animals week and it was a hit!
Math
Snowman Button Counting
I had these snowman cards 1-30 from Kinder, and pulled out the 1-10 for these kids. Their hats have a number and the kids place buttons on the snowman to match the number. I added the dots on the snowmen to help them count since they need more help with tracking at this age.
Snowflake Flyswatter Game
We did this game for large group, then it was out and the kids played it on their own the next 2 days. I showed a card with the number, and they had to find it and hit it with the fly swatter. Pretty easy, but the fly swatter part makes it a lot of fun for them. It was fun watching them play it on their own and taking turns being the teacher and showing the cards.
Pegs and Puzzles
I think it's pretty self-explanatory for how cool these puzzles are for teaching numbers and their meaning.
The boys used the pegs to make light sabers and fought instead. Oh well, at least they used them.
Mitten Clothesline
Didn't get pictures, but I had paper mittens that are laminated and have numbers and letters on them, each set is a different color. The kids put them on the clothesline in numerical and alphabetical order. It's great practice in number and letter recognition and ordering, plus great small motor exercise, using the clothespins.
Other
Vocab
We learned the word "coniferous" and sorted pictures of trees by coniferous and deciduous. They are understandably not great at pronouncing the words, but they know what they mean!
We also reviewed our other vocabulary words from the past 3-4 weeks and added them to our Word Wall. They are great at finding the letters where the new words go and love helping add them to the wall.
Science
We did a lot of science this week in talking about winter. We talked about frozen solid things, and liquid things. We collected snow outside, made observations about how it looked and felt (and tasted because we're 3 and have to still taste things I guess). We then made predictions about what would happen to it in front of our heater. We also let some melt in our hands and noticed that our warm hands made the snow turn into water. Our can of snow also melted into water, due to heat. These lessons seem so simple to us, but it's so fun to see these discoveries through the eyes of 3-year-olds. They were seriously impressed with this lesson, and then stoked to see frozen paint and were just sure it would melt in our warm classroom. These scientists are smart!
We also did another Venn diagram, comparing summer and winter. They sure are looking forward to some warm weather fun!
Music
We sang a lot of fun songs too! We threw snowflakes all over and sang "Snow is Falling" and did their favorite one over and over, "Once There was a Snowman." Here's the lyrics to both in case you need them:
Snow is Falling
Snow is falling all around,
on the rooftops, on the ground.
Snow is falling on my nose,
on my head, and hands and toes.
Once There was a Snowman
Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman,
Once there was a snowman, tall, tall tall.
In the sun he melted, melted, melted,
in the sun he melted, small, small, small.
Art
Epsom Salt Painting
The kids drew snowy scenes on black paper with white crayons, then painted over them with an Epsom Salt/water mixture. They were so excited to come back and see their crystals. They turned out pretty cool! They were all so different since each bowl on the table had a little different amount of salt in the water.
Frozen Paint
They LOVED this! We had talked the days before about things being frozen, then melting, and they loved having frozen, cold paint. It kind of colored like a crayon on the first few pictures, then as it melted, turned more into a liquid. They were talking about why it was melting and changing and it was a great integration of science in art. As the sticks fell off, most of the kids lost interest and went on to play elsewhere, but I had one girl stay all day! She turned it into finger painting, and I got her some regular brushes. Soon, the kids saw how much fun she was having and joined back in. We had some messy messy kids, but it was great fun and I was glad to have it be extended since we haven't had outside time. :(
Insta-Snow
I brought this back from our Arctic Animals week and it was a hit!
Math
Snowman Button Counting
I had these snowman cards 1-30 from Kinder, and pulled out the 1-10 for these kids. Their hats have a number and the kids place buttons on the snowman to match the number. I added the dots on the snowmen to help them count since they need more help with tracking at this age.
Snowflake Flyswatter Game
We did this game for large group, then it was out and the kids played it on their own the next 2 days. I showed a card with the number, and they had to find it and hit it with the fly swatter. Pretty easy, but the fly swatter part makes it a lot of fun for them. It was fun watching them play it on their own and taking turns being the teacher and showing the cards.
Pegs and Puzzles
I think it's pretty self-explanatory for how cool these puzzles are for teaching numbers and their meaning.
The boys used the pegs to make light sabers and fought instead. Oh well, at least they used them.
Mitten Clothesline
Didn't get pictures, but I had paper mittens that are laminated and have numbers and letters on them, each set is a different color. The kids put them on the clothesline in numerical and alphabetical order. It's great practice in number and letter recognition and ordering, plus great small motor exercise, using the clothespins.
Other
Vocab
We learned the word "coniferous" and sorted pictures of trees by coniferous and deciduous. They are understandably not great at pronouncing the words, but they know what they mean!
We also reviewed our other vocabulary words from the past 3-4 weeks and added them to our Word Wall. They are great at finding the letters where the new words go and love helping add them to the wall.
Science
We did a lot of science this week in talking about winter. We talked about frozen solid things, and liquid things. We collected snow outside, made observations about how it looked and felt (and tasted because we're 3 and have to still taste things I guess). We then made predictions about what would happen to it in front of our heater. We also let some melt in our hands and noticed that our warm hands made the snow turn into water. Our can of snow also melted into water, due to heat. These lessons seem so simple to us, but it's so fun to see these discoveries through the eyes of 3-year-olds. They were seriously impressed with this lesson, and then stoked to see frozen paint and were just sure it would melt in our warm classroom. These scientists are smart!
We also did another Venn diagram, comparing summer and winter. They sure are looking forward to some warm weather fun!
Music
We sang a lot of fun songs too! We threw snowflakes all over and sang "Snow is Falling" and did their favorite one over and over, "Once There was a Snowman." Here's the lyrics to both in case you need them:
Snow is Falling
Snow is falling all around,
on the rooftops, on the ground.
Snow is falling on my nose,
on my head, and hands and toes.
Once There was a Snowman
Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman,
Once there was a snowman, tall, tall tall.
In the sun he melted, melted, melted,
in the sun he melted, small, small, small.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
December and igloos
Scroll down for more catching up of all the fun learning and playing we did last month!
As for our igloo, here she is! After 3 years of having one inside in Kindergarten, I was so excited to build one in my backyard for outside time. What I did not consider was the wind. It broke the igloo. Twice. So I gave up and brought it inside and they love it! It's in place of the Reading Center tents and still near the books so they often take a book inside to read. It also adds to our Dramatic Play and a lot of make-believe and pretend play happens here.
I have more layers added since this picture was taken, and we're still accepting milk cartons! Thanks for all the ones donated already. They sure loved playing in it even more once the doorway was added, and they'll love as it gets closed in on top.
As for our igloo, here she is! After 3 years of having one inside in Kindergarten, I was so excited to build one in my backyard for outside time. What I did not consider was the wind. It broke the igloo. Twice. So I gave up and brought it inside and they love it! It's in place of the Reading Center tents and still near the books so they often take a book inside to read. It also adds to our Dramatic Play and a lot of make-believe and pretend play happens here.
I have more layers added since this picture was taken, and we're still accepting milk cartons! Thanks for all the ones donated already. They sure loved playing in it even more once the doorway was added, and they'll love as it gets closed in on top.
Friday, December 21, 2012
Christmas in Preschool
Winter Celebrations week then became Christmas! Our typical house-keeping dramatic play (which is a huge favorite) was transformed into a more Christmas-y home with a felt tree. Thank you pinterest! There was also a mini tree with mini ornaments and they had a great time decorating both trees. There were shoe box presents they could fill and pass out and they loved doing that! There was also a train-a huge favorite with the boys, and Christmas masks that were a huge hit. They loved being Santa, reindeer, and elves, etc!
I have tons of Christmas books that we had a great time reading. We made Christmas cookies with play dough, and made lots of ornaments and loved the glitter glue a little too much. We had Christmas cards and a mailbox at the writing center and had so much fun writing and sending them to each other! It was really sweet to watch.
**This part of the post was added later, and I can't believe I forgot it! I made these Christmas Tree counting cards because of how much the kids liked the apple and acorn tree counting cards from the fall. I decided to add ornaments to these trees in the correct number to help with their counting. The fall trees were geared for 5-year-olds and I think this helped bring the activity to a more independent 3-year-old game. Then I put the papers on cookie sheets, and added magnets to Christmas-y pom poms. The kids liked it a lot. It was an extra activity in my hallway the second week so as I help get kids into snow gear, the ones who are done or waiting have something to do. I used all free commercial use clip art to make this, so I'm sharing it with you here. I don't know how to create a zipped file, so they're all separate.
We had some great large groups too. I especially enjoyed reading and discussing the Grinch. They don't always sit quietly for story time and I questioned doing a long book, but they were mesmerized! We talked about maybe not getting presents on Christmas, but being happy to be with our family and they got super chatty talking about all the people in their families and how much they love them. It made my heart melt a little :) We tried to think of nice things that would make the Grinch's heart keep growing and got a great list. Thanks for all of you who did it as homework too! We really helped our Grinch out! Some of their ideas:
p.s. anyone know how to rotate a pic in blogger? not me!
I always love finding out what these kids learned in a week or two, and they really surprised me! We learned about the word "compare" and thanks to another Sesame Street podcast, I think we got a great hold of that word. We then compared Hanukkah to Christmas and I could not believe how much they remembered about Hanukkah from just one day! They were throwing out suggestions like crazy for our venn diagram, and always knew the right place for me to write it. These kids are brilliant. Love them.
The big highlight was our Christmas party. It was crazy and fun! I am so glad we had moms and grandmas there to help! Thanks to everyone for the donations as well! It made for a fun party. We stared off decorating our sugar cone Christmas trees and eating lots of candy! We had self-select time before we settled down to read the Polar Express. Then we got to make our silver jingle bell necklaces. Threading those pony beads on the ribbon was hard work for little fingers, and that's why it's such a great fine-motor skill! We then got to go upstairs for the first time. This was so fun for them! They helped count and scoop the hot chocolate into the maker, pour in popcorn kernels and watch them pop, melt and pour butter, shake popcorn bags, and make their own sugar cookie. We watched Frosty the Snowman while we enjoyed all of our treats. They also loved seeing my baby and the other two baby brothers visiting with their moms! After the movie and clean-up, we headed back downstairs to wrap their presents for you and make their cards. We finished just in time for Show and Tell and we rushed on home! I'm sad I didn't get a group picture in their cute jammies, but we were just so busy having too much fun all day!
Thanks for all your help all week! I couldn't have done so many fun things without all of your help! Enjoy your break and see you back soon!
I have tons of Christmas books that we had a great time reading. We made Christmas cookies with play dough, and made lots of ornaments and loved the glitter glue a little too much. We had Christmas cards and a mailbox at the writing center and had so much fun writing and sending them to each other! It was really sweet to watch.
**This part of the post was added later, and I can't believe I forgot it! I made these Christmas Tree counting cards because of how much the kids liked the apple and acorn tree counting cards from the fall. I decided to add ornaments to these trees in the correct number to help with their counting. The fall trees were geared for 5-year-olds and I think this helped bring the activity to a more independent 3-year-old game. Then I put the papers on cookie sheets, and added magnets to Christmas-y pom poms. The kids liked it a lot. It was an extra activity in my hallway the second week so as I help get kids into snow gear, the ones who are done or waiting have something to do. I used all free commercial use clip art to make this, so I'm sharing it with you here. I don't know how to create a zipped file, so they're all separate.
We had some great large groups too. I especially enjoyed reading and discussing the Grinch. They don't always sit quietly for story time and I questioned doing a long book, but they were mesmerized! We talked about maybe not getting presents on Christmas, but being happy to be with our family and they got super chatty talking about all the people in their families and how much they love them. It made my heart melt a little :) We tried to think of nice things that would make the Grinch's heart keep growing and got a great list. Thanks for all of you who did it as homework too! We really helped our Grinch out! Some of their ideas:
- give presents
- share
- help someone who fell down
- hold my baby brother
- give someone a hug
- play games with your family
p.s. anyone know how to rotate a pic in blogger? not me!
I always love finding out what these kids learned in a week or two, and they really surprised me! We learned about the word "compare" and thanks to another Sesame Street podcast, I think we got a great hold of that word. We then compared Hanukkah to Christmas and I could not believe how much they remembered about Hanukkah from just one day! They were throwing out suggestions like crazy for our venn diagram, and always knew the right place for me to write it. These kids are brilliant. Love them.
The big highlight was our Christmas party. It was crazy and fun! I am so glad we had moms and grandmas there to help! Thanks to everyone for the donations as well! It made for a fun party. We stared off decorating our sugar cone Christmas trees and eating lots of candy! We had self-select time before we settled down to read the Polar Express. Then we got to make our silver jingle bell necklaces. Threading those pony beads on the ribbon was hard work for little fingers, and that's why it's such a great fine-motor skill! We then got to go upstairs for the first time. This was so fun for them! They helped count and scoop the hot chocolate into the maker, pour in popcorn kernels and watch them pop, melt and pour butter, shake popcorn bags, and make their own sugar cookie. We watched Frosty the Snowman while we enjoyed all of our treats. They also loved seeing my baby and the other two baby brothers visiting with their moms! After the movie and clean-up, we headed back downstairs to wrap their presents for you and make their cards. We finished just in time for Show and Tell and we rushed on home! I'm sad I didn't get a group picture in their cute jammies, but we were just so busy having too much fun all day!
Thanks for all your help all week! I couldn't have done so many fun things without all of your help! Enjoy your break and see you back soon!
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Hanukkah
We started off our Winter Celebrations with Hanukkah (I never know when to spell it Chanukkah). Every kids helped make our potato latkes and sat quietly watching them cook while we read a Hanukkah story. We ate them with applesauce and they loved them! It made our classroom smell really good too! Here's the recipe I found:
Hash brown potato latkes
Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 10 minutes per batch Makes: 12 latkes
Ingredients:
1 pound hash browns, defrosted if frozen
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 large eggs
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt, optional
5 tablespoons canola oil, or as needed
Mix all the ingredients except the oil in a large bowl until thoroughly combined. Heat oil in a large skillet until hot. Working in batches, drop large spoonfuls of potato mixture into the oil; fry, turning once, until golden brown on both sides. Serve warm with apple sauce or sour cream.
We learned about Hanukkah from a great book during large group, then learned the Dreidel song. They sang this every day, over and over, all the way up to Christmas break. They must have liked it! Hope you enjoyed it too! We played the dreidel game for large group and although I'm not convinced I know how to play it exactly right, we had a lot of fun! Thanks to one of our grandmas for helping so we could split into two groups and not have to wait long for our turns.
Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 10 minutes per batch Makes: 12 latkes
Ingredients:
1 pound hash browns, defrosted if frozen
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 large eggs
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt, optional
5 tablespoons canola oil, or as needed
Mix all the ingredients except the oil in a large bowl until thoroughly combined. Heat oil in a large skillet until hot. Working in batches, drop large spoonfuls of potato mixture into the oil; fry, turning once, until golden brown on both sides. Serve warm with apple sauce or sour cream.
We learned about Hanukkah from a great book during large group, then learned the Dreidel song. They sang this every day, over and over, all the way up to Christmas break. They must have liked it! Hope you enjoyed it too! We played the dreidel game for large group and although I'm not convinced I know how to play it exactly right, we had a lot of fun! Thanks to one of our grandmas for helping so we could split into two groups and not have to wait long for our turns.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Arctic Animals
Arctic animals are my favorite, and it was the perfect time of year to learn about them and wrap up our huge animal theme! Antarctica was a big part of the Social Studies core when I taught Kindergarten, so I still love teaching about it. It was hard to do it all in just 2 days!
Dramatic Play was my favorite this week. We went to Antarctica, the South Pole, on Monday and learned how to be scientists. I had a lot of fun playing with the kids and showing them what scientists in Antarctica do. We used lots of cool words like "observe" and "discover" and we ventured outside and observed the animals of Antarctica. The kids would take their maps and notebooks and were writing things down like crazy. I have some of the best pictures I'll share with all you parents later. They were having great discussions about the different animals they were discovering in the South Pole.
For large group on Monday, we read about penguins and learned that Daddy Emperor penguins carry their eggs on their feet, and that they can break or freeze if they fall. We practiced being daddy penguins by balancing bean bags on our feet and trying to walk. It was a great exercise of patience and problem solving! Some kids just gave up and picked them up, while others held them on by bending over and holding it there. Some never made it very far with their tiny steps. It was fun to watch them figure it out. They even asked to try it again Wednesday during self-select time, so I got the bean bags back out. Both days, we wore penguin masks and marched around singing Penguins on Parade and taking turns leading and following.
Wednesday we switched Dramatic Play to the North Pole and got to be scientists again! They really enjoyed seeing new animals at the North Pole. It's confusing for kids because books and movies often show penguins and polar bears together since they both live in the snow. I was surprised how quickly they caught on that penguins live to the south, bottom of the world, and polar bears live in the north, or top of the world.
That knowledge helped us out in small group as we sorted our toy animals on our world map. They did an awesome job! I barely had to help, they remembered it all from their playing.
I think the kids' favorite part of the week was our magic snow. It started out as a tiny amount of powder, then when I added water, it grew and filled our tubs! It was such a fun science experiment! We got to play with all different Arctic animals from the North and South pole in the snow. They loved it! You can get it here and see a video on it. I also saw it in small packages on the toy aisle at Dollar Tree. They loved finding out it's the same stuff in diapers that makes diapers hold moisture and grow too!
Dramatic Play was my favorite this week. We went to Antarctica, the South Pole, on Monday and learned how to be scientists. I had a lot of fun playing with the kids and showing them what scientists in Antarctica do. We used lots of cool words like "observe" and "discover" and we ventured outside and observed the animals of Antarctica. The kids would take their maps and notebooks and were writing things down like crazy. I have some of the best pictures I'll share with all you parents later. They were having great discussions about the different animals they were discovering in the South Pole.
For large group on Monday, we read about penguins and learned that Daddy Emperor penguins carry their eggs on their feet, and that they can break or freeze if they fall. We practiced being daddy penguins by balancing bean bags on our feet and trying to walk. It was a great exercise of patience and problem solving! Some kids just gave up and picked them up, while others held them on by bending over and holding it there. Some never made it very far with their tiny steps. It was fun to watch them figure it out. They even asked to try it again Wednesday during self-select time, so I got the bean bags back out. Both days, we wore penguin masks and marched around singing Penguins on Parade and taking turns leading and following.
Wednesday we switched Dramatic Play to the North Pole and got to be scientists again! They really enjoyed seeing new animals at the North Pole. It's confusing for kids because books and movies often show penguins and polar bears together since they both live in the snow. I was surprised how quickly they caught on that penguins live to the south, bottom of the world, and polar bears live in the north, or top of the world.
That knowledge helped us out in small group as we sorted our toy animals on our world map. They did an awesome job! I barely had to help, they remembered it all from their playing.
I think the kids' favorite part of the week was our magic snow. It started out as a tiny amount of powder, then when I added water, it grew and filled our tubs! It was such a fun science experiment! We got to play with all different Arctic animals from the North and South pole in the snow. They loved it! You can get it here and see a video on it. I also saw it in small packages on the toy aisle at Dollar Tree. They loved finding out it's the same stuff in diapers that makes diapers hold moisture and grow too!
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