Happy Holidays!

All of these smiling faces wish you a joyful holiday season!

     We wrapped up our gingerbread theme with a fun project -- building our very own gingerbread houses!  We pretended we were Mattie, the main character from the book Gingerbread Baby, by Jan Brett.  In the story, Mattie builds a home for his gingerbread baby to live in.  We even had gingerbread marshmallow babies to "live" in our milk carton homes.  I enjoyed observing each child's creativity come out as they planned how to decorate their little houses.  They all put their own twist on their individual creations!

Help!

     Calling all parents!  I need your help!  Picture for a moment, 22 kids getting ready for recess....snow pants, boots, coats, hats, and mittens....yikes!  Preparing to go out into the cold and coming back in from the cold is quite chaotic.  Getting all buttoned, zipped, and tied can be a chore.  However, if kids practice these skills at home, they become much faster!
     Please work at home on helping your child learn how to dress and undress for the winter weather independently.  Being a parent myself, I understand the temptation to hurry things along and do everything for your son or daughter.  The problem with this is that at school, they are expected to be able to get ready for recess without much help.  
     If your child would like to play in the snow, they have to wear 5 things:  coat, snow pants, boots, hat, and mittens/gloves.  If they are lacking something, they will need to stay on the hard surface.
     One last thing....please label each item with your child's name or initials to help us identify the owners of lost things.
    Thanks so much for your assistance!  Happy Winter!

Symmetrical Art

     Have you heard your child talking about symmetry lately?  One of our math benchmarks states that we are to "explore the concept of symmetry."  Well, we've done just that!  We spent several days participating in a variety of activities that allowed us to discover the meaning of symmetrical.  We created a snowflake, drew a symmetrical body along the line of symmetry, and our favorite.....symmetrical painting!  The pictures below show how we dripped paint on one side of the paper, folded it back up and "smushed" it together, and opened it up to reveal a beautiful piece of art.  I loved hearing the "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" in the room!