Festive candles

 

We made festive candles and talked about different holidays that are celebrated. We talked a little bit about the Festival of Lights while making the candles. 

 

 

We also talked about that a new year will also happen. We pointed to the 2016 on the calender and I showed them the 2017 and that is called New Year's Day when the year changes. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 🎉

Holiday hoopla cont....

 

We almost closing out the 2016 theme. Crazy that a whole year has gone by. 

Lydia did a great job matching the ornaments in the tree. 

 

 

The elegant ornament was the creative arts activity. 

We cut the ribbons and glued them on a stick from the shortest to longest to make the shape of a Christmas tree. Of course the  wooden star was must. 

One of my favorite things is homemade ornaments for the trees. 

Welcome winter

It's finally winter and we made a sign to welcome it. 

 

 

 

The topic cards for the 2 weeks are Holly and Garland. 

On one side it's the Spanish word and on the other side it's the English word. 

I showed the garland to the friends and all of them said  they have those in their houses. 

The literacy activity was Genius Gingerbread Man. I hid it different places throughout the room and the friends enjoyed looking for it. 

 

Letter L

The letter L was the letter of the week. We made a L is for lightbulb picture. 

 

 

The character counts for the next couple weeks is Sabrina the Suppoetove Snail. 

She taught us what being supportive means. We help each other if we need help. 

Showing a friend how to tie their shoe. Encourages a friend to try something even though he/she may not like it. 

We played green light, red light. It took a few minutes for the kids to catch on, but after a few tries, they were having fun. 

In the Funshine express curriculum guide, there is always a gross motor section. It's always a easy game that gets the kids moving. 

 

I just used a red peice of paper and green piece of paper. 

Hope everybody has a Merry Christmas. 

Buttermilk chalk art

 

We are gearing up for Christmas around here, but we are finishing up our Kids in the kitchen theme. Today we experimented with buttermilk. We talked about how when at first the buttermilk looks like powder, but after adding water it turns to liquid. A little science with the creative Arts. 

I know I say this a lot, but  funshine express introduces  me to so much. I would have never figured out my own to dip chalk in buttermilk and then draw. 

 

The number 10 was the second number we learned about. I each funshine kit a math number counting card  comes it. It is basic math and can do so much with. I usually like to kee things theme related when skin activities, so for the number 10 the friends w joyed using presents and santa clause erasers to count. 

 

This activity also enforces one to one correspondence. 

Jenna who is not even 2 yet was enjoying the counting too. 

 

Letter K and chefs

 

Lydia is busy coloring her letter K and then she added keys for K.

The girls are getting so much better with tracing the letters and recognizing. I love to watch them grow just from the beginning of the year to the end. 

I spell the girls names when I write on the paper and everyday they get better telling Me what letter comes next. 

 

Yesterday we made the cutest chef hats. It was simple as stapling and taping paper together. 

The kids enjoyed pretending to cook while wearing their hats . 

I overheard a conversation and they were talking about what kitchen tools they needed for their recipe. "1/2 cup of flour" "milk" "we need a mixer thing" I chimed in and asked if it was whisk and showed her the picture on our work wall. That was it.

 

 

We go over these everyday and spell them out. We are getting to the point where thy know what letter comes next. 

Gingerbread and torn paper

 

We all know Christmas is near when gingerbread activities are planned. I like it. Yesterday we made cute gingerbread people and sprinkled some cinnamon in them for fun. 

 

The math game for funshine express curriculum for this month is baking cookies.  The kids had to move the top wheel to see what was revealed inside. We talked about which steps came first when baking cookies and them they would match the card to the right step in the window. 

There was this artist a long time ago named Henri Matisse who created art by torn pieces of paper.  This was created using tiny pieces of paper. Not sure I have patience for that! 

 

Today we created our own torn paper collage. 

 

Kids in the kitchen and the letter J

Happy Monday ! Hope everyone had a super weekend. 

Last week we started are kids in the kitchen theme and we are learning about the letter J.

 

I gathered some kitchen tools and at circle time we talked about what each one was and what we use it for 

 

The creative arts activityfor the funshine curriculum  was to paint and make shapes or prints with a kitchen tool. The potato masher was the favorite. The girls enjoyed watching the paint go through the holes. 

 

Every month we learn 3 letters. This month is J,K,L. Today we talked about the letter J and what begins with J. Jeep, Jenna, Jingle Bells. We also learn the sign language of the letter as well.

 

Today we made J is for Jingle bells. The best part was actually jingling the bells. 

 

We will continue our kids in the kitchen theme and have a lot fun stuff planned. 

Sharing bags and kit details .

Yesterday we finished our manners theme 

We made a sharing snack bag. One of the steps was to take one piece of streamer and figure out how we can share it.  The solution was to rip in half or fourths so everybody had a big peice. 

The next step was to rip the streamer in little and glue it on the paper bag. I put some snack of different kinds on the table and the kids each had to share snack and put each snack in their bag. 

I have posted about the kit in awhile so I thought I would do a refresher. I remember when I was teaching in the classroom and I had to spend hours on prep work and lesson planning. I had time back then, now with 3 kids who are all involved in activities I have very little time to prep. 

So this is where Funshine express comes in. Every month a box arrives in my porch and in that box is a mo the worth of art activities, games,a  book, calendar pieces and so much more. 

Let me tell that Funshine  express has helped with staying more organized and I am able to enjoy my evenings and weekends knowing my week is already planned out. There is little prep and I can get it done in the morning or right after school. 

 

 The art activities all come with supplies wrapped individually and it is dated so I can just grab it and get ready. 

The directions and all other activities are in the curriculum guide. 

 

 

 

The pages are dated and I have my whole day planned out. 

 Today we are starting our kids in the kitchen theme. We are excited about exploring all things in the kitchen .

 

Turkeys

 

We had a short week before our thanksgiving break , but we were busy doing activities.

We used water color paint and decorated a center peice . 

 

One of the games that came in the funshine curriculum was match the number to the number of feathers .

Little Jenna was even matching the feathers.

 

H is for heart and manners bear

This week the letter H was introduced. We colored the letter H and added hearts. 

 

We continued talking about manner words and listed In the curriculum book . 

 Please 

Thank you

You're welcome 

Excuse me 

May I ?

I'm sorry 

Bless you

Hello

Goodbye 

Can I help you? 

We practiced saying those and talked about when to use them. 

 

Excuse Me! Was the book that came with the curriculum for the theme. 

We made manner bears and picked what sticker that fit their manners that day. 

We explored the felt that we glued on. "It feels soft just like a teddy bear" one of the girls said. 

 

Every month 2 character count friends are introduced. This week was Tyrone. He has taught us about manners and the polite words to say. He loves to talk and enjoys visiting with all the friends. 

The friends are so excited to see the character count friends in the mornings . I save all of them and he friends love to puppet shows. 

The good thing about funshine express curriculum is that everything can be laminated and saved and used for other themes or just activities. 

It's the perfect setup. 

We will continue with manners and talk about thanksgiving. 

Harvest to corn

This week we continued learning about harvesting and how the food needs to grow and the farmers collect it and then sell it and we eat it. 

 

We read this book about how corn is harvested and then we made our own corn on the cobs.

 One of the games that came in the funshine express curriculum was sorting which foods were bad for us and which ones are good for us. 

 

We are also learning about manners and what kind of manners we should use . We made a menu to help remind us.

We rolled all kinds of gourds and compared which one's roll  faster  and slower.

Some of them really rolled fast. The kids enjoyed feeling them and the bumps and different colors and shapes.

  

We will do activities with the letter H and manners this week. 

 

Scarecrows and the letter G

It is finally starting to feel like November! 

We are continuing our happy harvest theme and on Friday we read the book The Scarecrows Hat and make a scarecrow and his hat. 

 

Today we talked about the letter G. G is for goat and goose and glasses and guitar.

Every funshine express fireflies theme comes with 2/3 letters to learn and one of the activities is to decorate a letter and then an item that starts with that letter. 

"Goldfish" was the item for letter G and we also observed that the paper was Gold. 

 

 We also had goldfish for lunch because why not?!

We practiced tracing the letter G on the extra curriculum worksheets and with playdough. 

Hang tight for the rest of the weeks activities. 

Happy sandwich day and footprint tractor

Harvesting is a great thing and we discussed that we would not have corn and others fruits and vegetables if the farmers did not grow them and harvest them. 

We talked about different tractors were used for different things . 

One of the funshine express are activities was to make a tractor using our footprint. The friends thought it was pretty funny painting their foot. 

 

 

 

Thursday was national sandwich day. I had no idea that existed.

We talked about all different kinds of bread and sandwiches and which ones were our favorite.

 We made sandwiches in the house area.

The art activity for the day was makin a face sandwich.

 

My friends are getting really good at cutting things out. Look at that cutting job! 

 

Every month there are a new set of words we learn. I point to the picture and then say the word sounding it out. I will see the kids pointing to the pictures and saying the word! 

Next week we will continue happy harvest theme. 

Introduce our letters for the month and a game. 

Happy Harvest

Happy November! It's crazy that it's November already.

So a new month means a new set of themes from funshine express. The next 2 weeks is happy harvest.

Yesterday and today we learned about what harvest means and that some food we eat comes from farmers and that farmers work really hard to provide food for us. 

We made a really cute bushel basket and put fruit and veggies in it. The extended on the activity by hiding the fruits and veggies and finding them and fun part was putting in the basket. 

 

The shape of the month is a rectangle and we cut the rectangles it's 2 rectangles. We counted how many pieces we had to use for the handle. Correct... 2!

 

Last week we finished up our wings and capes theme and on Monday made the pumpkin sitting on the gate picture and read 5 little pumpkins .

 

 Tomorrow is national sandwich day. You know I know that? Funshine express. I learn so much from them. 

Enjoy a sandwich tomorrow!