November's Happenings!

The classroom has been extra busy lately and, as a result, the blog has been a little quiet! I am so excited to hand the blog over to Ms. Tiffany this week to tell you all about what the kiddos have been up to these past few weeks! Enjoy! 

From the notes of Ms. Tiffany:

Can you believe it is already December? Before you know it, we will be ringing in the New Year! The month of November was a busy one for us here at SEE. We started the month off by introducing our “Book of the Month” to the children. Each month we will introduce a new book that we will read to the children throughout the month, do art projects, talk about the characters, the setting and sequence of events, and do other supplemental activities with the kiddos. In November we focused on “The Leaf Man” By Lois Ehlert. We gathered leaves outside and each child got to make thier own creation with their findings just like in the story. We had Leaf Men, Leaf Bunnies, Leaf Birds and even a few Leaf Monsters! 

At the start of December we began a new story, “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. If you are not familiar with this story, a young boy named Nikki loses his white mitten in the snow. A whole group of animals try to squeeze inside to stay warm and the mitten stretches and stretches. When the last animal, a little mouse, wiggles his way on top of the big bears noes, he causes the bear to let out a big sneeze scattering the animals and the mitten all over the woods. Nikki then finds his stretched out mitten and makes his way safely home to his Baba. The children each got to decorate their own mitten and we even acted out the story as a big group! The kiddos loved being able to snuggle up inside our big “mitten”!

Since it has started to get a bit chilly here, we decided it was a good time to talk about some Arctic animals. We began by talking about the Arctic region. Did you know that there are no trees there? The ground is just too cold and hard for them to grow. Mrs. M also conducted a “Blubber Experiment.” We used Crisco and Ziploc bags to represent the blubber and skin of some animals. The children each got to take turns using the blubber glove and sticking their hand into ice cold water. We discovered that the Crisco kept our hand warm, just like the blubber does for the animals! This week we started our study of the biggest animal in the Arctic, the polar bear!

In between polar bear facts and our readings of the mitten the children earned their pajama party for being good classroom citizens. We all enjoyed (especially the teachers) wearing our comfy PJ’s, munching on popcorn and watching a short video. The children are already back to earning more gems and are excited for their next reward for being good classroom citizens!

What's Up Next?

In the upcoming weeks we will be learning about another Arctic animal, the penguin, talking about different holiday traditions and what we all do to celebrate with our family and friends, and creating our top secret holiday gift to send home to our families before we have a nice relaxing week off!

Upcoming Dates and Reminders:

December 21 and 22: Year-end PJ party and book swap - more info coming soon!
December 25-January 1: SEE closed for Winter Break 
January 2: School is open and we are back in action!
January 2: January tuition is due
January 15: SEE closed in observance of MLK Day

Pictures from the past few weeks:

One of our Thankful Turkeys

Prepping for our roles in, "The Mitten," recreation!

Every good performance has a plan in place

Ollie's leaf chicken

Laura's leaf bunny

Our Lois Ehlert wall!

The Jan Brett bulletin board!

November's artist of the month was inspired by ancient mosaics! Each child got to create the first letter of their name using different types of lentils!

I hope you enjoyed the blog this week! Have a great weekend!
Joanna and Tiffany