Catch-up! December-January 13th

First! Kristianna took some beautiful photos of the children before Christmas! Don't forget to click on the link below to view them (and I believe you can order your favorites through photobucket). We apologize for not getting the pictures up sooner, but we have been busy, busy, busy! Kristianna is preparing for a trip to a Ugandan orphanage in April and May, and we will have a substitute teacher (as well as myself) during that time. Very exciting for her!

Also, if you look at the list of books to the right of this page, you can see what book we will be exploring next. Clicking on the book title will bring you to the description page on Amazon. Handy, huh?

The week of January 2nd-6th the children had fun with pizza! Who doesn't love pizza? The children loved the book, "Pete's a Pizza", and had a blast making their own favorite pizzas during art time (which, of course, included lots of discussion between the children on which pizza toppings are the *best* and which are *yucky* :o). They experimented with yeast and helped prepare breadsticks for dipping in their favorite sauces. We learned about the letter "P", reviewed some numbers up to 10, and then went to the Pizza Factory for a tour. The Pizza Factory was very generous with the children, showing them where everything was prepared, helping them flatten and roll the dough, put on sauces, cheese, pepperoni and into the oven! While waiting we colored in pizza coloring books and practiced rolling and throwing the dough up in the air. Very fun!

Last week (January 9th-13th), we hopped over to learn all about rabbits! The children made "bunny biscuits", and learned some facts about rabbits such as what they eat, where they live (natural habitats) and different breeds of bunnies. They enjoyed the books, "Bunny Finds a New Home", and "Runaway Bunny" (which prompted a lively discussion about mommies and daddies and chasing baby bunnies to the ends of the earth). We learned the letter "R", reviewed our numbers, and made little rabbit hand puppets. As we do every week, we spent lots of time playing cooperative games with the children, reminding them about taking turns and sharing. They look forward to this time, but it can become rambunctious very quickly! We love this little group, and the children are becoming very attached to one another. That's one of our goals: to make good friends with other children and learn to be considerate. It's exciting to see that happening!

Don't forget to feed your baby bunnies lots of carrots and spinach this week!

~Nicole

Click here to view more pictures!