Gingerbread House Party

What better type of Christmas party for children than a buffet of candy and frosting made out of sugar! With the help from parents, each student was able to build their house using a standard school lunch size milk carton, graham crackers, and homemade royal icing that acts like glue. Once the structure was set in place, candy was then added for decoration.

The self-serve candy station. Families donated all sorts of candy. We used individual bowls for each child to hold their candy selection and a spoon for them to scoop the loose candy with.

First the roof and walls were placed on using icing.

Then the edges were frosted to help support the structure.

Then the candy was added!

We used sandwich sized zip lock bags filled with royal icing as piping bags. Just a tiny  little cut in the corner does the trick.

Older students learned about squeezing out their own icing.

Younger students enjoyed adding the candy pieces.

Of course what Christmas party wouldn't be complete without hot coco and snacks.

Some of the finished houses.

The Gingerbread Man

During the month of December we spend a week reading "The Gingerbread Man" story and have a few fun activities that go along with the book.

We take time to finger paint a gingerbread man cut out.

We make a really really BIG gingerbread man of our own using gingerbread cookie dough. Its hard to make one free form so a shape is traced onto parchment paper and we work on pressing the dough inside the lines.

After all the dough is pressed in we add a few decorations for his eye, nose, and buttons. Then into the oven he goes.

It took a long time for him to bake and he was starting to smell really good. So naturally we checked on him. When we opened the oven door we were shocked to see that he was gone!

After following the flour trail he left all over the school, we finally found him out back playing near the sandbox. He was 'chilling' out and having some fun.

We quickly caught him and brought him inside.

He didn't put up to much of a fight and was a really yummy snack.

Since it was so much fun catching the gingerbread man, we decided it would be nice to make a hat with him on it.

Now we can pretend to be a gingerbread man too.

Christmas Holiday Fun

Red and green marble paint.

Christmas collage wind socks.

Popcorn Santa hat.

Decorating Christmas trees.

Thanksgiving

Toward the end of fall we began preparing for our Thanksgiving feast.

We strung colorful necklaces using cereal.

We decorated vests with colorful paint.

We put heavy cream in a jar and shook it to make butter.

We formed dough into biscuits for our potluck meal.

And we got all dressed up to share our feast.

Pumpkin Junction Field Trip

Our field trip started off with a train ride around the grounds. We saw a reindeer, a pond, peacocks, and lots of other fun things. This train was just our size too.

Next was a ride on the 2 story carousel. The older students had fun riding on horses that moved up and down.

Some of the younger kids and I rode in a carriage seat that was a little more safe.

Next we walked through the maze. One stop in the maze was to decorate an old piece of farm equipment with sidewalk chalk. Everyone enjoyed drawing pictures and writing their names.

Then we walked through the tunnel.

Another stop was at this maypole game. It was a little hard for us to coordinate holding on and walking in the same direction. It was a lot of fun trying this out.

After the maze it was movie time. We learned about how pumpkins grow from seed. Then we got to hear a story about a square pumpkin.

Once the movie was over, it was finally time to pick our own pumpkins to take home.

Next we went to the sleuths to pan for special rocks.

We each got a small bag of shiny rocks to take home.

After a morning full of activities we were able to stop and have a special popcorn snack and color some scarecrow pictures. Then we grabbed our pumpkins and headed back to school for lunch and a nap. It was such a fun a special day for all of us.

October Fun

Color Mixing

We used red and yellow finger paints for color mixing. We used the shape of a pumpkin on our finger paint paper.

Indian Corn Painting

This was fun but very messy. The Indian corn did not make a very good print like we anticipated. Next time we will try using fresh corn and maybe get better results.

Glitter Webs

Borrowed from a project we prepared for another group. We used white pencil on black paper to trace out a web. Students then traced with glue and sprinkled on glitter. After drying we attached a spider made out of pipe cleaners.

Felting

We were attempting to make orange felt balls that would later be decorated as pumpkins. The balls turned out wonderfully but unfortunately we ran out of orange wool before too many pumpkins could be created. Everyone was really please with their creation. Here is a students felting his wool in the water/soap solution.

Monster Puppets

After reading "Go Away Big Green Monster", we created our own monster puppets. We used various shapes of colored construction paper and arranged them on our paper bags. It was fun for students to identify shapes and which ones should be used for various facial parts.

Bread and Soup

I don't always post pictures about our weekly baking and cooking. Mostly because if often escapes my memory to get a few shots in while up to my elbows with flour or in room room full of 3 year olds with butter knives. However, most weeks we do bake bread. During the summer we took a little break from our baking as it was hot and spending time outside before the heat settled in was of the most importance. As the school year came around again, so did our weekly bread making. To add to our learning we have decided to take the first 26 weeks of school and use our bread dough to shape each letter of the alphabet. It is such an exciting way to incorporate our learning of letters/sounds with the senses. Students can really say, "I made the letter today".

Letter F rolls are ready for the oven.

Capital D and one lower case d fresh out of the oven.

In mid-October we added 'Warm Soup Wednesday' to our routine. The students help to prepare and cook our soup for the day. At lunch time everyone gets to try the soup that they helped to make that morning as part of their lunch. Even some our the most reluctant eaters are eager to sample their creations each week and find new vegetables that they really do enjoy.

We spend the first 30 minutes of our school day on Wednesday cutting our vegetables for soup.

Each students gets to use a cutting board and butter knife. We found that the butter knives work much better than some of the plastic child safe knives we have tried. At first cutting was hard for little hands but after weeks of practice all the students are getting very skilled at holding the item with one hand and cutting with the other hand. Even our youngest 2 year old works hard each week to cut up her veggies!

We've done variations of vegetable soup, minestrone, noodle and vegetable soup, and even the one below which was creamy potato and carrot soup.

The children take such pride in creating food that they later eat. I can't think of a better way to share the love of cooking and eating with young children.